# Changed my homepage to show only 5 products



## aab1 (Jun 16, 2014)

Twice in the last week or so I heard about a test where they offered 6 jam flavors and then 24 flavors and they sold a lot more when people had just 6 choices.

Since my website used to show all products on the homepage I decided to change it so that the homepage shows only 5 featured products and added a "Show All" link for those that want the complete list, or they can use the filtering and search features on the left side to find products like before.

Do you think it's better this way?

I also updated it so that when a search finds no matches, instead of just saying "No matches found" and showing no products, it says "No matches found. You may be interested in these featured products:" and shows the top 5 featured products.

Thanks


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## seven (Jun 16, 2014)

yes, i think it is much better this way. not as busy as before, and it's a good update with the search feature.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Jun 16, 2014)

I like it, but how did you choose those products?  I would go for a mix of sizes to show people that there are more than just 50 gram options..................


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## navigator9 (Jun 16, 2014)

I've read that study too. It will be interesting to see the results of the change to your web site. 

I have a comment, if you don't mind. I don't think your photos show your soap to it's best advantage. Have you tried natural lighting, and a tighter shot with less background? If you don't have space outside where you can shoot, maybe you have a window that gets a lot of sun, and you could set your soaps up in front of it? I don't necessarily mean direct sunlight, just good, indirect natural lighting.  I think it would make a world of difference. As someone who shops on line a lot, pictures have a *huge* impact on my decision to buy or not. Since shoppers can't actually hold the product in their hand and examine it, when they buy on line, a really good close up is the next best thing.

I'm sure your soap is wonderful, but your pictures do nothing to convince me of that. With a few changes, your photos could have me clicking that "add to cart" button! Good luck!


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## OliveOil2 (Jun 16, 2014)

My first thought was the same as E F G, I wouldn't put the small bars only on the front page. As a consumer that is familiar with salt bars 1.8 oz is somewhat of a disappointment, do you have any small bars grouped as a set? I would be more likely to purchase that, just to make the shipping worthwhile. I really like your selection of larger bars and they look great, I'm really loving the first one.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Jun 16, 2014)

While I am no photo expert, I take my shots in natural light when possible, or just using a flash to fill in.  I also use less of an angle, looking more level with the soap than down on to it - this means that I can use a smaller aperture (lower f number) result is that the area in front of and behind the soap is not in focus - while I am unlikely to use these exact shots for marketing, it gives you an idea of how the background can become less intrusive:


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## OliveOil2 (Jun 16, 2014)

I hadn't had my coffee yet when I posted, sorry Efficacious Gentleman can't even get initials right early in the morning. Also aab1 hope you don't think my comment was too critical, I am a cheap shopper, and might be more likely to purchase a small sample of that size along with my regular bar purchase, but not a small size alone.


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## navigator9 (Jun 16, 2014)

The Efficacious Gentleman said:


> While I am no photo expert, I take my shots in natural light when possible, or just using a flash to fill in.  I also use less of an angle, looking more level with the soap than down on to it - this means that I can use a smaller aperture (lower f number) result is that the area in front of and behind the soap is not in focus - while I am unlikely to use these exact shots for marketing, it gives you an idea of how the background can become less intrusive:



Now THAT'S what I mean! Nice job, EG. A picture really is worth a thousand words. You may have the best soap on the internet, but if the pics are only ho hum, they won't come across as being fabulous. There are zillions of sites out there selling soap, yours needs to stand out in order to compete. Great pics can help you do that.


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## aab1 (Jun 16, 2014)

I choose those products for now because I happen to be very low on stock compared to usual. The only flower soaps I have left have never sold (though the cedar soap in small bar was in my top 3 sellers until I ran out, more are curing in all 3 shapes) and the large bars are new and I haven't sold any yet. Another reason I put just small ones for now and that I make such small bars is that they cost infinitely less to ship because with Canada Post, anything 20mm or less in thickness ships for a fraction of the price, even if the weight is the same. This means I can ship 8 small bars (400g) for a fraction of the cost of shipping 1 large bar or flower soap, so it's been by very far my most popular shape since I introduced it by allowing customers to save a fortune on shipping while getting as many grams of soaps as with larger soaps that cost much more to ship.

I have several batches of soaps curing (olive oil, orange salt soap, cedar pumice salt soaps, all in the 3 shapes) and will be adding more variety and also probably one each of my large bar and flower in the featured products once I have photos of them.

