Etsy Handbag Photography – Take Outstanding Photos

We have all been there:  You don’t personally produce the item being sold on Etsy but you have tips for how the sellers could do it better!

Our HandmadeMarketing.org team received an excellent set of tips from Bianca Woods with tips for taking handbag photos on Etsy.  You can see Bianca’s shop “Shiroiko” here.

“I don’t make purses and bags,” Bianca tells us, “but I do like them an awful lot. I’ve seen a lot of lovely bags hampered by minor issues that could easily be corrected.”

Bianca has three tips for Etsy handbag sellers who have photos that could use some work:

“Invest in a light box!” suggests Bianca.  “All the Photoshoping in the world can’t make your photos as good as a great light box setup. Believe me, I learned this the hard way with my own shop. You don’t even need to invest much money. There are tons of tutorials online for how to make one for cheap (or noting) available online.”

Bianca’s second tip is to arrange your bags in multiple poses.  “A bag is a 3-D object and customers will want to investigate how it looks from many angles before they decide to buy it,” says Bianca.  “I’ve seen too many Etsy bag stores who just show their bags from the front and top and then call it a day. Show us the back… show us the side… show us important detailing! Make your poses exciting using props and angled poses. Treat your bag like a supermodel!”  Vogue!

Bianca’s third tip seems quite simple, but our team sees this all the time!  “Make sure your bag looks crisp and sturdy in your photos,” Bianca suggests.  “It makes me sad when bags that are made in beautiful fabrics with excellent construction, but look sloppy, slouchy, and wrinkled in photos. There’s a reason when you buy a bag in a department store it often is stuffed with tissue paper: this helps it keep it’s shape, which makes it more appealing and makes it look more expensive. So when you’re getting ready to photograph your bag, give it some internal structure by stuffing it. Also remember to press it so it has no wrinkles and even consider a light starching so it behaves the way your want it to.“

“In particular,” Bianca continues, “make sure the opening of your bag looks crisp and sturdy in your photos.  For some reason this one really sticks out for me. I love seeing that shot of the inside of the bag, but sometimes it can be the shot that makes the bag look the worst.”

“In order to make your bag look as luscious and desirable as possible, I recommend trying to get the opening to look as much like an elongated oval as possible; you want the opening to look symmetrical along the middle and have no ends flopping this way and that,” says Bianca.  “Bag pictures where the mouth of the bag is asymmetrical or wrinkled never look as inviting to me as symmetrical ones… in fact, I’d go so far as to say they make your bags look cheap; and your bags are NOT cheap! Try this out; I think you’ll be happy with the results, even if it means having to fuss with the mouth of the bag a bit.”

“I hope it helps you think about what tweaks you can do to market your bags better by making your pictures make Etsy shoppers covet wildly!”

Well said Bianca!  We couldn’t agree more!

We would love to hear any additional handbag photography tips for Etsy sellers!  What worked for your shop?  Maybe more importantly, what didn’t work that you would like other sellers to know?

Contribute to HandmadeMarketing.org by suggesting a tip about advertising, taking better handmade item photos, or finding new buyers.  If our editors like your idea, we will feature your tip in a future article and cite you as the source.  To share your ideas, click here.