Image Guidelines For zonline

Over 90% of information transmitted to our brain is visual: Success in eCommerce is largely dependent on visuals - exceptional product images will be your greatest advantage to succeed. The best decision you have done this year as an African business or an African entrepreneur is to register to be an online seller on the www.zonline.africa marketplace. To ensure that your online presence and growth journey are as smooth as possible please ensure that you follow the below image guidelines and zonline will relieve you of all the pains you may have feared or felt through other efforts. Good accurate images sell...

As much as it would be ideal for everyone to hire a professional photographer, not every business can afford the sometimes prohibitive fees. You don't have to spend a lot of money to get professional-looking product photos. Most decent modern smartphones and a little creativity on your part can achieve a look that will feel professional and be original. In a future article, we will share some tips on taking the best product photographs on a limited budget. In this tutorial, we are focusing on educating sellers on the minimum requirements for image dimensions and file sizes.

We will keep this tutorial short and sweet.

Our first and critical product/service rule is that your images must look professional and follow the image guidelines below:

1. Seller Profile & Logo Images
2. Seller Store Banners
3. Product/Service Images

Seller Profile & Logo Images

Specifications:

Sample:

Your profile and logo images must be 500px by 500px and the file size must not be more than 20kb in size... ideally it should be about 10kb in size.

Seller Store Banners

Your Seller banner must be 1000px by 300px and less than 100kb in size... but ideally around 50kb or less in size as in the case with the below spec and sample.

Specifications:

Sample:

Product and Service Images

All product images must be 700px by 700px and not be more than 50kb in size. This is extremely important to ensure that your product has the zoom-in functionality and remember this is the selling point and should represent your brand very well. If you are not familiar with basic graphic design skills then you can also contact any one of our recommended Graphic Design companies listed on zonline.africa... Click HERE for a list of designers that you can use to get your business online. Remember to visit their stores and to read their terms and conditions as this is not an endorsement by zonline (See our Terms & Conditions).

There are two types of eCommerce product images:

• The first type, and the most common one, is typical of the product centered on a white background showcasing the product from different angles. This is the best image for your products in an online store such as the one you will create on zonline.africa. These types of images really highlight the features of a product in its best light and may even include shots of a very closeup angle to highlight a specific function or design... in an effort to entice the shopper to make the purchase. The white background helps to create a consistent look across your product line. Remember that, with online clients, you may never meet in person so it is critical that your images do enough talking/selling for you and the product description closes the deal for you.

• The second type is often referred to as 'in-context' images that showcase the image in the environment that it is intended to be used in.  There are some products that make more sense to showcase in their intended use environment or along complementing products so that the use is obvious to a shopper... However, it's important that these images are not cluttered but clearly show the product being sold so as not to turn-off shoppers or as in the latter... mislead shoppers. Also important to note that the best lifestyle images will need a seasoned photographer to really bring out the product in a way that will entice the potential shopper to make a purchase. This type of image is also useful if added as the last image in your series of product images to create that emotional bond with the shopper.

Please note that if your products do not follow these minimum requirements, they will not be approved. The new Pan-Africanism narrative means that we must all do our part to ensure that we show and prove that quality lives in Africa and we can compete with the best and do better. Put a lot of time and effort in ensuring that your online store looks amazing and representative of your great African brand.



PLEASE NOTE: The main product image must have a white background except for service images that sometimes only make sense if they are of the service or taken in the environment such as is the case with for example a massage service image.

Product Image Sample: Gas Heater Head

Service Image Sample: Hair Cut Fade

Reducing the File Size without reducing the Image Dimensions

Once you have saved your product and/or service images as per the above-specified width and height dimensions, you can use www.tinypng.com to reduce your file sizes without compromising the quality of the images; you can also use other tools but we use this one for our images. You don't have to log in or create an account. Simply drag your images to the specified area on that website and their system automatically begins magically reducing the file size.

Have a look at the hair cut image above that we managed to reduce from 265.4KB (section A) to just 41.2KB (section B) as illustrated by the below screen capture from tinypng. That was a saving of 84% or 224KB (section D). Once the compression is done you can download the images one at a time (section C) or you can download all of them at once by clicking on 'Download All'. Now you can upload your compressed downloaded product/service files to your online store on zonline.africa. This sounds like a lot of work but it's not, compared to the gains... you will thank us later for teaching you this when your clients rave about how fast your store on zonline.africa loads.




Follow the above basic guidelines and make sure that you give your images the appropriate names and ALT descriptions that explain what the image is about e.g. 'gas heater heat zonline africa' for the Gas Heater Head product image above. REMEMBER to contact support should you require assistance... You are not alone on this journey to showcase how great Africa is.

We wish you the best with your online sales through zonline.africa and are glad that you are now selling through Africa's true Pan-African marketplace because everyone zonline...