Your Ads Aren’t the Problem. Your Product Photos Are.

Steve Hutt: Hey there, welcome back to eCommerce Fastlane. I’m your host, Steve Hutt. Today, we’re going to talk about the one page that I believe, and I’m sure my guest believes this too, really decides whether all the money you’ve spent driving traffic actually pays off. That’s your PDP, or product detail page. Today, I’m joined by Jeff, who’s the head of imaging at Photoroom. They’re at photoroom.com. Jeff is my kind of guy. I took a look at his LinkedIn profile and did a little research before recording. He’s spent close to 37 years running imaging at scale for brands including Gap and Amazon, and he helped run one of the world’s largest fashion photo studios. Today, he leads imaging at Photoroom, an AI photo and video tool that sellers use to create incredible product images that help them sell better. It’s available right inside Shopify. What really got my attention, and why we’re recording before BFCM, is that we’re only a few weeks away. Merchants are about to pay some of the highest ad costs of the year. Competition is massive, and everyone wants a strong return on ad spend. All that traffic is going to land on these product pages, so you have to make sure those pages are ready. Jeff’s team has done a lot of research, and we’ll talk about that in a moment. They reviewed almost 1,500 U.S. brands, and only 100 made the cut as truly great product pages. I’m hoping we can unpack what shoppers actually need and what makes a great PDP, so you can improve your conversion rate this holiday season. Jeff, welcome to eCommerce Fastlane.

Jeff Strauss: Thanks, Steve.

Steve Hutt: That was a long preamble, but you have a really storied background. I’d like to talk about that and set the stage a bit. As I mentioned, you worked in imaging at Gap and Amazon. What were some of the takeaways from those years that taught you how shoppers actually decide to buy?

Jeff Strauss: I can start with an interesting story from the beginning of digital photography. In 2000, I built the first large photo studio on the West Coast of America for Gap. We had 17 photographers working for us at the time. It was the dawn of internet sales. I had a vice president looking at my computer screen who said, “Man, I can’t wait until we can get scratch and sniff.” What he really wanted was to engage your senses. If you buy a T-shirt from Gap, you probably know what it will feel like, but he was really forward-thinking. This was 26 years ago, and he was trying to understand what shoppers need to make that purchase. A lot of what I do today is educate the merchants we work with about how to tell that story once they’ve captured a customer and brought them into the store, at what we call the top of the funnel. As customers move through that journey and reach the PDP, they decide whether they want to purchase. That decision depends on many different factors. You touched on our Photoroom 100. Here at Photoroom, we have a Product Page Rater where you can enter your store or a single item. We’ll automatically look at that item and tell you what’s missing and what you need to complete your product page.

Steve Hutt: It’s amazing. I actually tried it because a friend of mine has a pretty large leather bag brand. They do close to $20 million a year, and it’s a family business based in Chicago. I put in one of their bestselling crossbody bags to see what would happen. Even with a successful top seller, it was interesting to see what the tool picked apart. I sent him a copy and said, “You might want to have a look at this. Your bestseller and PDP are doing well, but here are a few minor tweaks.” This is top-of-the-line quality, but the bestseller still had a few things to improve. Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. Having independent eyes and technology look at the PDP can reveal things you hadn’t noticed. I’m waiting for his feedback because I just did it this morning.

Jeff Strauss: One of the things that really became clear once I went corporate was how quickly things move. I was on my own until 2000, when I took that job at Gap, and I saw it even more during my 11 and a half years at Amazon. As things progress, we’re going faster and faster.

Steve Hutt: Yeah.

Jeff Strauss: More information is coming at us, which means there’s an expectation to create more, faster. That does one of two things. I talk about the business triangle quite frequently: Do you want it faster? Do you want it cheaper? Or do you want higher quality? Something has to give, because if all three are neutral, you end up with something very boring in the middle. As we go faster, AI has unlocked a lot of the expensive requirements of photography. We can create things really fast and cheaply, but some of the challenges with AI are taste, hallucinations, and all the things people recognize. It’s easy to spot a virtual or synthetic model with three arms. We don’t see that very often anymore. Now, the questions are whether the size and length of a coat are correct. With jewelry, it’s really important that what you receive is what you saw and expected. Otherwise, your returns will shoot up, and that becomes a giant problem.

Steve Hutt: That triangle is interesting. I wrote it down. There’s faster, cheaper, and what’s the third part?

