*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 28, 2024, 06:19:23 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Donate

We Appreciate Your Support

Recent

Author Topic: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops  (Read 7944 times)

Offline westwaller

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 770
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #15 on: May 20, 2019, 09:58:27 PM »
Yep. It is really annoying and ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as sites that don't have a telephone number and miniature companies that don't send their products out within a reasonable time. (Without a reasonable excuse or a notification of delay)
I don't buy miniatures that I can't see what they look like. In fact I went to a website just the other day and found that there wasn't a picture of what I wanted to buy, so no sale.

Offline Nordic1980s

  • Librarian
  • Posts: 158
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #16 on: May 21, 2019, 10:19:34 PM »
Good grief at the low quality apologetics:
  • it's too much of work to cast all the pieces – no it isn't, it's called YOUR JOB!
  • it's too much of work to photograph all the pieces – firstly it's called YOUR JOB; secondly eBayers and online auctioners routinely take hundreds and thousands of unique photos in improvised conditions in addition to their day jobs, family life and other daily chores, whereas sellers would need to take the stock photos only once per item type, would do it during their work hours and could arrange for a dedicated photo setup at their non-residential work place
  • fulfilling orders takes all the time – if the amount of gold and silver coming through doors and windows is felt overwhelming, a cheapo teen/summer help assistant or two will relieve one of physical work while not impacting too much the money flow (or perhaps even allowing for doubling or tripling the income).
Now, the Mithril Medallion of Selfless Service to Mankind goes to all those bloggers, forum writers and wiki creators who answer online inquiries about various miniature lines, take size comparison shots and post detailed close-up shots. Some folks are even known to paint the miniature models (no joke) to showcase their potential for beauty of secondary creation. All those people are doing the merchants' work by voluntarily practising elementary level businessman craft – while not getting paid a penny for it.

Not all us go into the business looking to grow to the size of GW
How about two or three people? History has taught us great things can happen with that size of a crew (link).

Just as annoying as no pictures are tiny thumbnails that when you click on them to enlarge them, are still tiny thumbnails >:(
How about tiny thumbnails in webshops that are linked into even smaller images?

Online Ultravanillasmurf

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 9304
    • Ultravanillasmurf
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #17 on: May 22, 2019, 09:20:53 AM »
Yes, it is annoying when a company has items on their website with no photographs. I would be unlikely to buy something without seeing it.

One of the problems is that  number of companies are small, and do not have in-house experitise on website management and contract it out. Having seen some of the eye-bleeding and brain melting designs of sites, they must have been conned.

If they have to pay for an update, it could well be financially a loser to pay to get a photograph of some elderly casting that you will sell six of put on your site.

And yes, clicking on a thumbnail and getting a little finger nail is just rubbish.it could be an issue with the content management system, file naming (also connected with the previous) or just poor communication between the web site management and the manufacturer.

There are some extraordinarily poor web shops out there, many seem to have a very close family resemblance.

They do not cater to all screen sizes (try looking at a number of sites on a tablet or smartphone - the header occupies most of the the screen).

Offline Fighting15s

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 226
    • Fighting 15s
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #18 on: May 22, 2019, 12:52:36 PM »
Good grief at the low quality apologetics:
  • it's too much of work to cast all the pieces – no it isn't, it's called YOUR JOB!
  • it's too much of work to photograph all the pieces – firstly it's called YOUR JOB; secondly eBayers and online auctioners routinely take hundreds and thousands of unique photos in improvised conditions in addition to their day jobs, family life and other daily chores, whereas sellers would need to take the stock photos only once per item type, would do it during their work hours and could arrange for a dedicated photo setup at their non-residential work place
  • fulfilling orders takes all the time – if the amount of gold and silver coming through doors and windows is felt overwhelming, a cheapo teen/summer help assistant or two will relieve one of physical work while not impacting too much the money flow (or perhaps even allowing for doubling or tripling the income).
How about two or three people? History has taught us great things can happen with that size of a crew (link).

As Mike patiently tried explaining, it may be "your job" but within that job you prioritise what you want in order to keep the greatest number of customers happy (he didn't use that language, but that's what he meant).

