"Why are there still so few pictures on sellers web pages?" Topic

I know this was covered back in 02, but why are there still so few pictures on retailer's and manufacturer's web pages.

I know I buy more readily when I see a picture of the figures.

Five words-they just don't get it.

It also takes a long time to photograph everything.

I don't even have all the stuff that I have available for sale photographed and put up on the site. It just takes a while to do it. That or the equipment to do it, a quality digital camera, might be too expensive. And some people might think that it isn't worth it when they hear the complaining people do on here about the pictures anyway.

Nothing like hearing "the figures looks like it might be okay but the paint job sucks" or "can't they get a closer up of the pictures" or "those are bare lead, they should have put an ink wash on them" to make you regret putting up pictures in the first place.

I have pictures of everything I sell on the web site.
So everyone stop by and buy. :-)

Bob
The Tin Dictator, Inc.
tindictator.com

I have pictures of everything I sell on the web site.
So everyone stop by and buy. :-)

Now all you need to do is stock stuff people want to buy.

Just kidding I have bought stuff from you and got good service. I will take a look.

Let's not talk about inadequate and outdated websites that continue to list products they have not had in years and have no easy way to check out online with a shopping cart. I will not name name's but it is in California somewhere, and there are others.

We have pictures. HUGE ones. at some point in the future I'll actually pare these down to a reasonable size.

charonproductions

Actually most manufacturers have plenty of pictures, esp of newer ranges. The sites without pics tend to be those selling older ranges.

1) Only regulars buy them. If you need pictures you won't be buying if you saw them.
2) Small outfits already busier than they want to be selling at shows.
3) Website developed 7 years ago by a friend of a friend who's long gone.
4) If they only take orders buy snail mail and fax do you seriously think pictures are high on the priority list.
5) The product list is a scan of a typewritten (as in clickerty clack) catalog.

OK, I begin to exaggerate.

6) They are in the UK and do most of their sales direct at one of the many game shows there or they get orders from the gamers who saw the minis at a recent show so they don't need pictures

Covered in 02 and every couple of months since… yawn.

I don't buy what I don't see

In spite of what people like to claim, pictures don't actually seem to affect sales much.

Dom (Who has images for every decal sheet he produces, and photographed most of the Tumbling Dice range a while back, but oddly hasn't noticed any increase in sales following that…. I probably will get around to photographing the rest at some point, but more out of a sense of completeness than anything else; it doesn't appear to be good economic sense….)

"In spite of what people like to claim, pictures don't actually seem to affect sales much."

Well, I beg to differ. Several online outfits have lost literally hundreds of dollars of my business because they couldn't be bothered to post pictures of their product.

Anyone who buys miniatures sight unseen is a fool.

As for the sites who make excuses (digital camera too expensive (lol!), Don't have time, etc…) if you don't have time, MAKE time. Digital cameras, good ones, are now dirt cheap. You're going to HAVE to do it as some point to remain in business at all. May as well get it done sooner than later.

Well, I beg to differ. Several online outfits have lost literally hundreds of dollars of my business because they couldn't be bothered to post pictures of their product.

lol! I bet Dom's surprised you have access to his sales figures. Not everyone buys for the same reasons, in the same way or with the same criteria that you do.

Personally, I like pictures and don't complain about them when they're there. However, there are plenty of ranges that I'm already familiar with that I don't require pictures for. Buying new stuff without seeing it these days is not always a good idea though :)

I agree that new companies should start with pictures from day one. Minifigs etc. needn't bother however as there's plenty of people who are already buying their figures as it is.

Once upon a time there were no pictures anywhere and you bought sight unseen from a typed list *yawn* the bad old days…….

Disgruntled Goat: "Anyone who buys miniatures sight unseen is a fool."

With distance selling regulations as they are in the UK, buyers have the right to return products within seven days without having to state a reason, with no loss other than return postage. So in the UK at least you can buy figures unseen with no risk whatsoever.

Dom, I just don't agree with your statement. Every major online retailer has pictures of every item they sell, no matter how mundane. eBay has sales figures that prove that adding pictures of your items increase the amount of bids by X%.

While it may not increase sales with existing customers, it surely must affect growth and volume over time.

"While it may not increase sales with existing customers, it surely must affect growth and volume over time."

All I can say is, it hasn't yet…. If anyone wants to prove me wrong, by all means feel free, I sure won't complain at the extra custom…. ;-)

Dom.

I'd have to agree, only an idiot would buy figures that they havent already seen before, or can see a picture of on a website or a catalogue. I've lost count of the number of figures I havent bought because I couldnt get to see a pic first – and this is from companies I already know. So new companies with new ranges that dont bother to put up pics stand no chance of an order at all.

