A must-read before starting a women's clothing e-commerce business: which visual style is more suitable for your entrepreneurial path

Combining his own experience, the author of this article explains in depth the way women's clothing e-commerce shoots, analyzes the pros and cons from many aspects, and teaches you the visual traffic code step by step, sharing it with you on the road to entrepreneurship.

When it comes to women's clothing in e-commerce, many friends who have never had experience with it will say that choosing styles and products is very important! They always think that if they choose a good style, they can sell it well and make a fortune. But in fact, after doing it for a long time, I realized that in women's clothing, even if you choose a relatively good style, if you don't present it with a good visual, then no matter how good the style and product are, it is meaningless. Because it is difficult for consumers to tell that this is a good product through your lousy pictures. Even if you are selling a pair of pants, a good visual can highlight the performance of the product, increase the premium, and increase conversion.

Therefore, in the category of women's clothing, style and visuals are always inseparable. A good style must have a better visual presentation to convey the essence of the product. There are actually many visual styles in women's clothing e-commerce. After working in this field for a few years, I deeply feel that there are hidden logics and pitfalls behind each style, which is also the interesting part of this category. Behind each beautiful visual picture is a concentrated reflection of the category, different stages, playing methods, and resources. Today, I will briefly talk about the factors that you cannot see behind each visual school.

1. White wall studio shooting

The first commonly used visual style for women's clothing e-commerce: studio photography with large white walls.

My words are quite direct, and readers just need to understand the spirit. This is the most common visual form of women's clothing, which is used by a large number of first-line brands, and readers should also see it frequently.

Just find a model standing against a white wall or a plain background, turn on the light, and then the photographer will start taking pictures. It's simple, direct and crude.

This type of visual expression is more commonly used by high-end brands. First, it can highlight the style and fabric of the product very well, because high-end fabrics will be full of luster and have a better texture under the light; secondly, the models for this type of shooting are generally tall and slender (at least 170cm or above), so the style of the whole clothes will be displayed smoothly. Combined with the white wall background, it is easy to highlight the outline and lines of the whole clothes.

Finally, the overall design creates a very fashionable, international and trendy feel, conveying a fashion-leading attitude.

Open space, minimalism and luxury, D is a representative brand of this kind of visual style.

In addition to high-end brands, some fast fashion brands and basic brands also use this visual style, such as the familiar HM, ZARA, UNIQLO, etc. For these brands, the biggest advantage of this visual style is high efficiency and stable output. Because they have a huge amount of new products every year, they need to output them in batches like an assembly line. For example, from the picture below, you can see that the visual effects of UNIQLO, ZARA, and HM are much rougher with the same white wall shooting method. Of course, given that the price is relatively low, it can be made to look good.

The main features of this visual style are that it is quite standard, has stable output, can be copied in batches with high efficiency, and can highlight the texture and pattern of fabrics. However, it is not suitable for most women's clothing entrepreneurs. First of all, this kind of white wall is not suitable for low-end and mid-range products, because when the pattern and fabric of the product are not particularly good, they will be greatly magnified against this plain and elegant background; this kind of visual style also relies more on the aura and expressiveness of the model.

Because the background is very plain, if the model's aura is not strong enough, the appeal will be weakened a lot. This kind of vision also requires the professional ability of the photography team, and the lighting, lighting, photography optimization, makeup, and post-production photo editing are all very demanding. If the clothing, photography, and model are not good enough, the photos will look like a rural studio.

And from the trend point of view, this visual approach is gradually being eliminated, mainly because it is too dull and it is difficult to give consumers more sense of immersion, especially when consumers need to imagine what it will look like after putting on the clothes. In recent years, it has been rare to see new clothing brands adopt this visual approach.

2. Indoor standing posture

For small clothing stores and personal shops, shooting in a large white wall studio is not suitable for them. Therefore, a simple shooting visual style has been derived, which I call: indoor standing shooting.

As the name implies, the shooting scene is still indoors, but the background is not limited to white walls. It can be a sofa, a window, or any simple indoor scene. This shooting method does not require the model to stand straight. More actions can be taken and the posture can be more natural. The following are examples of indoor standing shooting:

Compared with the white wall studio shooting, this visual method is more natural and daily, and the clothes and the background begin to blend in; even if the texture of the clothes is relatively ordinary, a relatively good visual effect can be obtained. Therefore, indoor standing shooting is very suitable for clothing stores in the mid-to-low-end price range.

