The Importance of the Image Size for Conversions on Shopify

The study took two products, a shirt and a hard drive. The researchers then created a website with a large image and a small image for both products and gave them the same price. Participants were then tested as to whether they would buy the product or not.

The researchers thought that the smaller images would yield fewer sales than the larger images. This is because the general notion is that larger images allow your brand to showcase more of the product and the greater detail can be more important for customers.

The study found some interesting results. When they looked at the shirt, those product pages with smaller images were seen as more valuable and therefore were generally bought by the audience. Those with the larger image were less favorably viewed. There are several reasons why this might be the case.

The first option is that the larger image takes longer to load and you would need to improve website speed. Speed does have an impact on conversions and therefore the larger image could have made a significant impact in that respect.

Or the larger picture, the shirt, might have made the customer feel like the clothes item was larger than stated. They might have felt uncomfortable buying the product because it might look baggy on them.

In contrast, when looking at the hard drive, the larger image performed better. The larger image gave customers the perception that the product was worth more money and therefore it was worth more investment. The price offered was, therefore, seen as more of a bargain than if the product had a smaller image.

This is an interesting study that showcases that while customers want to see images before they make a purchase, larger images aren’t always better. You might need to make some images smaller for the customer to feel that they’re getting a product that they’re comfortable with. That isn’t to say that the larger images are out for all products, however. Some products will benefit from the larger image.

It might be that some consumable products or style products need to be in a smaller image and those that are status images (like computers, cars, houses, etc.) might require you to have larger images.