Jeff Strauss: Visual quality.

Steve Hutt: Visual quality. Okay, so that’s the taste side of it.

Jeff Strauss: Yes, it’s taste, and now it’s also about whether it’s believable. We talk about the ability to trick someone. We see this in politics, in the news, and throughout our lives. You used to be able to believe a picture was telling you the truth. Today, that’s not necessarily how we feel. We’re asking, “Is this really the truth you’re showing me, or has this been generated somehow?” It used to be Photoshop, and you needed to hire professionals to do that. Now, it’s not that hard. It’s interesting how the consumer’s mindset has changed and how merchants need to change with it.

Steve Hutt: Let’s talk about the PDP. That’s the crux of what I want to dig into today because it’s where a lot of the magic happens for brands. Merchants are pouring a lot of their budgets into ads and influencers to drive awareness and consideration, and they’re sending people to the PDP. Some are using long-form, custom landing pages. I’d argue that some products require more storytelling than a default or modified Shopify PDP can provide. Why do you think product pages get so little attention? People are sending traffic, but why aren’t they improving the quality and conversion potential of those pages?

Jeff Strauss: I think they’re just going so fast. We have to remember that really beautiful things draw you in.

Steve Hutt: Absolutely.

Jeff Strauss: But they don’t necessarily sell you the product. We’ve got three pillars. The first is product fidelity, which is about building trust through accurate details of the item. The second is visual realism, making sure the image looks like the item. If it doesn’t, you’ll know in your gut. I don’t care who you are or where you live on Earth, you can look at an image and say, “That’s probably not true.” It could be waxy, creamy skin or many other things. If you’re not an imaging professional, you probably won’t be able to explain why it doesn’t look right. You just know something is off. The last pillar is what really tells the story and gets you to push the buy button. We call it gallery completeness. That’s a gallery that converts because it tells you everything you need to know without having to read the descriptions or text about an item. You’re able to say, “Yes, this belongs in my life.” That could be something as simple as your lunch, or it could be a multithousand-dollar leather bag that your friend is selling.

Steve Hutt: I read a bit of what you’ve written on LinkedIn, and you say product photography is really a conversion problem, not a design problem. Is that what these pillars are about: product fidelity, visual realism, and gallery completeness? Is that part of your methodology and mindset?

Jeff Strauss: Yes, for sure. Those are the three pillars we used to grade the 1,500 websites for the Photoroom 100 and narrow them down to the 100 best across four different verticals. On Monday, I have a conversation with one of the judges. We’re doing a webinar to discuss her perspective. She’s spent 40 years in the business as a creative director in fashion, working with really great fashion businesses. We’ll talk about what made her vote for the brands she chose. We pulled 40 of those brands out. It comes down to: Do I understand the item? Are you telling me the truth? Does the gallery, or mix of images, give me everything I need to make a decision?

Steve Hutt: I can’t wait for that webinar. I’ll make sure it’s in the show notes, either the live webinar or the recording, depending on when it goes live. I’ll update the show notes accordingly. Maybe we can get a sneak peek at the Photoroom 100. As I mentioned at the top of the show, you reviewed more than 1,500 brands and narrowed them down to the Photoroom 100. We don’t want to give away all the secret sauce before the webinar, but from your perspective, what did the top 100 do that everyone else didn’t do very well? I know there are a lot of nuances, but generally speaking, what stood out? We’ve already talked about fidelity, realism, and completeness.

Jeff Strauss: If I’m totally honest, it’s not a tough question at all. The brands that make it into the Photoroom 100 are investing enough resources. That means time. Slow down and make sure what you’re doing gets the importance it deserves. Maybe they’re investing financially by having a professional studio do their work. That’s the big change: moving from a professional to something I can do and see instantly. But if I’m not a professional, I probably won’t create something nearly as good as a professional would. Think of a surgeon. You’d never do your own surgery. You’d go to a professional. AI and the speed at which we’re moving have made it possible for anyone to create an image for free because it’s digital. It used to cost you at least a dollar an image just for the film. Now, you can create as many as you want until you get something you think looks good. Then you have to filter, decipher, and take the time to make it fit your brand and become what it needs to be to make the Photoroom 100. We didn’t just look at small brands. We mixed small and large brands. I didn’t review them myself. I picked the top 1,500 and handed them off to a panel of judges who have all been in the industry for more than 20 years. It was really evident that the businesses doing a great job were taking the time to create their images and making sure their stores were well branded. When you look at something, you know what it is. Think of any big brand: the Nike swoosh or McDonald’s. McDonald’s is a great example. When you buy a McDonald’s hamburger, you know what you’re going to receive. It’s not going to look like the picture. The picture looks amazing because they’ve spent millions of euros or dollars on it, but you don’t expect the burger to look or taste like that picture. You can’t do that if you’re selling T-shirts or shoes.