Speaking of photos, I also have never been happy with my soap photos and I keep trying different backgrounds, camera settings, and even made a light box for the current photos on the website. It's strange because for "normal" photos (people, scenery, etc.) people always say I take really good photos, but for product photos I just can't get anything that looks good. I had tried natural lighting but the problem with that is that I always have to wait for a sunny day otherwise different photos have different lighting and I prefer to take photos when I'm ready to take photos, not when the weather is, which is why I made the light box. The reason the small soap photos show a lot of background is because it shows the difference in size between the 3 shapes I sell, at first I did zoom more into the small ones, but then they look as big as the big ones for which I need to zoom out and I thought that was misleading. Isn't it better to use the same zoom/distance for all shapes so that the difference in size can be seen in the photos?

Does anyone have tips for taking good photos using the light box I built? I will try taking them from a lower angle.

OliveOil: What would be the benefit of selling the small bars as a set rather than let the buyers make their own set by adding the different ones they want to the cart? I appreciate the comments on the photos and agree they are far from good. About buying a small one and a large one, that prevents the benefit I explained above that ordering only small ones allows the order to ship for a fraction of the cost, as soon as you add anything other than just small bars, the shipping can almost quadruple depending on the destination and weight.


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## jenneelk (Jun 16, 2014)

I'd like to see the photo's cropped, more straightforward, and less lighting.. if your not familiar maybe just use something free like paint to work with the brightness and such.


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## aab1 (Jun 16, 2014)

jenneelk said:


> I'd like to see the photo's cropped, more straightforward, and less lighting.. if your not familiar maybe just use something free like paint to work with the brightness and such.



Like I explained in my reply I just posted, if I crop the photos (or simply zoom in more) on the small ones then they look as big as the large ones which I think is misleading because you can't tell the small and large ones apart from the photos if I zoom into the small ones which makes them look like the large ones. Should I still do it?


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## jenneelk (Jun 16, 2014)

Is this fairly true to the real color? It was kind of a guess based on the original and the brightness likely leading to less hue and saturation.

I personally like to line my crops on the bottom and not perfectly center, but that's just me.


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## jenneelk (Jun 16, 2014)

I would and just put the weights so there is no misunderstanding. Are they that much of a difference in size?
Just keep all the photos pretty standard in cropping and you should be good. kwim? 

Hand soap tiny ones you can maybe change up a bit if it's big difference.


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## navigator9 (Jun 16, 2014)

I'm not sure that it's really obvious about the sizes of the bars in  your pictures. People may think that the smaller bars are just  photographed from farther away, making them look smaller. I think  listing weights may be a better way to go.

You say you use a light box to take the pics. You know, I bought a light box years ago, and I was never able to get pics from it that I was satisfied with. Never. I think the light in yours looks flat. Just flat. I know how busy we get and sometimes it's just easier to take pics when we have time to do it, but if I were you, the next sunny day, I'd set up my soaps next to a window and try some close up shots to see how they compared. Really good pics can sell your soap.


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## hmlove1218 (Jun 16, 2014)

When i take pictures, I have a mix of the two. I have a "light box" that uses indirect sunlight. Im not at home at the moment, but I'll post a picture as soon as I get back. 

Basically what I did was take some old canvas boards (for painting) and taped them together, two for walls and one for the bottom. One wall is directly behind the item and the other is to the left because the window that i use is to the right. This way, the light coming through the window is reflected by the white backing of the canvas boards and illuminates the items.


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## navigator9 (Jun 16, 2014)

hmlove1218 said:


> When i take pictures, I have a mix of the two. I have a "light box" that uses indirect sunlight. Im not at home at the moment, but I'll post a picture as soon as I get back.
> 
> Basically what I did was take some old canvas boards (for painting) and taped them together, two for walls and one for the bottom. One wall is directly behind the item and the other is to the left because the window that i use is to the right. This way, the light coming through the window is reflected by the white backing of the canvas boards and illuminates the items.



If that's how you took your Etsy pics, it's working well for you, because those pics are very nice!


