Every car has a certain look.
Every car’s interior and drive has a certain feel.
Every car fits a certain set of lifestyles and a certain group of buyers.
So how does a buyer find the right car? Under gaze in a lot or a driveway, a car can sell itself. But that’s not true online.
- A 2024 Cox Automotive study found that car buyers perform more than half of their buying journey steps online.
- A 2024 Cars.com study surprisingly found that as high as 16% of millennials and 9% of Gen Zers are willing to fully purchase a car online.
How exactly does the car buying process start to happen? Primarily with photos.
Looking at the listings of car platforms, it’s clear that most cars for sale online are not being given their due.
Unsold on a platform, nice cars are lost opportunities:
- For drivers and passengers: They don’t get the driving experiences that they should have had.
- For a platform and its sellers, who could have freed up money and time for other uses.
This is a problem, and there is a fix.
Online Car Platforms and Dealers Need Specialized Photographers
Photos are not homogenous marketing tools. They are differentiated. This is especially true with cars.
A car is a complex machine. Adapted to modern life, the standards to which cars are held include both functional and aesthetic elements.
When buyers flip through listings on car platforms, they are applying their standards to the photos they see. They aren’t in the lot or the driveway — they see photos.
A Snappr study of 600 U.S. consumers from 2020 found that car photos were three times more important than written information.
At this point the role of expertise has to be admitted to the discussion: not the buyer’s, and not the seller’s, but rather the photographer’s expertise.
A photographer who has deep experience in capturing the dynamism of cars brings to the eyes of potential buyers exactly the kind of information they need.
Consider a short list of factors that photographers must consider when snapping shots of cars:
- Lighting and reflections
- Camera angles and dynamism
- Scene setting and background elements
If the car is used, the photographer must also capture the realism of flaws without undermining the upsides of the vehicle.
This is not an exhaustive list.
But abstract categories do not explain the significant differences in the quality of car photos online.
Compare photos of different cars
This convertible from an earlier era in the United States has a vintage vibe to it. The sunny green field beside it makes for a fine match.
The details of this car are easy to focus on because the background coheres with the subject of the shot. The viewer’s eyes stay glued to the convertible.
But one shot does not do the trick online, especially when the objective is to capture dynamism, that of a buyer’s lifestyle in action.
Observe a 360 view of a very different car:
Everybody knows what corvettes offer: a sleek style with high performance. The subject of this photo is a collector’s item. It is meant to be savored by the owner and appreciated by other people.
Used though it may be, the photos show that previous owners cared for the Stingray. Golden light puts the car’s aggressiveness and status on display.
The bottom line benefit of high-quality photos for marketplaces
A marketplace, at its core, brings about meetings of minds. That is, between buyers and sellers.
The quality photos just analyzed come from the same service. It’s no coincidence why marketplaces like these use it:
- Bring a Trailer
- Cars & Bids
- eBay
- Expedia
- Walmart
So, what if every online car platform had a team of specialist photographers creating views for online shoppers? The effects would be:
- Buyers finding the right vehicles sooner
- Buyers finding better-fit vehicles
What would happen to an online car marketplace that has this team when its closest rival does not?
It would gain market share, except that a significant number of high quality, on-brand photos isn’t enough. The process leading up to that result ought to be efficient on time and cost effective.
Car Platform Marketing Has a Significant Scaling Problem
An online car platform needs quite a few photos. It has responsibility for a fleet of vehicles. They need to get sold.
When it comes to getting polished photos at scale, there are two main issues facing marketing teams at car platforms:
- The time it takes
- The money it costs
Let’s break this down.
Any given car may require a couple dozen photos or more, if various angles are included for the interior as well as the exterior. Multiplied by the number of vehicles in the fleet, that’s a significant number of photographer hours.
The more photographer hours needed, the more photographers a car platform needs.