Last week I bought some figures sight unseen from a manufacturer whose stuff I usually love. Against my own rule, and guess what? They went straight in the "pile of crap – use for bodies or conversions" box. Should have known better.

Companies who fool themselves thinking they dont miss orders and that it doesnt affect their sales should think again.

And, even in the UK, why would a customer want the hassle of having to send stuff back for a refund and incur postage costs – when the company cant be bothered to put up a pic in the first place?

Dom,

Put down the bottle. It's Sunday. Oh, I forgot your in Thailand again where it is Monday. Ok, pick it up again. :)

The only people that don't post pics are the people ashamed of their wares. Like I won't pose for pics in speedos. That would be a horrible sight.

T

if you don't have time, MAKE time

Obviously first spending many years revising the laws of physics as we know them, when you suceed in this adding extra hours to the day to photgraph miniatures would be the last thing on your mind. Myself, I'd fix the lottery. :)

P

I agree with General Montcalm; only an idiot buys minis unseen.

I also agree with Disgruntled Goat that anyone who buys minis unseen is a fool.

And I have the same po0licy as Bandit86: I don't buy what I don't see.

Never have. Never will. This day and age there is NO excuse for sellers not to have an image of every product they sell.

no pictures = less sales.

Take it as a fact as far as we are concerned.

And the better the quality and range of pictures the better the sales.

As for ebay: people dont like paying extra for more than one image and most of them dont have access to their own hosting facilities… so it either costs them or is difficult.

Whilst the cost may not be much in pure terms every penny counts on small-cost items on ebay: by the time ebay and paypal fees are taken off small sales there often isnt an awful lot left.

In spite of what people like to claim, pictures don't actually seem to affect sales much.

Maybe its your pictures Dom?

Bad pictures will harm sales just as good ones will promote sales.

"if you don't have time, MAKE time"

I had to come back to this after several hours of "calming down" before writing a response.

How are we supposed to MAKE time?

Most gaming companies are one or two person operations at best(some part time); we can therefore either stop picking, packing and sending out orders, tell the boss of the main day job that we won't be in for a while but please keep paying me or tell the family we won't be seeing them for sometime – none of these options is something we can do without major negative consequences. Photos therefore happen when they can, thats not to say they won't happen but it isn't going to be overnight when you have a huge back catalogue.

With our own site we aim the have all new stuff photographed as soon as we can and are back filling the older several thousand products we sell on an ongoing basis. We added more this weekend but we estimate its going to be several years before everything is there.

We have lives outside of gaming that we can't ignore, please don't assume we can be available 24/7 without consequences.

DeanW

BHUK & Landmark Miniatures

"Every major online retailer has pictures of every item they sell, no matter how mundane. "

Not true. Essex, Irregular & Old Glory all have incomplete picture coverage and huge ranges.

Knowing the manufacturer's style and quality and having seen previous figures can be quite enough if you are buying historicals though I can see the problem for Fantasy miniatures.

Personally I find a picture is good but handling the figure is really what I'd want to do if it were a debatable purchase. That's why I get samples or wait to see them at shows.

Many pics on websites are too small to determine much more than the general appearance of a figure anyway so are not as much use as might be expected.

Tony H

"How are we supposed to MAKE time?"

"We have lives outside of gaming that we can't ignore, please don't assume we can be available 24/7 without consequences."

If you're schedule is that tight then maybe you need to think about what your real priorities should be. I WILL NOT buy a figure from an online retailer without being able to see it first. I empathize with your plight, I really do, but the maximum effective range of an excuse is 0. Maybe that sounds a bit harsh but that's just the way it is. Is your online business a true business or a hobby?

Jason,

If the online wargame businesses were true businesses rather than a hobby for most of the UK suppliers and many of the US vendors then you'd be paying two or three times the current figure price.

One UK vendor of great vehicles for 28 mm figures said on a thread here, I don't have a US distributor because I have no margin for discounting to a distributor. If he did increase prices to cover a distributors margin you'd be paying at least twice his current price.

Now as everyone here already knows gamers are about as cheap as they come – many can't even afford deodorant – so it's not likely that they'd pay double just to give a vendor a living wage and allow them to pay for decent photos of large ranges.

Nigel

I always take pics of any new releases, just seems sensible to me, and as i am a new company at least people can get some idea of the figure quality on offer.

As far as time goes, yeah give me an extra 10 hours a day!! Remember quite a few of us have real world jobs that we go to, plus a family life. I get about two hours a day to do my business stuff, and that includes doing orders, sorting figures when they arrive from the caster, painting minis, making vehicle masters, and replying to threads on here.