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## aab1 (Jun 16, 2014)

hmlove1218 said:


> When i take pictures, I have a mix of the two. I have a "light box" that uses indirect sunlight. Im not at home at the moment, but I'll post a picture as soon as I get back.
> 
> Basically what I did was take some old canvas boards (for painting) and taped them together, two for walls and one for the bottom. One wall is directly behind the item and the other is to the left because the window that i use is to the right. This way, the light coming through the window is reflected by the white backing of the canvas boards and illuminates the items.



I also checked your Etsy photos and love the pure white background, is it "faked" with photoshop or does the background actually come out a pure white like that with no modifications to the photo? I'd love my background to be white like that.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Jun 17, 2014)

Personally, I don't think showing photos of them as the same size is an issue, as you don't have anything in the photos to give an idea of size, anyway.  I would make the priority being that people can see the soap clearly.


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## hmlove1218 (Jun 17, 2014)

I get a pretty pure white just by doing that , but then I use PicMonkey to enhance the picture colors and FotoFuze to make it really white. I'm actually thinking of leaving out the FotoFuze part because I think I actually prefer the depth the picture has without it.

The first picture is without FotoFuze for comparison and the second is my "light box."

And thank y'all for the compliments on my pictures!  I take them all with my cell phone so I'm glad y'all like them.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Jun 18, 2014)

Tip - use a larger piece of card/paper so that you have on piece on the back and bottom with a curve - 






then you won't have that join between them


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## aab1 (Jun 18, 2014)

That's how I built my light box. By the way I tried photo fuze and love it, t's so much simpler and more accurate than using the magic wand in photoshop.


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## hmlove1218 (Jun 18, 2014)

The Efficacious Gentleman said:


> Tip - use a larger piece of card/paper so that you have on piece on the back and bottom with a curve -
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks TEG ill have to try that


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## jenneelk (Jun 18, 2014)

Here's one of my pics.. I use a consistent piece of thick cardboard so no seam. I actually use all leftovers for my box.
The actual box is an old shipping box sent to me. Cut the sides out to the right proportions, cut the front out, taped in my wax paper and slid in a white cardboard that I cut to fit and was a left over separator in a case of jars.  
Been working great the last 8 months or so. I just wipe off the white paper if I get soap stuck to it.
I just carry to it different parts of the house depending on the time of day and when I need a picture.
Its about 1 pd weight.


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## Jencat (Jun 27, 2014)

I agree about zooming in on the smaller bars.  If you are worried that people may think all of the bars are the same size, as well as putting the weight you can put a comparison picture on your site that shows the different sizes you sell next to each others.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Jun 27, 2014)

Have you also considered changing the names to the approximate weight, instead of "small", "Large" and so on?  "2oz", "4 oz" etc, so that the title shows them instantly


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## aab1 (Jun 27, 2014)

The Efficacious Gentleman said:


> Have you also considered changing the names to the approximate weight, instead of "small", "Large" and so on?  "2oz", "4 oz" etc, so that the title shows them instantly



I have different shapes as well as salt and regular soaps, so the soaps of the same size from the same mold can have very different weights if they are salt soaps or regular soaps, that's why I say small, large or flower.

Maybe I'll make the weight in bold to make it stand out and zoom in on the small soaps as recommended.


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## aab1 (Aug 3, 2014)

I haven't posted here in a while since I've been very busy with other things as I run other businesses and one of my other businesses literally makes about 10000% higher sales than my soap business so I've been focusing on that lately, but recently I sold 19 soaps in about a 24 hour period which is more than I normally sell in several months so that's motivating me to spend more time on the soap business.

To take lower angle photos as was recommended in this thread I just bought one of those mini tripods (previous photos where taken with a normal tripod angled downwards to the soap) and will attempt new photos. I'm also going to be using FotoFuze as I love the pure white background it creates. I really hope I'll be able to take good photos as I must have retaken each photo 5-10 times so far with different backgrounds, lighting, cameras, camera settings, etc. and they never turn out good.

I'm also going to be listing new soaps I've made that are cured as well as making new soaps to replace those that sold out.

I should be posting back shortly with hopefully not so bad photos, maybe even good photos if I'm incredibly lucky.

Thanks for all the tips, I will be re-reading this thread before attempting to take new photos.

New photos and soaps are now on www.saltsoaps.com

Definitely my best photos so far in large part due to FotoFuze to whiten the background but there's surely still room for improvement, but at least I'm happy about how these came out.

Thanks again for all the tips and please comment on the new photos and how they could be further improved.


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