Why Use Stock Photos?
An integral part of creating your online store is sourcing high-quality images which are related to your ecommerce business. If you don’t currently have the resources to source your own images, then you’ll need to rely on stock images to build brand authority and showcase professionalism.
We’ve created this article to highlight the best stock photo sites which you can use to source royalty free images for your ecommerce store. We’ve also included free image sites on our list to make life easier if you’re starting your ecommerce store on a budget.
Free vs Paid Stock Photos
Nowadays, there are hundreds of amazing free stock photos websites. In my opinion, it’s absolutely pointless to get paid stock photos for one reason: as soon as your image is not unique.
It’s important to understand the benefits and true costs of each type of file.
Royalty-free photos are definitely the most economical because they are less costly to begin with, and you can use the image any way you like. However, your competitors may be using the exact same image you are, because there is no way to control usage.
Stock images cost more upfront and any additional usages must be paid for separately. However the quality tends to be higher and you can pay for exclusive usage. Even if you don’t pay for exclusive rights, a stock image is less likely to be seen repeatedly because of the cost limitations for some clients.
All that aside, there are a ton of great sites providing amazing free stock photos for you to use.
Best Free Stock Photos
An integral part of creating your online store is sourcing high-quality images which are related to your ecommerce business. If you don’t currently have the resources to source your own images, then you’ll need to rely on stock images to build brand authority and showcase professionalism.
We’ve created this article to highlight the best stock photo sites which you can use to source royalty free images for your ecommerce store. We’ve also included free image sites on our list to make life easier if you’re starting your ecommerce store on a budget.
We’ve compiled a list of awesome resources for free, high-quality stock images for websites, blogs, and similar online properties.
From enviable office spaces to stunning scenery, we’re certain you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for with the help of this roundup.
Pexels is a particularly good choice for web or app designers, with an excellent set of device images that are ideal for displaying interface mockups. A couple of images stray close to stock photo cheesiness (ideas that are tricky to illustrate spelled out with scrabble tiles, for example), but the vast majority are creative and original.
You can create your own collections after signing up for an account. They’re ideal for inspiration, or gathering resources for a project.
Unsplash even has an iOS app, which helps you find stock pictures to use for creative work on an iPad or iPhone.
Currently, Pixabay is an interactive community that supports creatives in 20 languages and features free content that has been uploaded by more than 100,000 photographers and artists from all around the world. The worldwide platform offers one of the most extensive catalogs of stock photography and videos that you will find anywhere on the internet – all free of charge to public, with no special membership or subscription fees required.
There are no limitations to how to use Libreshot images. They are free and have no watermarks: attribution is also not required. All photos on Libreshot are licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain. You will not be breaking any law by using them. You can copy the images, and modify them for commercial purposes.
One of the most unique things about Kaboompics is that the entire project is ran by one person … Karolina, photographer and techie who founded the site a couple years back as a way to bring her photography to the world.
Today, Kaboompics is the home of over 17,000 free stock images, most of which can be viewed and sorted by ‘Photoshoot’ or by individual tag. This is a pretty impressive number for such a simplistic site, but the simplicity is another drawing point that we really appreciate.
In the same vein as Unsplash, Burst not only provides a sleek interface to explore but a very wide selection of images and categories to choose from as well.
Better yet, it provides both low- and high-quality images without copyright, depending on whether you’re adding images to a website or using images for graphic design.