Steve Hutt: Right.

Jeff Strauss: You’ve got to tell the truth.

Steve Hutt: This is amazing. When we talk about the quality of images being created right now, there are frontier image models doing some really impressive things. I see Photoroom as a fantastic harness on top of the image and video generation models available. On their own, though, those models don’t always do great work. That’s where the idea of AI slop comes in. What’s interesting is how you’ve tuned your harness. That’s more of an AI term, but I’m talking about how you’re able to use these models. I know you did some research using a lot of the leading AI image and video models. Based on my research, I think you tested around 850, and the best one got the product right only 29% of the time. What’s happening when brands use these leading models directly, and how is Photoroom different? How do your prompts or the harness on top of these models produce more accurate and complete results?

Jeff Strauss: I can talk deeply about the success rate. If a user goes out and uses one of these models, they’re working with that particular model. We use all of them, and we know on any given day which model is best for the type of generation you’re doing. One day, Gemini might be the best model. The next day, it might be GPT or another model. We look at them every day, or every time they update, and run everything through them to see what’s best. That puts us one step ahead. What really gets us there, though, is our quality assurance loop. Let’s say 29% of the images come out good enough. We look at the failures, regenerate those, and get to almost a 40% success rate instead of 29%. That’s still a 60% failure rate because AI isn’t perfect. But when you do the next generation, those gains compound. Instead of going from 30 to 60, you’ve gone from 40 to 80, so you’re now 20 points ahead. It catches up really quickly when you’re doing millions of images. Photoroom did over 7 billion images last year. We’re moving a lot of images through, and we’re learning from all of them how to provide something at scale that looks really great.

Steve Hutt: It’s amazing. I’ve written recently about the image and video models out there. Even though they keep improving, I still see a difference between going directly to something like GPT Image, Nano Banana from Google, or Flux from Black Forest Labs on the image side, and using Photoroom. On the video side, there are models like Kling, Veo, Sora, and Seedance. There are great models that do a lot of things, but the benefit I see in getting involved with Photoroom is that you’re doing so much of the research. You have enterprise and mid-market brands using the solution because you have the engineering team and the know-how behind it. You’re using the best available models, plus your harness, because you know what great looks like. That’s why your photos and videos come out at the quality they do.

Jeff Strauss: Our videos are a little different in that we have two video tools. We have the video generator for product videos at the PDP level, and we just came out with Video Ad Maker. That takes you through several prompts to understand your brand and what you want to communicate in your ad. We can automatically turn that into what you need for Meta, YouTube, TikTok, or any of the major platforms. We have the functionality to create different types of video, whether it’s an ad or an informational video for your PDP. It’s really taking off. It’s amazing.

Steve Hutt: This is really cool. I want to make a slight pivot. We’re pre-BFCM, and a Shopify brand might be wondering whether there’s an opportunity to improve its PDP with better images. As I mentioned, I ran my friend’s leather handbag product through the Product Page Rater, and it gave me a score. Do you recommend that as step one for checking some of your top SKUs? His product got 17 out of 20, which I think is pretty good. It’s a $20 million brand, and that was the number-one-selling SKU. But the tool suggested some interesting improvements: adding a product video, close-up photos, and a lifestyle scene. Those recommendations are accurate because none of those things are on that PDP right now. Is that step one for brands listening?

Jeff Strauss: I think there are a lot of steps in there. If we stick with your friend’s brand, I expect they have really strong brand recognition. With some of the larger Shopify stores, you know who you’re buying from. For smaller stores, it’s important to have that brand recognition, whatever that means for you. You could be a reseller with a bunch of different products. We recently did what we call dogfooding. We took one page from a Shopify customer who uses us, went through about 25 images, put them through the rater, and fixed them. It was a fantastic project because she ended up with what we thought were ideal pages for those 25 items. She went away and tested them, and she saw a 71% gain in add-to-basket for those specific items. That was a giant lift, and she came back to me pretty excited. She’s now revamping the hundreds of items in her Shopify store. We showed her how important this is. You don’t have those other senses I was talking about earlier. You can’t scratch and sniff or touch it. The only sense you have is visual. How do you make someone feel they need that item in their life? That’s what sells the customer.

