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
Traditionally, customers purchased cars after visiting dealers, taking test drives, and asking for second opinions. They would inquire their cousins, neighbors, or anyone with car knowledge for ideas. But today, things have changed.
No one is asking around before buying a car. People don’t even want to visit car dealers. Instead, they do all the necessary research and comparisons on the internet. They surf prices and proposals from different dealers before actually visiting.
This means having an online presence of your dealership is a must. However, having a website is not enough. The competition is increasing every day. Thus, you need to focus on the presentation and staging of cars. Especially because 80% of today’s buyers perform at least part of their automobile purchases online.
Under these circumstances, investing in dealership photography is a safe bet. It can bring in leads, build your brand, and increase sales prices. This is confirmed by studies that state – Visual information can drive 65% more sales than verbal information.
Additionally, essential auto photography can establish credibility for dealerships and attract customers. But to do so, getting the right angles and lighting is necessary. The photographer must use advanced equipment that won’t distort or overexpose images. Ultimately, it will boost the dealer’s visibility and make more money.
Explore Top Tips for Impressive Car Dealer Photography
As mentioned earlier, the quality of your auto dealership photography plays a major role in driving sales. So much so that good images boost credibility and drive sales. While below-average pictures can reverse this and drive away customers.
To avoid this every Car Photoshoot involves some steps that must be followed judiciously before and during Car Dealership Photography. Let us have a look at them :
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) Cover the Entire Car
While purchasing, customers always like to get a full view of the car. Be it the texture of the leather seats or the shine of the exterior metalwork. And as a dealer, it is your duty to provide them with that.
Thus you must cover every angle of the car during automotive dealership photography. This helps the viewers check the condition of the car both internally and externally. Providing them with a more practical experience. In turn, it piques their interest and helps drive purchases.
4) Right Lighting Choices
Different lights have different effects. Good lighting can bring out the details, color, and texture of the automobile. While harsh overhead lights can create glares and give an unpleasant look.
A dealer must remember to choose lighting that not only looks good but boosts the visual experience. In the case of outdoor photography, they must avoid direct sunlight and go for golden hours. This is the time when the sun is low in the sky. Creating a soft and warm light that flatters everyone.
For indoor sessions, artificial lights are the go-to option. However, it is important to ensure there are no shadows on backgrounds or faces. They will make the automobile look darker and duller.
5) Include Details
Every small feature and equipment of the car is a selling point. You never know what your customer is looking for and ends up finding. Even for used cars, pictures should include features and flaws. Being transparent improves credibility and influences buying decisions.
6) Quantity and Variety
There is no fixed number of pictures to include in your catalog. In fact, the more the merrier. But the key remains to make the pictures vary. Every image should highlight a different side of the car. If the car has any special features worth promoting, add more pictures. If not, stick to the basic requirement.
7) Don’t miss out on these types of images.
As mentioned earlier, the dealership photography should be done such that it includes every aspect. However, some images are more popular than others. There are three-quarter angle exterior shots and an interior scene of the cockpit. These shots are very in demand and bring in traffic.
8) Update 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.
9) Post Processing
The work isn’t done when the pictures are shot. Rather it is done once the pictures are edited and improved to the highest quality. But this should be done such that it doesn’t hide any shortcomings like dents. Because the motive of this catalog is to be transparent and inform the customers.
Thus, a dealer must only edit pictures to enhance the overall quality. The aim remains to provide the customer with a better visual experience. One can do so by changing distracting backgrounds or exposure. Video Tours are also a great option.
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
If you’re into automotive dealership photography, Spyne has various features that cater to your needs. Let’s have a look at 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) Car Angle Classifier
Understanding a car’s angle manually can be confusing, no matter how experienced you are. With Spyne’s virtual car studio, you can do this in seconds. It also helps edit angles to showcase the best sides.
6) Car Shadow Editing
Shadows often make cars look dark and dull. However, editing shadows once pictures are clicked can be difficult. But not with Spyne, it’s AI technology helps get rid of any unwanted shadows to give the best results.
7) Number Plate Detection
Many car dealers prefer changing the number plates of the car when clicking images. Doing so manually is a long and time-consuming process. However, Spyne can do so in seconds by identifying the number plate and changing it to the desired text. This helps better promote the car and brand.
8) Exposure and Resolution Control
To make sure pictures are of the highest quality, fixing exposures and resolutions is a must. One can easily do this on Spyne without any confusion. The best part, they can try out different exposures to find what suits them. While in the case of pixelated images, resolutions can be improved with a click.
9) AI Video Builder
Making Video tours of cars is often a lengthy process. You need to shoot the video then make edits and add voice-over. This can take up to a week when done quickly. However, with Spyne, it takes seconds. Our AI technology gives you the script and can create a voice clone. It is also multilingual and offers 100+ AI avatars. This makes it your go-to all-in-one solution for automobile videos.
10) 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.