Fulfilling orders in a timely fashion always takes priority over everything else. The downside of failing in that regard is negative publicity and perceived unreliability. Reputation for quick, accurate delivery is more important than a full catalogue of pictures. A full catalogue of pictures is a bonus.

The vast number of unsatisfactory images on eBay show there is a difference between banging out images for a site full of tat or knock-offs and taking photographs that are commercially acceptable on a business website. What you've done its simply cite a source of unrelentingly dire pictures as an example of what can be done by people who just don't care or who have limited photographic ability. The wargames industry as a whole frequently demonstrates its inability to take good product shots - badly lit miniatures, glaring mould lines and obvious casting defects frequently appear on the news pages of some sites.

Not every small wargames business wants to grow past one person. Doing so nowadays requires obligations in the UK of sorting out workplace pensions and such, and therefore employing even one person (in addition to the owner) is going to be a non-starter if all the owner wants is a steady income and steady volume of work. I appreciate that in a money-driven culture that some people cannot understand why a business does not want to grow above a certain level of income and work, but none the less that's the basis on which a number of one-man bands work: a sufficiency of work and income to keep one fully occupied. Citing Games Workshop as what can become of something that starts small is irrelevant. Hiring a part-time monkey, therefore, is not actually an option for some.

I'm in the unusual position where I have taken on Mike's old range of 15mm figures that he never had time to re-photograph in 12 years. It's more than 800 codes that need casting before they can be photographed. Those photographs that exist are, by my standards (I used to work on a photography magazine), dire and tiny, done for a time when screens worked to a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. On today's screens, they show as a relatively much smaller area, and may be no bigger than the thumbnail images generated by today's ecommerce software - technology has simply rendered those original images obsolete. My e-shop software has over the years increased its recommended size for product shots to the point where they're three times bigger than they once were. So that gives the lie to the statement that "you only need to take stock photos once".

It's a substantial job to take new photographs but not, as you say "too much of [sic] work", neither to do the casting nor to take the photographs because it simply takes time, and as part of "my job" I will indeed be working on new photographs when I'm not putting out orders because I know the existing images for Gladiator Miniatures are not up to today's standards. But orders will in every instance take priority.

One customer recently asked me: "Is there any chance of some new pictures." To which the answer was simply: "Yes, there is every chance."
« Last Edit: May 22, 2019, 02:52:33 PM by Fighting15s »
Ian
Fighting 15s
Gladiator Miniatures, Fighting 15s Flags, Martian Empires and Flashing Blade Miniatures
https://www.fighting15s.com

Offline black hat miniatures

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 967
    • http://www.blackhat.co.uk/
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #19 on: May 22, 2019, 02:14:12 PM »
Ian said it all far better than I could...

Mike
Mike Lewis

Black Hat Miniatures
www.blackhat.co.uk

Offline fred

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4360
    • Miniature Gaming
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #20 on: May 22, 2019, 04:17:37 PM »
I’m glad I didn’t post my initial response to Nordic 1980s as the three above are much more reasoned and polite than mine would have been...

Offline Jagannath

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1653
    • Blades and Blasters
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #21 on: May 22, 2019, 04:35:59 PM »
Good grief.

Good grief at the low quality apologetics:
  • it's too much of work to cast all the pieces – no it isn't, it's called YOUR JOB!
  • it's too much of work to photograph all the pieces – firstly it's called YOUR JOB; secondly eBayers and online auctioners routinely take hundreds and thousands of unique photos in improvised conditions in addition to their day jobs, family life and other daily chores, whereas sellers would need to take the stock photos only once per item type, would do it during their work hours and could arrange for a dedicated photo setup at their non-residential work place
  • fulfilling orders takes all the time – if the amount of gold and silver coming through doors and windows is felt overwhelming, a cheapo teen/summer help assistant or two will relieve one of physical work while not impacting too much the money flow (or perhaps even allowing for doubling or tripling the income).
Now, the Mithril Medallion of Selfless Service to Mankind goes to all those bloggers, forum writers and wiki creators who answer online inquiries about various miniature lines, take size comparison shots and post detailed close-up shots. Some folks are even known to paint the miniature models (no joke) to showcase their potential for beauty of secondary creation. All those people are doing the merchants' work by voluntarily practising elementary level businessman craft – while not getting paid a penny for it.
 How about two or three people? History has taught us great things can happen with that size of a crew (link).
 How about tiny thumbnails in webshops that are linked into even smaller images?