Nigel H
Anglian Miniatures

"If the online wargame businesses were true businesses rather than a hobby for most of the UK suppliers and many of the US vendors then you'd be paying two or three times the current figure price."

I understand that. I'm not saying I don't appreciate what the guys who run their little companies do. Some real cool stuff is put out by miniature microbrews. All I'm saying is that excuses about "real lives" and "real jobs" don't enter into my decision making process as a consumer. No picture = no sale, at least on-line. At a con I can touch and get a close-up look.

"If you're schedule is that tight then maybe you need to think about what your real priorities should be. I WILL NOT buy a figure from an online retailer without being able to see it first."

There lies the rub; many firms schedules are that tight, and they have indeed decided what their real priorities should be. The shocker is that chasing after the custom of those that will never buy without pictures isn't one of them…. That's why this whole recurring thread is ultimately pointless; these firms can and do survive without pictures, so the fact that any given customer won't buy without them is ultimately unimportant. Sure, if and when those customers become a huge majority that will change, but then the firms will have the free time for photography, as they won't be spending it filling orders until they do….

To go for an equivalent kind of argument, I wouldn't even consider buying anything but free range eggs, but that fact doesn't mean that every firm still raising battery hens should immediately switch; ethics aside, they clearly have enough customers to keep them happy, and that's that.

Dom (Who still has pictures, but does wish people would stop inferring that "I PERSONALLY won't buy without pictures" = "any firm without pictures is stupid / lazy / Luddite / doomed to failure….")

We have lives outside of gaming that we can't ignore, please don't assume we can be available 24/7 without consequences.

Don't call it a business or expect to make profit then. Because with this attitude it is just a hobby. You sales will suffer. If I can't see it, I won't buy it. End of story.

"Every major online retailer has pictures of every item they sell, no matter how mundane. "

"Not true. Essex, Irregular & Old Glory all have incomplete picture coverage and huge ranges."

I was referring to major online retailers, such as Amazon, any of the big box stores, etc. I don't think any miniatures company would count as a major retailer.

nycjadie: "I was referring to major online retailers, such as Amazon, any of the big box stores, etc. I don't think any miniatures company would count as a major retailer."

I frequently come across items on Amazon that do not have pictures. It is simply not true to say that they have pictures of every item they sell. They can only be relied upon to have pictures of their big sellers.

combatpainter:

The trouble is that your limp threat of non-purchases actually make no difference to businesses who are quite happy making a modest income and keeping below important things such as the VAT threshold (which still means turnover of about GBP62,000 a year). There are many businesses who are never going to be the next Games Workshop and quite simply don't care if they never are. Few small businesses like the concept of VAT inspectors arriving without notice to turn over their accounts and understandably work towards the ideal of staying small but not too small. The fact that you don't spend 20 quid a year with them is not necessarily a disadvantage.

Every time this topic comes up, the same handful of correspondents say they won't buy without pictures. Yet in that time how many figures companies have actually gone to the wall or seen their ranges vanish for ever because of a lack of pictures on the internet? all.

Frankly, this topic simply flogs a dead horse. Internet savvy figures companies (the new, lean and hungry ones) are already uploading pictures as soon as they can. The bigger figures companies that aren't (Minifigs, Essex, etc) have a big enough client base built in pre-internet days that for the foreseeable future they simply don't need pictures. Only someone taking over the company with a more modern outlook will get that changed. They also need someone who even browses the internet forums to first find out that they are regarded as dinosaurs by some insignificant correspondents on a wargames message board.

Also, keep in mind that while's it's not that hard to take a picture of some minis, it can be hard to take a good picture.

It's also hard to take consistent pictures without a professional set-up for lighting and backgrounds, and some photographic nous is a decided advantage.

A cheap digital camera with direct flash will produce poor results, and bad, unprofessional pictures are as much a deterrent as no pictures.

A proper studio set-up, such as a light tent, can be had relatively cheaply, but coupled with the extra expenses of a tripod and lighting can be understandably daunting to someone who knows next to nothing about photography, and whose family snaps always chop off heads or create the "bunny ears" effect with background objects.

It's also hard to take consistent pictures without a professional set-up for lighting and backgrounds, and some photographic nous is a decided advantage.

4 pieces of white a4 foamboard ~ £3.50 GBP
Angle poise lamp with daylight bulb ~ £10.00 GBP
Camera tripod – not requried with above
Digital camera with excellent macro to 10mm £125.00 GBP

The camera is really the only large expense. a foamboard light-box works fine for figures with a single light source but you can transform it into a dual-source light tent for all of another £5.00.

I built a 10 foot by 4 x 4 light tent for £15.00.