Every photographer brought on board needs:
- To have their own equipment
- To be vetted as reliable and an expert in auto
Photographers have different pricing structures and it may be difficult to predict how much will need to be paid on a regular basis.
These cars are in different lots and driveways.
The greater the number of locations, the more issues that need to be solved.
Setup
A particular photographer will need time to set up and prepare at a location. More locations means potentially more need to schedule a shoot for another day.
Distance and time
A photographer may only be able to cover a certain geography, meaning the geographic spread of listing locations can increase the number of needed photographers.
The sheer weight of internally-imposed deadlines to get a sharp listing out the door complicates all of this.
- Using multiple visual content tools adds hassle.
- Working with a team is great but collaboration does involve complications.
- Editing the work of photographers is difficult and there is inconsistency in the application of brand and creative standards across listing photos.
All these problems are solvable.
48% of the A16Z Top 100 Marketplace and 73% of the Fortune 500–including Ford–know these problems are solvable. That’s because they use Snappr.
Snappr Workflows: The One-Stop-Photo-Shop for Cars
Marketing teams at online car platforms who use Snappr Workflows will be able to secure branded galleries providing 360 views of each car in the fleet:
- On demand
- With the benefit of editing support
- For any location in the United States
- Without sacrificing consistency in the brand style or photo quality
Photographers with vertical expertise can shoot at any location
Snappr’s network of photographers covers 90% of the world’s English-speaking population. That includes a deep bench of contractors with auto-specific portfolios and cultivated taste as photographers.
- They show up on site.
- They bring their own equipment.
The booking process is managed
Snappr finds the right photographer and sets up the shoot, including for multiple dealership locations.
Snappr handles the operations of the photoshoot and communications, including rebookings and scheduling issues.
Turnaround time is quick
Marketing teams for online car platforms, pressed for time as they are, will benefit from being able to book photo shoots–and changes to them–with 24-hour notice.
Photo turnaround time is 24 to 48 hours, including quality control and edits.
Customers receive editing support and tools
After the photographer turns in the stills, Snappr does its own post-shoot work to ensure quality and brand coherence. Automatic post-production quality control includes optimization of listings for resale or auction.
Customers can use AI-powered editing tools unique to Snappr and have access to editing assistance from Snappr customer support. By themselves or with Snappr’s assistance, options include:
- Use of smart filters
- Automatic retouching
- Editing of batches of images
- Manipulation of background elements
Brand and creative standards are upheld across all photos
Online car platforms need photos to be consistent.
EV case study
Consistency was also needed by a major player in traditional and renewable energy sectors, building an integrated electric vehicle charging platform across public, commercial, and residential environments.
This firm needed photo documentation of media assets displayed at its charging stations. It relied on maintenance workers to provide photos, but these were not consistent.
After working with Snappr:
- Photos were higher quality and consistent with brand requirements.
- Proof-of-performance reports were submitted sooner.
- The firm was happy.
Enterprise customers and Snappr work together to create shoot guides that provide brand and creative standards to photographers. Guidelines are automatically placed into workflows for photographers to review.
Workflows are customizable and easy to use
Workflow creation is a drag-and-drop operation and it requires zero coding.
All completed and active photoshoots can be located in one dashboard.
All content assets can be located in the dashboard. Everything is searchable.
Every visual content tool that a car platform might need is integrated with Snappr Workflows, such as Photoshop and Amazon S3.
Enterprise packages for Snappr Workflows
- It’s cheaper than a studio and certainly cheaper than an agency.
- Pricing for enterprise is based on actual need and leads to a substantial per-photo discount.
- Customers receive a perpetual license to the photos.
Online Car Platforms Can Replace Bad Car Photos at Scale
Online car platforms need:
- Speedy production of quality photos
- For consistent branded galleries
- With expert editing support
Established marketplaces like Bring a Trailer, Cars & Bids, and others bring their visual content needs to Snappr because it gets the job done.
Start a conversation with the Snappr team.
