Product presentation and image strategy for online stores — visual merchandising built for the digital shelf.
Over six months, you'll learn to show products online in a way that makes people want them. From image strategy and product photography to building category pages and keeping brand consistency across hundreds of items.
What a visual merchandiser used to do on a shopping street — guiding the eye, setting a mood, showing a product at its best — now happens inside a 300-by-400-pixel product image. Same questions, different medium. This course teaches you that translation: a visual language that matches the brand, photography that actually communicates scale and material, and pages where the eye lands exactly where it should.
Sound familiar?
Then this is the right place.
Two questions first
No. This course is entirely focused on the online channel: webshops, marketplaces and social. Physical window displays and store layout aren't part of it.
No photography or Adobe expertise required. You do need vocational-level or degree-level work and thinking skills, an eye for imagery, and a camera or phone to practise with.
The programme
Where this leads
The highlighted roles appear on UWV's list of high-opportunity occupations for 2026–2027. Note: UWV's definition of "visual merchandiser" also covers physical window displays and store layout. This course trains you for the online version of that trade — product presentation across webshops, marketplaces and social.
Who it's for
The group stays small and mixed. A webshop owner with five hundred products and a photographer looking to specialise learn just as much from each other's questions.
In their own words
Visual Merchandiser Online is a new course. Its components build on our experience with Photoshop, image development, AI imagery and hands-on design classes in small groups.
"Learned a lot in a short time."
Eveline Photoshop and photography · rated 8/10
"This really helped me with prompting images."
AI Imagery participant Course evaluation
"The classes are hands-on and the groups stay small."
Lysette Rindertsma UI/UX course · Google review
Price, exam and diploma
Every course is priced the same way. Tuition and exam fees are split deliberately, so you can see exactly what you're paying for — and so the exam can be listed as its own line item in an application to UWV or an employer.
Tuition
Exam and diploma
The exam is more than a formality: an examiner is scheduled, your work is assessed independently, and the result is formally recorded. UWV wants that cost itemised on its own, which is why it isn't folded into tuition. Raise both figures with your UWV advisor so they land in the application together. Combined, the course comes to € 5,230.
Exam and diploma
The course ends with a full exam and a portfolio presentation. Pass, and you receive a diploma. Skip the exam, and you'll get a certificate of participation instead.
You'll present a complete product presentation: image strategy, a photographed series, a styled product page and category page. That case then goes straight into your portfolio.
Also included
You can combine this course with Art Club, portfolio feedback and other Art and the City modules.
Choose your route
Live online classes, assignments and feedback
VAT-exempt · payment plans available
Not sure about your level, timing or funding?
about 20 minutes
Have your employer or UWV fund the course
we'll supply the supporting documentation
See your optionsFAQ
One two-hour class in the evening, plus three to five hours of independent study and assignments. The class runs in the evening so you can combine the six-month course with your job.
No. You can start with a modern phone. We focus on light, background and styling — that shapes the result far more than the camera does.
No. This course is entirely focused on the online channel: webshops, marketplaces and social. Physical store presentation isn't part of it.
Yes. You receive a diploma after the full exam and portfolio presentation. Without the exam, you'll get a certificate of participation instead.
Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom for image editing, InDesign for guidelines and presentations, plus AI workflows for variations and backgrounds.
The course is part of our UWV training offer. Whether funding is possible in your situation is decided by your UWV employment advisor or occupational specialist. We supply the programme, workload, start dates and a case for job prospects, so your application is complete. More on this at Through UWV.
Whether you want to present your own collection better or specialise in product imagery, we're glad to help you get there. Enroll now, or book a no-obligation intake call first.