Offline Nordic1980s

  • Librarian
  • Posts: 158
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #22 on: May 23, 2019, 03:37:43 PM »
An another field research day for grieftology – full steam ahead!  >:D
 
Not every small wargames business wants to grow past one person.
I wonder if any of those One Man Armies has ever thought that this just might have something to do with the occasionally erratic general level of smaller miniature businesses.

Doing so nowadays requires obligations in the UK of sorting out workplace pensions and such
This may shock the Anglos, but that has been the norm for large swathes of the industrial world at least since the 1950s. That's over 60 years ago. And we are doing just fine. So please, no more these special waivers and excuses.

and therefore employing even one person (in addition to the owner) is going to be a non-starter if all the owner wants is a steady income and steady volume of work.
To have a steady income with little or no work is the whole idea of organizing of work, aside from general efficiency. Now, perhaps some people like doing the various daily tasks of manufacturing, filling orders, taping shut cardboard boxes and alike. No problem with that.

I'm in the unusual position where I have taken on Mike's old range of 15mm figures that he never had time to re-photograph in 12 years. It's more than 800 codes that need casting before they can be photographed.
Ah, the classic procastination argument!  How about couple of moulds here and there? No need to have heaps of moulds or untold millions of cast model figures all present at once. Or even better yet: how about making a model photography an inherent part of casting process? I have witnessed with my own eyes how miniatures are spin-cast in a British factory setting and a simple cheapo camera setup aside the workbench would have fit like a glove. No need to be perfect. Anykind of photo > no photo.

The vast number of unsatisfactory images on eBay show there is a difference between banging out images for a site full of tat or knock-offs and taking photographs that are commercially acceptable on a business website. What you've done its simply cite a source of unrelentingly dire pictures
The eBay I know has a plenty of good quality photos, including of small items like stamps, coins, medallions and model figures. With amateur sellers sometimes emptying whole wardrobes and garages of stuff. Few times witnessed hobbyists offloading wargaming and hobby material rivalling in quantity a small hobby store's selection. Again, anykind of photo > no photo. Would you buy stuff from eBay if there were no item photos? I wouldn't.

So that gives the lie to the statement that "you only need to take stock photos once".
Shots are taken once, with editing (usually radical downsizing and lessening of quality) done on a publication by publication basis. No need to take stock photos more than once. In the magical age of scanners, film scanners, digital system cameras and commercial Photoshop plugin softwares, any old photo from decades ago can be conveniently re-sized into larger size, without any meaningful loss of quality.

The wargames industry as a whole frequently demonstrates its inability to take good product shots
To emulate the good aspects of earlier succesful business operations should not be seen as shameful but honourable instead. A simple research look at the old catalogues (link) may be of help to understand why consumers rewarded certain businesses consistently with monies, amongst other reasons. When one factors in the revolution of digital publishing in the early 2000s (little effort needed, little costs incurred, cheap or free publication platforms), I don't see any good arguments as to why consumer blindness could be accepted anymore. I just don't.

as part of "my job" I will indeed be working on new photographs
  Sounds good! Now, I'll proceed to bitch to this one other company for their non-existant item photos... (They won't take the clue telepathically, after all.)

A full catalogue of pictures is a bonus
...it used to be said in the 19th century! You guys need to catch up with modern times, for next year it's already 2020...
« Last Edit: May 23, 2019, 03:46:47 PM by Nordic1980s »

Online Ultravanillasmurf

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 9304
    • Ultravanillasmurf
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #23 on: May 23, 2019, 04:56:31 PM »
@Nordic1980s - ah, I have a "paperless office" system I can sell you.