Another thing that is very popular among small businesses is that indoor standing photography is very efficient and low cost.

Many small clothing shop owners and stall owners will set up a simple scene in their own company, then pull a pile of clothes over, stand there and shoot with their mobile phones, and edit the pictures with one click, which is very efficient. If you want to get better results, you can also find a luxury hotel, book a room, pull a few large boxes of clothes over, shoot, and shoot dozens of sets a day. The mirror selfie that was very popular in the early years is a kind of indoor standing shooting method.

Although indoor standing still shooting is simple, cost-saving and efficient, it also has its problems. The first problem is that because the venue space is too small, this standing still shooting method basically means that the model stands there fixedly, with a relatively small range of motion, and the overall expression will appear very restrained; in addition, because it is indoors, the scene has no depth of field and lacks natural light, so the whole picture will appear very dim, lacking a sense of space and brightness; you want consumers to see that the model is very restrained, and after putting on clothes, the whole picture is very dim and cramped, how can this give customers the desire to consume?

This is also why mirror selfies were very popular in the early years, but have been almost eliminated in recent years. Customers' aesthetic trends have gradually become more demanding. However, many low-end stores still use this visual style because their average customer spending is very low and they don't make much money. They must reduce shooting costs as much as possible, upload a large number of items, and shoot efficiently.

3. Outdoor standing and outdoor immersion

If there is an indoor space, there must be an outdoor space. Many businesses have found that consumers are increasingly seeking a sense of immersion in the scene when buying clothes. They hope that these clothing visual images can clearly tell them: what scenes are this piece of clothing suitable for? Is it suitable for commuting, shopping, afternoon tea, cafes, travel, outdoor, or dating?

The sense of immersion in this kind of scene is led by the Internet celebrities on Weibo and Xiaohongshu. They know how to dress and take photos. Every time they go to a place, they will check in and post pictures. In the comment area, there will be a large number of fans asking: Sister, where did you buy the clothes? Can you share the link? ….

From this, everyone discovered that if the clothing and the scene are well combined, it can drive conversion even more. The entire visual also introduced a new way of shooting, which is standing outdoors.

The shooting mainly presents various outdoor scenes, such as cafes, hotel entrances, streets, and shopping mall entrances. Through simple standing and simple poss, the basic integration of clothing and scenes is completed.

Taobao store MULVAN is the ultimate representative of outdoor standing photography:

Although compared to indoors, outdoor photography is just a change of space, but the visual effect is exponentially improved. Because outdoor photography has depth of field, background, natural light, passers-by, and sky, clothing is no longer a cold pose, but has a lot of life, which makes consumers more yearning. Here we have to mention the importance of light for clothing photography.

For example, shooting in a white studio is more about highlighting the texture of the clothes through lighting, but it can also make the product look stiff and too cold, giving consumers a sense of distance. The overall softness created by outdoor natural light can make the clothing display closer to consumers' daily wear, making it more appealing. So sometimes the weather is a headache when shooting outdoors. As long as you shoot in sunny weather, the output rate will be higher. The same is true for the visual expression of down jackets. Which visual will make you feel that this down jacket is warmer.

Later, everyone discovered that standing still outdoors was still too dull. Although they had moved outdoors, it was still a bit silly for people to stand there all the time. Merchants and Internet celebrity stores upgraded the visuals again and evolved to: outdoor immersive shooting is relative to outdoor standing still. Immersive shooting requires the entire model to perform outdoors in the full sense of the consumer's life.

It is not enough to just stand there and check in, but to express life in this scene through actions, expressions and other body language. For example, when shopping, it is necessary to show how cute, beautiful and chic I look when I wear this kind of clothes:

If you are checking in during a trip, you should show your excitement when wearing this dress, and pose in various ways:

If it is afternoon tea, then it should show that kind of exquisiteness and leisure:

At the same time, the life scenes can be more varied, such as in the car, at the airport, in the corridor, you can shoot anytime and anywhere:

You can find that at this level, the overall visual expression of clothes is no longer so prominent and emphasized, and even many shooting angles cannot fully display the clothes.

