Times have changed. The rise of digitalization has brought about a revolutionary period for all industries, and the automotive industry is no exception. The tech boom and everyone following its path also changed how the dealerships work and conduct their business. People are now more conscious of the user experience, forcing dealers to shift to online retail. This opened a new horizon, which we call Car Dealership Photography.
The need for alluring car catalogs has spiked over recent years, and thus, dealerships are looking for high-quality auto dealership photography providers. In this blog, we take you through the journey of car photography dealerships and their benefits for them.
Why Car Dealers Need Professional Dealership Photoshoots
A professional photo gives dealerships more credibility and attracts more eyeballs. Therefore, when a potential customer views it on the platform you listed, a high-quality image makes them subconsciously trust the dealership and the vehicle, ultimately leading to good business. Well, car dealers require professional dealership photoshoots as high-quality dealer images can make their cars and other products more credible when people find them, thus attracting customers and increasing the visibility of vehicle stock.
A visual representation of the car will allow your dealership to grow quicker, with 62% of car shoppers using photos as their lead information source. Quality visuals drive 65% more engagement and sales over information that is just verbal, as photography plays an essential role in outshining the market. So, high-quality professional auto dealer photography supports your VDP page, brings in more leads, and establishes your name in the dealership market.
Explore Top Tips for Impressive Car Dealer Photography
Every Car Photoshoot involves some critical steps that must be followed judiciously without fail before and during Car Dealership Photography tips. Let us have a look at a few major ones :
1) Car Photoshoot Location
The location preset matters most because it defines the photo’s appearance. A background location with ample lighting, no frame hindrances, and a clear display of the car’s shadow make it look elegant and leave almost negligible room for improvement in the output.
2) Choosing The Right Equipment
A good car has a good location, but a poor output seems odd. Well, this is where choosing the right equipment creeps in. Many times, it’s noticed that even though everything is near perfect, the photos could be more attractive and suitable for listing. One of the main reasons for this is poor equipment. You can always maintain quality, so investing in high-end cameras and necessary accessories like tripods and lenses is needed to get a luring image.
3) Interior and Exterior Photography
Dealers often need to catch up on the trick and upload exterior and interior photographs while listing the vehicle. But this is different from how it works.
Dealers often need to catch up on the trick and upload exterior and interior photographs while listing the vehicle. But this is different from how it works. A buyer not only sees the exterior and checks the condition of the car’s body but also the interior, how the dashboard looks, and whether the seats are in good condition because it ultimately impacts how practical the car is for them. Therefore, both interior and exterior photography should be prioritized from different angles.
4) Updated Inventory
It’s essential to maintain track of inventory. Suppose a car has not received enough leads for a long time. It would be better to delist it and present several other options to the buyer. It would also be better to cater to the public’s needs and manipulate your inventory accordingly.
5) Invest in AI and other tech
Use the magic of AIi and editing to enhance the quality of your images further and remove any glitch that spoils them. Remember not to use tech to hide the shortcomings of the vehicles, like dents, because the complete motive is to give the customer every information they need to know about the car but with a better visualizing experience.
How to Take Photos of Used Cars to Increase Sales
It is pretty evident that if you aren’t aware of how to take photos, you won’t get enough leads and will have no sales. Therefore, take care of these points before you take pictures of your car inventory:
1) Good Camera: A good camera equipment investment includes a DSLR or mirrorless camera with a zoom lens or a smartphone with more than one camera to nail snaps like a pro.
2) Use a tripod: For clearer, higher-quality shots, place your camera or phone on top of a tripod.
3) Where to take photos: Find an indoor/outdoor location that is not too busy-just neutral colour walls or in front of your dealership’s logo, for instance.
4) Ambient Lighting: Shoot in soft natural light-morning or sunset-or use continuous LED lighting in an indoor studio with white walls.
5) Clean the vehicle: The cars should be clean for professional presentation and to show any damage clearly.
6) Shot Checklist: Follow this shot checklist for photo continuity: take photos of the front, side, and interior in great detail, including everything from wheels to light to the dashboard and any feature.
7) Basic editing: It involves adjusting brightness, contrast, and white balance to make the image look realistic using fundamental editing tools.
How Car Dealership Photography Benefits Dealerships
We saw how Car Dealership Photography is practiced and what has made it an established vertical in the automotive industry. So now, let’s explore its benefits for dealerships.