For the industrial world, yes but now that governments want to get elected by cutting taxes rather than providing the services that used to be paid for by those taxes, UK employers from one man and his dog on up have to provide a pension scheme by law, no exceptions.

Photography - Sally White had a posting on Forum of Doom on her methods, nice results but time consuming.

I do have my suspicions that some product photographs were taken with "high resolution" webcams in the days when that meant VGA (the local Wilko is still selling 640x480 resolution webcams).

Mobile 'phone cameras and compact cameras generally lack the control required for figure photography. I lament the loss of my SLR camera (old age).

Adding learning Photoshop to an existing workload is a non-starter, plus if I saw an obviously photoshopped photograph, I would wonder what else had been tweaked. Upscaling photographs is rarely successful without a of of work. Some people find the wonderful world of computer aided design "easy" (having marvelled at Rich H's transition to CAD/CAM), others do not.

I could go on, but I have some figures to paint.

To close, I like to see before I buy, I am a slightly special case that with a few notable exceptions (those that still do mail order) I only buy at shows and (where available) shops.

I understand that some vendors do not have the time or ability to provide photographs of all their products for various (quite often understandable) reasons. A number of these reasons have been laid out in this thread by a number of vendors.

Nordic1980s thinks otherwise, and of course is entitled to his/her opinion.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2019, 04:58:28 PM by Ultravanillasmurf »

Offline Fighting15s

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 226
    • Fighting 15s
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #24 on: May 23, 2019, 05:27:11 PM »
@Nordic1980s Congratulations on using quotes in a manner that make it really hard to respond without the whole reply looking like a lapis legit.

For one, I'm not making excuses. The overriding priority of any small business is to put out orders first and do anything else second, something that you have not addressed. Again, it's reputation for prompt, accurate delivery that overrides any other concern.

For two, you clearly demonstrate that you do not understand how many one-man bands work in wargaming.

For three, despite this subject repeatedly doing the rounds on forums for every few years, the number of wargames businesses that have failed specifically because they do not have pictures of every product online is as far as I'm aware nil. Indeed, one wargames business whose site is very well illustrated has this week announced it is in trouble: it's not a lack of pictures but other factors that are more of an issue.

For four, your experience of eBay is different from mine. It's a world of poor or misleading pictures, although fortunately I don't need a picture of a 3/8ths Gripley to know what one is if I want one. And the thing about digital stock pictures taken years ago is that they cannot be enhanced. I've got several hundred rubbish ones that are beyond rescue electronically, and the only solution is to redo them.

For five, saying that there are 800 codes to cast before they are photographed is not procrastination. Quite clearly they get done in small batches, not all at once. And you can't simply photograph bare metal figures straight out of the mould, because that produces a result that is not commercially acceptable to anyone with any sense of quality. Any kind of photo is not better than no photo, because "any kind of photo" prompts requests from customers for better photos. As for why they aren't photographed as they are cast, see the point about fulfilling orders above all else, plus, for photography, the steps are casting, cleaning up, inking and waiting for the ink to dry, photography, picture editing. It's the sort of thing that people wait for a quiet spell to deal with, having quietly cast the figures during the normal process of fulfilling orders. But anyway, the mere fact that you're proposing that photographs be of unprepared figures (I've already got a stack of those) devalues any of your arguments and I can safely ignore you from now on. And also now that we've established your quality threshold for pictures is so low, it explains why you think eBay sellers do such a marvellous job.

For six, actually wargamers are well used to lists and ordering using them, particularly if they already have product by a company. Good practice is certainly to have all products illustrated, but even with 2020 looming the only vital ability is to be able to buy easily online. And even then, wargames businesses survive without that ability: a number of customers cannot cope with computers or electronic payment (and evidenced by the person who sent me 57 quid in cash through the post without including his name or address, even old tech is sometimes a bit confusing). A good proportion of my orders, for example, are placed by spouses who can cope.

