DIY vs. Professional E-commerce Product Photography: Pros & Cons
When a customer visits an online store, the first thing they notice is the product photo. Unlike offline shopping, there’s no touching, feeling, or trying before buying. Research from Etsy and Amazon shows that over 75% of customers consider product photos as the most influential factor in their purchase decision.
For sellers on platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, or Nykaa, strong images are more than just attractive visuals. They ensure compliance with strict marketplace requirements (white backgrounds, resolution, frame fill), build customer trust, reduce product returns, and increase click-through rates.
This brings us to the core question many businesses face: Should I invest in a DIY photography product or hire a professional for e-commerce product photography? To answer that, let’s compare both approaches clearly.
DIY E-commerce Product Photography
DIY product photography is usually the starting point for small sellers, boutique brands, or anyone experimenting with e-commerce for the first time. If you’re dealing with a handful of simple SKUs, have time to learn, and don’t mind the effort, it can work reasonably well.
Here are the pros of DIY:
- Lower Upfront Cost: You only need a smartphone or entry-level DSLR, a tripod, and some inexpensive lighting.
- Creative Control: You shoot at your pace, experiment with angles, and retake as much as you want.
- Flexibility: No scheduling or studio bookings—just set up at home when convenient.
Here are the cons of DIY:
- Inconsistent Quality: Without controlled lighting and editing, product photos often look mismatched, which weakens brand identity.
- Time-consuming: Setting up, shooting, and editing images can take days, pulling you away from sales and marketing tasks.
- Compliance Risk: Amazon or Myntra might reject images that don’t meet their technical requirements, leading to wasted effort.
- Scalability Issues: DIY works for 10 items, but what about 200 or 500 SKUs? Maintaining consistency at scale is nearly impossible.
DIY product photography may appear affordable, but hidden costs, such as reshooting, missed deadlines, and amateur editing, can add up quickly.
Professional E-commerce Product Photography
E-commerce photography goes far beyond just clicking a picture if done professionally. It’s about creating consistent, high-quality, platform-ready visuals that sell products effectively.
Key Advantages of Hiring Professionals
- Consistency at Scale: Whether it’s 50 or 500 SKUs, every image will look uniform, clean, and aligned with your brand.
- Colour Accuracy: Professionals use calibrated equipment, ensuring the colour in photos matches the actual product, critical for apparel, cosmetics, and jewellery.
- Lighting Expertise: Complex materials like glass, metal, or gemstones require controlled lighting to avoid harsh reflections or dull finishes.
- Advanced Retouching: Dust removal, background clean-up, ghost mannequin effects, and shadow creation, all handled by trained editors.
- Speed and Reliability: Professional studios are built for volume. With proper pre-production, shoots can be completed in days, not weeks.
- Added Services: Access to models, stylists, 360° photography, and short e-commerce product videos for social media and marketplaces.
Common Scenarios Where Professionals Are Essential
- Jewellery: Requires precision lighting and macro shots to highlight detail without glare.
- Apparel: On-model photography and ghost mannequin shots that display fit and drape accurately.
- Reflective Items: Glassware, electronics, or metal pieces that DIY setups often fail to capture without unwanted reflections.
- Extensive Catalogues: When bulk shooting hundreds of SKUs, only a professional workflow ensures speed and consistency.
Simply put, professional e-commerce photography isn’t just about looking good but about building trust and driving conversions.
DIY vs. Professional Photography: A Clear Comparison
When weighing DIY against professional product photography, consider these factors:
- Cost: DIY may seem cheaper initially, but the hidden costs of reshoots, time, and potential rejections make it less predictable. Professional e-commerce photography requires a higher upfront investment but offers clear, reliable results that save money long term.
- Quality: DIY output varies widely depending on skill and equipment. Professionals, however, deliver consistently high-quality, colour-accurate images tailored for online platforms.
- Time: DIY takes more time due to setup, trial-and-error, and post-editing. Professional studios work with systems designed to shoot large catalogues quickly and efficiently.
- Compliance: Marketplaces often reject amateur photos for not meeting guidelines. Professionals ensure every image is platform-ready from the start.
- Scalability: DIY might handle a handful of products, but for large-scale projects that require hundreds of images, professional photography is the only sustainable option.
This comparison shows why many brands start with DIY but eventually switch to professionals once they aim to grow.
How to Decide: DIY or Professional E-commerce Product Photography?
Here’s a quick checklist for your guide:
- Product Complexity: If it’s reflective or detailed (like jewellery), choose professional.
- Catalogue Size: Under 20 SKUs? DIY may work. Above 50? Go professional.
- Deadlines: Launching in days, not months? Hire professionals.
- Brand Image Goals: Premium brands cannot risk poor visuals.
If you score high on complexity, volume, and deadlines, professional e-commerce photography is the smarter investment.
Conclusion
Why professional e-commerce product photography wins? For brands and businesses aiming to grow, this offers unmatched reliability, colour accuracy, speed, and compliance. These are the factors that directly impact sales. DIY can be fine for very small sellers experimenting with their first catalogue, but it often lacks consistency, polish, and scalability.
At Akkaasi Studio in Delhi, we’ve seen firsthand how the right visuals can transform online businesses. Whether it’s jewellery, apparel, lifestyle, or bulk catalogue shoots, our team ensures that every product is presented at its best. From packshots to model shoots, 360° spins, and short videos, we handle the heavy lifting so you can focus on scaling your business. Book your appointment today!