Work at a dealership and take car photos or in charge of making sure they get done?

[Tony.Steen]

Hey there, I run product and GTM at a startup that's trying to help dealers instantly and consistently get the perfect car photos but doesn't remove any important imperfections that break trust when the lead shows up at the dealership.

I've only worked as a detailer at dealership decades ago so would appreciate being able to learn from anyone who either takes car photos and puts them online or is in charge of making sure someone else gets this done.

We've launched our product and have 20 dealerships signed up through a distribution partner with an exclusive in a few countries. However we need to understand our customers and users much better so we will build something useful for people like you.

Since you all are experts in the car selling game your opinion and advice would greatly help.

I'd love to know what you're using now for car photos and how you feel about it.

Thanks

 

[dealerdata1]

I'd say the only way to learn is to do.

Go to a handful of dealerships and say you will handle their photos for free for the day/week or shadow the photo person to understand the flow

Everyone is a tad different in process

We used DSLR's and processed photos through lightroom for color enhancement and touchups (not removing damage) but other dealers will be out taking photos on their iPhones and what not

We also did a decent amount of high line or exotic cars, so that required a different level of care and attention to detail in photos thus using the DSLR

 

[Tony.Steen]

Jake, it sounds like you were shooting some top flight cars.

You're right about making the offer to do it for them or shadowing. It will be the best way to learn and I've added it my to-do list.

So you used high end digital cameras and adobe lightroom.

How did you determine whether your pics were any good? Did you just look at them and say, "Yep these look great" or did you have some marketing or quality numbers you looked at?

 

[dealerdata1]

How did you determine whether your pics were any good? Did you just look at them and say, "Yep these look great" or did you have some marketing or quality numbers you looked at?

Can you define this further?

I originally went to college for fine art where I specialized in ceramics and photography, so as far as "Yep, these look good" is 100% accurate in how I determined the quality

But if it concerns attaching metrics to the quality of photos, that is hard to judge but time to sale was typically an indicator for us.

It was not out of the realm that once I posted the pictures of the car it would sell within the week, and the fastest was same day. Yes, these aren't fleet cars or rental bombs as they are 911's and corvettes, or other desirable sports cars, but at the same time, we weren't the only dealer in the Country stocking these cars

 

[Tony.Steen]

Can you define this further?

I originally went to college for fine art where I specialized in ceramics and photography, so as far as "Yep, these look good" is 100% accurate in how I determined the quality

But if it concerns attaching metrics to the quality of photos, that is hard to judge but time to sale was typically an indicator for us.

It was not out of the realm that once I posted the pictures of the car it would sell within the week, and the fastest was same day. Yes, these aren't fleet cars or rental bombs as they are 911's and corvettes, or other desirable sports cars, but at the same time, we weren't the only dealer in the Country stocking these cars

I know about the rule of thirds and think I'm a creative genius...okay maybe not so much. Any other advice that's a rule of thumb to up my creative game?

Sounds like you guys tracked how long it takes to sell a car. You'll probably think this is a dumb question but when did the clock start running and when did it end? How did you keep track of those numbers?

 

[carguyfiles]

Time to sale is the right instinct and it is also the one number that will mislead you, because on a 911 the car is doing the selling. Jake said as much himself. Run that metric across a row of Altimas and it goes flat.
The measurable thing I see is much dumber than quality, and it is photo count. We have listing data across 196 rooftops, and count inside a single store swings all over the place. Same store, same week, same photographer: one car goes up with 40 photos and the next goes up with 4. Nothing about the cars explains it. What explains it is the unit came back from detail at 4:30, or there were eight to shoot and the person got through five.
So if you want a number your 20 stores can act on, use the variance within one rooftop rather than an average across all of them. The average will look fine and hide the whole thing. Pull photo count per VIN, sort ascending, and the bottom decile is the story. Those are the cars nobody can shop.
On imperfections, I would widen what you mean by trust. The "this is not what I saw online" moment at the lot comes from price at least as often as from the paint. 22.6% of posted listings change price after going live, so plenty of cars have an honest photo set sitting next to a stale number. If you are building the thing that watches the listing, watching whether it still matches the car is worth more than watching whether the photo is pretty.
Against myself, Jake is right that on high line the retouch is the actual risk and no metric catches it. Painting the curb rash out of a $90,000 car buys you one bad review that outlives the sale.
Full disclosure, I build inventory and Marketplace posting software for dealers, so weigh accordingly. For scale on the AI side, we have run 94,000 plus listing photos through processing and only 3,237 of those were background replacement, which is the one step that changes anything behind the car.

 

[dealerdata1]

I know about the rule of thirds and think I'm a creative genius...okay maybe not so much. Any other advice that's a rule of thumb to up my creative game?

Sounds like you guys tracked how long it takes to sell a car. You'll probably think this is a dumb question but when did the clock start running and when did it end? How did you keep track of those numbers?

Rule of thirds to a degree - it is more of a guideline than a steadfast rule

Lighting, Angles, Separation

Proper lighting cleanly displays the quality of the vehicle from the cleanliness of the paint to the lack of wear on the interior, or highlighting exclusive features

Angles create movement and emotion - yes, even on the mundane cars. Shoot with the intention of highlighting the lines of the car to emphasis its body lines

Separation is often overlooked, but separation between foreground and background subjects increases the focus on the item you are photographing and gives you that nice bokeh

Even for the non-photographer, everyone recognizes the distinctive bokeh as linked to a quality photo, which is exactly why phones started emulating this in their software as this a physical occurrence in a SLR/DSLR camera

This is the easiest available photo I have demonstrating bokeh for the uninitiated - but you get it.

Post Afternoon Wash by Jacob Messer, on Flickr


But this is generally all overkill for a base model Civic, though I would argue good photos sell products and if you are taking better photos than the other 99 base ass Civics in the market, yours will stand out more