Steve Hutt: It’s amazing. Without increasing your ad budget, you can make more revenue and profit through proper visual storytelling. That’s part of what your platform does for people. That’s why I like the grader. It’s a really neat entry point. Run your number-one-selling SKU through it, as I did with my friend’s product, and see what happens. From there, it’s an affordable solution once you get involved with the platform. Let’s talk about how it connects to Shopify and what the next steps might be for listeners. I think we have time. Code freeze hasn’t started yet. In the next week or so, a lot of apps and platforms will say, “We’re not changing our code base because we’re moving into the busy period.” But I still think there’s time to test the platform, at least with your bestselling SKU, and see what it shows. What do you recommend next?

Jeff Strauss: You can use the Photoroom for Shopify app, which you install through the Shopify App Store. You pay for your plan through Shopify, and that’s a streamlined, easy way to go. A lot of our Shopify customers also use us externally, or prefer to do that. It depends on who you are and what you’re doing. The cool thing about Photoroom for Shopify is that you can access your whole catalog and publish straight back to it. It’s streamlined and automated, and we see a lot of people doing that. You can also go into the Photoroom app and explore the products we have. It’s very easy to find information in our publications.

Steve Hutt: So there are two options: sign up directly and use the platform as a logged-in experience, or make modifications through the Shopify app, which connects your products to Photoroom. Let’s say I’m not logged in right now. I have a score of 17 out of 20, and there’s a blue button that says “Fix in Photoroom.” I’m trying to understand the guidance that happens from there because brands don’t have much time right now. As you said, people are moving fast. We’re pre-BFCM, but there’s still an opportunity to make more sales without increasing ad budgets by improving images and potentially adding video to the PDP. Walk us through what happens next, starting with the number-one-selling SKU, and how that extends to the rest of the catalog.

Jeff Strauss: When you go through Product Page Rater and click the button to fix your image, it doesn’t take you into the Shopify integration. It takes you to our external tool. At some point, we’ll develop it so it’s embedded in Shopify, but it’s still pretty new, and we haven’t done that yet. That doesn’t mean you can’t use the rater. It tells you what you should change, as it did with your friend’s bag, and you can then go into Photoroom for Shopify and make those changes.

Steve Hutt: Yeah.

Jeff Strauss: It’s really a personal preference, and it also depends on how much you’re changing. We all have slightly different workflows. For me, it’s much easier to use Photoroom’s external tools because you can batch things and work at a larger scale. If I were a small mom-and-pop business with only 20 items, I’d definitely do it through the Shopify integration.

Steve Hutt: I see. What about people who use ChatGPT or Claude as their source of truth? Is there an MCP connection, or are there plans for one? Some people like to work from a single place and have it pull information and perform different tasks. I’m curious about your approach to those connections.

Jeff Strauss: MCP connections are available through us.

Steve Hutt: Okay.

Jeff Strauss: They’re already readily available. If you go to our website, there’s a resources page with a tremendous amount of information about our APIs and everything we do. You can learn about the Photoroom 100 project, see who won, follow links to the brands, and understand why they won. There are video templates and all our webinars. We do a really good job with our resources to make sure our customers, whether they’re merchants or fine artists, can go in and figure out what’s available.

Steve Hutt: This is amazing. I wasn’t aware there was an MCP available. With that connection, you can access all the image tools you might want for an ad hoc edit or modification. You have virtual models, background removers, ghost mannequins, shadows, text removal, and positioning. It’s interesting that you can access the underlying technology and the image and video models within Claude, all through your Photoroom account. That’s pretty amazing.

Jeff Strauss: I can’t take credit for that. That’s all the teams.

Steve Hutt: It’s amazing to have that access because people get overwhelmed. From an image and video perspective, if you’re a Claude user, having a dedicated MCP connection is really interesting. Even if you’re not, I’m sure there are toolkits like Composio for other chat solutions. You’re getting access to an enterprise-quality image and video editing tool that helps brands across those areas. I think that’s really cool.

Jeff Strauss: It’s simple to use, too.

Steve Hutt: I love it.

Jeff Strauss: I’m the creative guy. I can’t spell MCP. When the guy who built it came to me, I was like, “This is pretty wicked.”