However, it still cannot stop consumers from pursuing this visual style, mainly because it truly grasps the integration of clothes and scenes, and the substitution of consumers' lives, thereby inspiring their truest inner longings, which is: I will be so beautiful if I wear such clothes in this scene.

4. Difficulty of shooting in different visual modes

From my personal practice, I found that the indoor standing shooting method is the least difficult and the least costly. After all, you can simply set up a scene indoors and shoot a lot, which is time-saving, labor-saving and efficient. It is quite suitable for products with insufficient initial shooting funds or not very high visual requirements. Shooting in a large white wall studio is the second most difficult, because it requires a lot of professional equipment and lighting, which requires a high degree of professionalism. This part can also be outsourced to a professional photography team, but it just costs a little more money, but once you really start shooting, the efficiency will be higher. I think the entire outdoor immersive shooting is relatively the most difficult, because it involves more abilities.

The first is the ability to coordinate. When you go to shoot outdoors, you must first choose a good day. The sun is very important. It should be a sunny day. Time is also important. You can't shoot in the sun at noon, otherwise the photos will be overexposed.

Secondly, the location selection is also very important. What style of clothes do you want to shoot? Do you want to shoot in the streets, in the suburbs, in the park, or on the streets of Internet celebrities? How do you plan the route? Do you want to shoot all the scenes in one place, or do you need to make transitions?

There is also on-site execution, such as where to touch up your makeup, where to change clothes, in the car, in the bathroom, or in a secret corner, and how far the place where you change clothes is from the shooting location. If it is too far, it will consume the model's physical strength, so basically large Internet celebrity stores are equipped with nanny cars as standard, and everything can be done in the car when going out for shooting.

Outdoor shooting also tests the model's expressive ability. The difference between outdoor, indoor and studio shooting is that there are people everywhere outdoors, coming and going. If you want to complete the shooting in such a noisy environment, the model must not be stage fright or shy. But in fact, most models cannot show their expressiveness when taking pictures in front of many people. They cannot move naturally or make expressions freely. As the saying goes, they can't control the situation, let alone the performance of the clothes.

This is also the biggest difference between internet celebrities and ordinary people. Wherever internet celebrities stand, they will have a feeling that they are the center. They not only complete the scene substitution, but also show the characteristics of the product well.

5. What’s the use of knowing these?

Of course it works, this is the deep logic that is unknown to outsiders of the category.

When it comes to women's clothing e-commerce, especially shelf e-commerce, visuals are an extremely critical link. It affects conversions, image click-through rates, and your advertising bids. However, at the beginning, everyone has little money and resources, and the products are different. It is very important to figure out how to achieve better visual effects at a lower cost based on your actual situation.

At the same time, the visual trends of women's clothing will change significantly every few years. If you want to do it, you must choose the popular visual trends to keep up with the market trend. Some of my friends who have started a business in women's clothing are still using the very old method of taking selfies in the mirror to post pictures. This is directly choosing something that has been eliminated by the market. How can they possibly succeed?

I think that a newly established women's clothing e-commerce team can use indoor standing still shooting as a transition in the early stage to complete the initial start-up and increase the volume. Although this visual method has certain limitations, it is still the method with the highest overall effect, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency. After it is established, it can gradually transition to outdoor standing still and scene immersive shooting to upgrade the visual sense and achieve product premium. As for the white wall studio shooting, I think unless you want to make high-end products or trendy products, there is no need to choose this visual style. This thin product display will gradually be eliminated by the market in the future.

Actually, this article can be expanded infinitely. For example, if you continue to delve deeper, you can dig into details such as how to shoot pants outdoors to show their shape; how to shoot a dress to show its flowing shape; what representative movements can be used to display different clothing styles; in fact, there is still a lot to talk about and explore about the visual aspect of women's clothing.

I also hope that when you are doing e-commerce and certain categories, you must observe the subtle deep logic of this category. Only by understanding these can you widen the competitive gap with others!

Author: Liu Weidong, WeChat public account: Liu Weidong’s Entrepreneurship Notes.