One photo guide, nine retailers

Pahka, from Kangasala, makes birch furniture by hand with three carpenters. It sells through its own online shop and nine interior stores. When we started, the same €1,200 armchair looked different in every channel.

In the online shop, the chair stood against a white background, and the handwork looked like catalogue stock. Retailers photographed it in their store lighting, some with a phone, some with a flash. Customers could not tell what chair they were getting.

Light is part of the product

You only notice handwork when light falls on the wood. So we photographed the whole collection in window light: a lookbook in three real homes, studio shots and workshop shots that show only the carpenter’s hands.

A guide that is easy to follow

Photos are not enough if the retailer shoots the next batch their own way again. We wrote a photo guide that fits on one spread:

• light: from a window at the side, no flash, no ceiling light
• framing: the whole chair, the curve of the armrest on a third
• background: a pale wall or wood, no white paper
• image pack: ready product page images in six sizes.

Now customers see in the photo the same chair they get at home.

A return is the most expensive photo

A furniture return costs freight both ways and the carpenter’s hours. When the photo matches the product, fewer chairs come back. Pahka’s returns fell by 15% and online conversion rose by 24%. All nine retailers now use the same image pack. The full Pahka story.