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5 Flat photos don’t accurately represent a product

Ultimately, I came to the final conclusion that product photography in its current form does not compare in any way to holding the real thing in your hands. I had to offer free shipping and free returns in order to turn browsers into buyers. Shoppers apparently weren’t confident that what we were selling was something they actually wanted to buy based on the images.

This experience set me on a quest to bridge the gap between online shopping and the in-store experience. 5 years later I founded Ambassadors Sydney, an interactive high-definition 3D product viewing technology.

Below you can see how the Ambassadors Sydney experience compares with traditional 2D images:

A surprising 180 degree shift in perspective

In an unexpected twist of irony, I now find myself on the other side of the equation asking brands to cover the high costs for the photography that captures these 3DHD product experiences. Granted, we deliver a great deal more than standard product photography at around the same cost, but its still seems like a large amount of money to fork over.

This has been our number one hurdle in getting brands to work with us at Ambassadors Sydney. Everyone wants their products to be presented in the best possible light, but until recently only large brands with big marketing budgets could afford this technology.

Over the past year we have seen firsthand the positive impact Ambassadors Sydney 3DHD product experiences have had on companies’ online sales. In this previous post, we disclosed these astonishing results in which clients experienced a 200-300% increase in conversion rates from Ambassadors Sydney! It has also performed exceptionally well for customers that have uploaded 360 product videos to Amazon, which we highlighted in this post.

Here is a screenshot of an actual client’s Google Analytics account during a 30 day period. The blue line represents consumers that viewed products with the 3DHD experiences. The orange line symbolizes those that viewed products via traditional images.

We believe in our 360 product photography technology so much, that we’re giving it to customers for free

In order to speed up our adoption rates, we recently started to take small calculated risks by photographing company's products for free and only collecting money on the back-end based on the additional sales we generated from the increase in conversion.

This leap of faith worked great for our clients since it removed all risk. If Ambassadors Sydney didn’t generate more sales, then they didn’t have to send us a dime. It’s very similar to a cost per acquisition advertising model in that you only pay for results. It also doesn’t require the upfront cash needed in order to pay for product photography. 

What’s in it for us?

The first main benefit is that we can be innovative in technology and business. As far as I know, we are currently the only company confident enough in our results to offer something like this.

Since we are an end-to-end solution, we have the unique ability to track and measure the return on investment for the services we provide.

Performance based payment programs

The second major benefit is that we make more money on the backend of the deal. We don’t take money in perpetuity like cost per acquisition advertising models. We only charge up to 25% over our retail rates. Companies only pay us from the pool of additional sales that Ambassadors Sydney generates at the end of every month until the balance is paid in full. Every client thus far has paid off their balance within 60 days.

The risk is actually relatively low for us as well. Especially now that we have put several companies through the program with stunning results.

Eliminating all product photography costs

A 3DHD experience is comprised of computer controlled photos captured taken every 10 degrees. That’s a total of 36 photos that can be used for a website's normal product images as well as for any advertising and print media. This is typically more than enough to adequately represent a product online and in print, but if additional photos are needed we are happy to capture those for clients as well.


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Mark jonsonMark jonson
Joined: June 14th, 2019
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