In the 21st century, technology is more and more advanced and plays an important part in our lives. Thanks to the Internet, now we can connect with friends around the world via social media platforms. We can read news and watch videos for free. We can also have opportunities to create online stores to sell your products to other people that are far from your place.
If you are selling online, the initial things, that you need to have, are products and photos of your products. But in this digital era, other people can easily steal your photos and use them for their stores.
To protect your hard work and not let other people use your photos without your consent, sometimes you wonder whether you should watermark your digitals or not.
Should I sell digitals with a watermark?
The answer is Yes. Many online stores and sellers around the world often face the same problem that their photos or their digital assets are stolen and used for other purposes.
If you go online and visit many forums related to eCommerce, online selling platforms, and social media places, you will see a lot of complaints from many sellers. If you sell your products on Etsy, you can see that many product photos of Etsy sellers are stolen. It is not a new thing.
To prevent the situation, you should watermark all your product photos before posting on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Watermarking your digital assets is not only a good way to protect your assets but also a powerful marketing tool for your company and brand.
Many shops and online sellers often add watermarks to their product images to make customers remember their brands easier.
When users and customers share the images, other people will know who created the images and know more about the brands. That is a powerful marketing way and the cost to make the watermarks is really cheap.
You can watermark your product photos or prints or designs and upload them to your online store/platforms. But remember that you shouldn’t upload the original photos or digitals. You should watermark and upload lower resolution versions and keep the high quality and original versions private.
When customers purchase your digital products or photos, at that time you should show and give them the original version you created.
A few things to consider
- When you plan to sell digitals on the web, you should always have your own licenses. You can create your own licenses or read other licenses for reference. When you sell photos, designs, arts, and graphics online, licenses are important. They will tell your buyers about what they can do with your products and what they cannot do. The licenses are also your best friends when it comes to copyright protection. Several eCommerce platforms also have their own licenses and before you sell your digital products on the platforms, you should read them carefully.
- You should often check whether your digitals or photos are stolen or used without your permission or not. There are many ways to check this. You can use Google Image Search or often visit other stores to check. This habit will help you protect your digital products better.