The best way to collect user generated content for an ecommerce store is to ask for one specific photo on WhatsApp a few days after delivery, then get written permission in the same chat before you use it anywhere. Say exactly where it'll appear, ask how they'd like to be credited, and keep their reply with the image. The customer owns the photo. You're borrowing it.
Most stores I talk to are already sitting on a pile of great customer photos. They arrived in WhatsApp: a sofa in someone's living room, a toddler in the new raincoat, a cake made with the baking tins. Then they sat there, because nobody knew whether they were allowed to use them. This post is about turning that pile into something you can actually publish, properly.
If you're collecting photos through your review app's form instead, read collecting photo and video reviews. This one is about the WhatsApp side: photos customers send you in conversation, and the permission you need before they go anywhere else.
What counts as user generated content in ecommerce?
User generated content (UGC) in ecommerce is any content about your products created by customers rather than by you: photos, videos, unboxing clips, written posts, even a screenshot of a happy message. It's valuable because it shows the product in real life, in real light, on real people, at real scale. A studio shot can't tell a shopper how big a 60cm planter looks next to a normal armchair. A customer's photo can.
UGC is different from a review. A review is published by your review app, with its own rules and verification. UGC is raw material you might use in many places: a product page gallery, Instagram, a WhatsApp broadcast, a paid ad, even a printed insert. Each of those needs permission.
Why WhatsApp is a good place to collect customer photos
People take product photos on their phones. WhatsApp is on the same phone, and sending a photo there is two taps from the gallery. No account to create, no form to fill, no upload limit to puzzle over.
It also lets you have a conversation. You can say "that looks great, could you take one in daylight?" or "would you mind if we cropped out the window?" A review form can't do that.
The trade-off is that WhatsApp makes it very easy to receive a photo and very easy to forget to ask permission. So build the permission step into the process, not into anyone's memory.
Who owns a customer's photo?
The customer does. Under US law, copyright exists automatically as soon as a work is fixed in a tangible form, and the U.S. Copyright Office uses taking a photograph as its example. Most countries work the same way. Sending you the photo on WhatsApp doesn't transfer that copyright and doesn't, by itself, give you a licence to publish it.