However, as you say the priceless item is "a bit of nous"… oh, and the time.. and the will… and…

Antenociti,

With a daylight bulb (even 100W) and an anglepoise lamp you will not produce sufficient light, nor light of pure daylight white (despite the claims on the bulb). Exposure times will be long if you want depth of field and you will need a tripod.

You describe an amateurish setup that will produce amateurish results.

Photographic nous _is_ a decided advantage. Some people can't take a decent picture with all the best and most expensive equipment; others can manage it with your kind of lash-up.

Macro to 10mm is not required, nor desirable given the typical depth of field.

Gary Chalk and Joe Dever used to use a daylight bulb and anglepoise setup to take pictures for their column in White Dwarf in the 1980s. It showed.

I should add that the inconsistency in your lighting shows on your own product photographs – the near side of some are in shadow and the detail is not clear.

"How are we supposed to MAKE time?
With our own site we aim the have all new stuff photographed as soon as we can and are back filling the older several thousand products we sell on an ongoing basis. We added more this weekend but we estimate its going to be several years before everything is there."

If you're that busy, grab a local kid or a friend/relative and have them do it. Pay them in merchandise credit, which softens the blow. There. Time "made."

And if you're looking at "several years," your plan is seriously, seriously flawed and you are doomed to always playing catch-up.

[If you're schedule is that tight then maybe you need to think about what your real priorities should be.]

I have thought about the priorities, and they are not running my webstore. (I prefer the anonymity of my pen name here.)

I have thousands of items on my webstore, most items have pictures, but many items, particularly newer items, do not. These include high quality figures from established manufacturers.

Getting pictures and putting them online takes time. I cannot say that there is a significant difference in sales between items with pictures and items without.

All in all, the webstore itself is a dicey proposition, and has not turned a profit. Most of the money comes from the brick and mortar store and from going to shows. Those are my priorities.

Right now, the issue with miniatures sales seems to be Old Glory's 40% discount. This has taken all of the money out of selling miniatures. This is intentional because the real goal of the sale is to run competing lines out of business. (Fortunately, miniatures are only a sideline for me.) At these prices, gamers should be happy that there are any webstores for miniatures at all!

I have even noticed this at shows, where there is no excuse. Gamers can see the items, take a good look, but they still do not buy. In fact, most gamers don't even look at these figures, even when they are prominently and attractively displayed. So much so, that the amount of retail space I give to miniatures figures compared to other items is smaller and smaller, and I am not restocking.

What the gaming community seems to be saying is "We want you to run an expensive web store, with all sorts of bells and whistles. We want you to spend all of your time doing it. But we don't want to pay."

I just figure that the people who say they will not buy miniatures without pictures simply are not going to buy any miniatures at all.

I think that this thread comes up because people cannot see how others can buy figures unseen, but they do.

I have taken over Gladiator Miniatures 2 months ago and have a couple of very large ranges that have no photographs for them.

I don't have the time to take photographs of the 100+ codes in the Biblicals range at the moment – I am too busy casting and fulfilling orders from people who have ordered the figures (icluding the biblical range that I added to the shop without photos).

My advert in Miniature Wargames has produced a number of enquiries for unillustrated catalogues and as a result of sending out those catalogues, I have had a number of orders (and repeat orders).

Ian from Fighting15s hits it on the head – I don't need to add photos to generate more business, and thus that is a lower priority than making new moulds, photographing new releases and so on.

Mike

As someone once said, "walk a mile in my shoes". There is definate truth in the statement that most of us web based sellers squeeze the business (and yes, it's a business) in with real life, family, actually playing a game or two, and all that other stuff. But, without us gamers around the world would have little to no access to many of the lines we carry. There are simply not enough B&Ms around (and at the price of rent, no wonder).

As for just grabbing a digital camera and taking a few snaps, believe me it's not that simple. As an on and off professional photographer for the last 20 plus years, I know it's definately not simple. And a crappy photo is no better than none at all.

Interesting thing that Zarquon said about people at shows not buying anyway. Our last show down here in Florida had record attendance, over 450 gamers. Out of that I made 47 sales, and was the biggest seller of the show numbers wise. Hmmmm, 10% conversion…sometimes it don't seem worth it. If it wasn't for the fact I have a great time doing it, it wouldn't be.

5% to 10% conversion seems to be about right. I carry a variety of items and the miniatures are a sideline. The sales from miniatures to me is almost irrelevant. In fact, I don't even bring them to half the shows. Usually people just buy a pack or two. (I don't know how you build armies that way!)

On the webstore, I have pictures for one line and not for another. The one with pictures sells about the same with a discount as the one without does without a discount. Go figure.