1) Inspire Clicks: A site cannot be visible on the Internet without SEO. A good-quality image supports a website’s high CTR, an essential Automotive SEO metric.
2) Cost Efficient: Since it has already improved the CTR, the cost of improving the SEO is reduced, and the marketing cost also goes down because the money spent on driving clicks is almost negligible.
3) Faster Inventory Turnover: The time required for the dealer to publish the images of the car and then sell them goes down significantly because of the high visibility, which results in faster inventory turnover.
4) Competitive Edge: It is said that the more visible you are on the internet, the more recognized you are. High-quality images drive sales, keep you relevant, and leave a long-lasting impression on users, solidifying your brand image.
How Spyne Enhances Dealership Photography
For automotive dealership photography, Spyne is a one-stop solution for all needs. With its AI-powered platforms and features, Spyne has revolutionized the industry and has been the preferred choice for all dealerships. Let’s see how Spyne assists dealerships, specifically automotive dealers, with car photoshoots.
1) Spyne eliminates the need to hire a professional photographer for every car, which limits your cost for inventory photography
2) Dealers can conduct a self-serve photoshoot using any device at any location.
3) No need to worry about lighting, as Spyne’s AI enhances image quality automatically.
4) The AI also removes backgrounds and applies edits, streamlining the process.
5) Spyne’s in-house app simplifies photo-taking with 360 Car Photography for interior and exterior views.
6) This provides a complete visualization and immersive experience for the car.
7) Spyne helps build a state-of-the-art catalog for your inventory.
8) Integration with automotive platforms makes tracking and managing listings easy.
This is how Spyne enhances Car Dealership Photography making it pretty easy for dealerships to even implement in their current ecosystem.
Types Of Photography Services Provided By Spyne
As mentioned earlier, Spyne has various features that cater to replace traditional photographers for car dealerships. Let’s know a few of them:
1) Quality Post-Detail Photos
Spyne clears the blurry images and gives them a high-quality version, which attracts more clients to your dealership.
2) Background Replacement
Spyne provides you with more than 100+ backgrounds of studio setups and outdoor places to choose from, depending on your needs.
3) Photo Branding
Spyne also empowers dealerships with features that solidify their branding; it seems like something else. The dealership name is on the license plate frame, both front and back; the decal is on the back, and we even changed the latent background.
4) 360 View
How does it sound that you can view your desired vehicle from all angles? Interesting, right? Spyne makes it possible, as consumers can have a 360-degree view of the vehicles and check how the car looks in person without even going to the dealer.
5) Interior and Exterior Hotspots
With Spyne, you can have the hotspot feature that can zoom at different exterior and interior car surfaces. For exteriors, you can check if any dent or damage exists, and for interiors, you can have a look at the controls on the dashboard.
Key Photography Challenges for Dealerships
In any industry, threats to efficient working or challenges make it difficult for those working there. Even car dealer photography is full of that. Let’s have a look at the few significant challenges that are faced.
1) Exorbitant Prices-Dealers face a significant roadblock in the name of high pricing when they want to move to digital merchandising for their inventory. Professional photographers charge a lot, and with a massive inventory, the cost incurred is pretty high. The solution to this is what Spyne provides to these dealers. Have a self-shoot of the vehicle; the rest is on Spyne. It also proves to be very cost-efficient compared to the traditional methods.
2) Scalability- The second major hindrance is scalability. If you expand your inventory at a perfect pace, making the necessary arrangements and having a car dealership photographer take photos of every vehicle on time so that they get listed will be a massive headache.
3) Hidden Flaws- It’s common for dealers to hide the flaws of the cars and not give all the necessary information that the buyer needs before making any decision. This is a challenge for this field because it’s being misused, which is a discouraging factor, and the credibility of these shoots cannot be trusted if someone notices them.
4) Low CTR-Click-through Rate(CTR): An SEO metric influences an auto dealer’s online visibility cost. Therefore, if an image fails to do that, it’s almost a waste for the dealership.
Conclusion
Considering the exposure dealerships have to tech, car dealership photography has become an essential aspect of the automotive industry and will continue to grow. With the evolution of this field, the benefits are clear, like enhanced presence and faster inventory turnover. However, the industry must still resolve significant challenges, like scalability and cost issues. Spyne comes in with its ground-breaking AI-powered tech and cost-effective methods that maintain transparency and solidify dealership branding.
  