Anyway, I'm sure 2025 will roll around soon enough and this topic will come up again. And you know what, nothing will change: fulfilling orders to maintain reputation will continue to be the driving priority, and businesses that fail to deliver promptly will continue to be a bigger concern for customers than businesses that do not provide a fully illustrated shop. I repeat that a fully illustrated catalogue of products remains a bonus.
« Last Edit: May 24, 2019, 08:11:31 AM by Fighting15s »

Offline warrenpeace

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1497
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #25 on: May 23, 2019, 05:52:32 PM »
A decade to a decade and a half ago I was buying 28mm WSS figures by the box load. Those figures are the majority of my "lead mountain." I was heaving them onto yet another storage shelf after yet another move just last weekend. When I bought them the photos on the manufacturer's websites ranged from:

1. Foundry - great photos of painted minis
2. Front Rank - great photos of both painted and unpainted minis
3. Old Glory - difficult to see photos of unpainted minis, but adequate
4. Dixon - no or few photos, actually ordered a few samples first!
5. Imperialist Enterprises - no website, but drawings on mailed paper
6. Irregular - no drawings or photos that I remember, and no website?

I also used to buy 1:2400 scale WW1 ships, sometimes with no photo from C-in -C or Viking Forge or WTJ.

But that was OK for then. And now I have my big "lead mountain." Now I only buy a few figures for Pulp on rare occasion. No more massed armies for me. And no more buying figures without photos. If I ever buy anymore 28mm WSS again, it will be from Ebor, a company that shows adequate photos. And any further WW1 ships will be from WTJ, which has enough photos to give me an idea of quality.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2019, 06:01:08 PM by warrenpeace »
Sailors have more fun!

Offline Firescale Whack

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 297
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #26 on: May 24, 2019, 02:53:33 AM »
A decade to a decade and a half ago I was buying 28mm WSS figures by the box load. Those figures are the majority of my "lead mountain." I was heaving them onto yet another storage shelf after yet another move just last weekend. When I bought them the photos on the manufacturer's websites ranged from:

1. Foundry - great photos of painted minis
2. Front Rank - great photos of both painted and unpainted minis
3. Old Glory - difficult to see photos of unpainted minis, but adequate
4. Dixon - no or few photos, actually ordered a few samples first!
5. Imperialist Enterprises - no website, but drawings on mailed paper
6. Irregular - no drawings or photos that I remember, and no website?

I also used to buy 1:2400 scale WW1 ships, sometimes with no photo from C-in -C or Viking Forge or WTJ.

But that was OK for then. And now I have my big "lead mountain." Now I only buy a few figures for Pulp on rare occasion. No more massed armies for me. And no more buying figures without photos. If I ever buy anymore 28mm WSS again, it will be from Ebor, a company that shows adequate photos. And any further WW1 ships will be from WTJ, which has enough photos to give me an idea of quality.


Irregular have a great website considering how large their range is.

http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/

Offline Dent

  • Student
  • Posts: 11
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #27 on: May 24, 2019, 05:24:16 AM »
While doing it at once would be great, taking pics of unphotographed figures as they are ordered would be a start. You can do it with a phone camera and a glossy light blue piece of paper for the back ground. It will take a while, but its a start.
Quad licet jovis non licet bovis!

Offline Fighting15s

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 226
    • Fighting 15s
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #28 on: May 24, 2019, 06:55:28 AM »
While doing it at once would be great, taking pics of unphotographed figures as they are ordered would be a start. You can do it with a phone camera and a glossy light blue piece of paper for the back ground. It will take a while, but its a start.

Again, such pictures are not of commercially acceptable quality. There is no point taking pictures of unprepared figures: detail is next to impossible to see. This is the sort of photograph that prompts the response from customers of "Do you have better photographs?".

Offline v_lazy_dragon

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1829
Re: Missing product pictures in online miniatures shops
« Reply #29 on: May 24, 2019, 07:05:11 AM »
Again, such pictures are not of commercially acceptable quality. There is no point taking pictures of unprepared figures: detail is next to impossible to see. This is the sort of photograph that prompts the response from customers of "Do you have better photographs?".
Or worse - those look awful, look at the poor/lack-of detail...
Xander
Army painters thread: leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=56540.msg671536#new
WinterApoc thread: leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=50815.0