Steve Hutt: Yeah.

Jeff Strauss: It really is cool. Really cool.

Steve Hutt: As a side note for those listening, the nice thing about MCP is that if Claude is your source of truth and you connect the Photoroom MCP, you’re not limited to the native tools built into Claude for image and video work. Anthropic is clearly a market leader in a lot of areas, and there are other great frontier models out there. Claude seems to be gaining momentum as a source of truth for businesses. What’s interesting is that you can connect other parts of the business, too. Shopify can be connected through MCP, and on the financial side, you might have PayPal and QuickBooks. There’s a lot you can do. It’s becoming a command center for your business. It’s interesting to see where the market is headed and how progressive brands are thinking about a central source of truth connected through these MCPs.

Jeff Strauss: I’d say to your audience: Don’t feel like you’ve been left out. MCPs have only really caught on in the last six months or so. Again, that’s the speed at which our world is moving. Maybe in six months, there will be something else. But if you’re open to trying and using these tools, the changes are pretty spectacular.

Steve Hutt: It’s amazing, and time is of the essence right now. My main takeaway is to try the grader first. That will be in the show notes so people can try it. I think we also have a special trial or promotion for Fastlane listeners. At least put your number-one-selling SKU into the tool and see what the recommendation engine comes up with. I think you’ll be impressed. My friend’s site is already impressive, but the tool still showed opportunities to improve it. I’m looking forward to his feedback. At the end of the day, I want people to make more money, generate more revenue, and convert more visitors. You’re spending all this money to drive new visitors to your company. The least you can do is put your best foot forward visually, and that’s where Photoroom fits into the mix. Maybe you can talk about the next steps and the special offer for Fastlane listeners.

Jeff Strauss: Yes, Fastlane Max Rater.

Steve Hutt: Yes.

Jeff Strauss: I see it here in the notes.

Steve Hutt: That’s a good one. You get the Photoroom Product Page Rater, so you can see what to fix first. Then, from what I understand, you’re giving listeners 100% off their first month of Photoroom Max.

Jeff Strauss: I’ve never seen us give 100% off. Usually, we give 10% or 20%. This is a pretty incredible deal. I’m not going to lie to you. Go use us. That’s pretty awesome. It looks like the business is giving this away. Right now is really the time to go for it because, as you said, most retail businesses are going to make a great deal of their yearly income in the next couple of weeks. Go use our tool for free.

Steve Hutt: It’s amazing. You have to sign up before November 30, which is why we’re doing this now and launching before BFCM. Everybody wins here. Try the grader and see what’s going on. There’s a seven-day free trial as part of the process when you click to fix your PDP. You can go through onboarding and get that trial. With this code, you can get 100% off your first month using the web app. It’s pretty cool. Honestly, I’m on page two of notes. I love the triangle of faster, cheaper, and visual quality. I need to put something together about that because it’s really interesting. Your three pillars of product fidelity, visual realism, and gallery completeness encapsulate the benefits of Photoroom. Any parting thoughts or next steps for those listening?

Jeff Strauss: Get out there and do the work. That’s really what I’m saying. Go slowly. Look at what you’re doing. Make sure it’s going to get one of your relatives, maybe your mom or your kid, to cross the finish line and push the buy button. If not, you’ve failed yourself.

Steve Hutt: You got it. Thank you so much, Jeff, for making time to come on the show. I know you’re massively busy. There’s a lot going on, including the webinar about the Photoroom 100, and you’re out telling the Photoroom story. Thank you for taking the time.

Jeff Strauss: I’ve got a couple of questions for you. Would it help if I sent you information on the three pillars, or are you all good?

Steve Hutt: That would be great. If you could send whatever you have, I’ll add it to the show notes. It would be really helpful visually. I’ll also do a blog post for the episode, and I’d like to talk about the three pillars. I love the faster, cheaper, and visual quality triangle, too. The taste and believability aspects are really interesting. I’ve learned a lot.

Jeff Strauss: Cool. I can send you some slides on that. No problem. I’ve got lots of material I can pull together for you. I’ll also give you the Luma signup link, or you can go to LinkedIn. I posted about the webinar a couple of hours ago. It would be great if you could give us a little push. We always want more people.

Steve Hutt: I’ll do it. All right, Jeff. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Jeff Strauss: Thanks. Have a good day.

Steve Hutt: All right, cheers.