Product images at scale: a workflow for supplier catalogs
A store that sells its own products can photograph every item in a studio. A store that sells products from suppliers usually cannot: there are too many items, they change too often, and many of them never pass through your hands. Images have to come from somewhere else, and they have to arrive together with the rest of the product data.
Where product images come from
The easiest source is usually the supplier's price list. Many suppliers include image links in their XML or Excel files, and these are often the most accurate. If the price list has none but the supplier's website does, the images can be collected from the product pages. For branded goods, the manufacturer's official images are often better than the supplier's copies.
Your own photography is worth the effort mainly for bestsellers and for products where details sell the item, such as clothing or furniture.
Common problems with supplier images
- Links that stop working when the supplier moves files.
- Watermarks with the supplier's or another store's logo.
- Very small or very large files that load slowly.
- Different backgrounds and aspect ratios across suppliers, which makes category pages look untidy.
- One image for all variants, so the customer cannot see the colour they are choosing.
A workflow that scales
- Import images with the product data. Map the image fields from each supplier's price list so photos arrive automatically with new products.
- Fill the gaps. List the products without images and find them from other sources: another supplier of the same item, the manufacturer or the supplier's website.
- Set simple standards. Minimum size, preferred background, no watermarks, a main image showing the product alone.
- Prioritise your own photography for the products that bring the most revenue.
- Keep links current. Re-import images when the supplier updates them, and replace broken links.
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