ChannelEngine: product media

About this article

This article describes how to manage product media on ChannelEngine. 

Table of contents

Introduction

Requirements 

Upload media to ChannelEngine

Recommendations

FAQs

Introduction

Product media, just like product feeds, must be sourced at URLs that are publicly available. This allows marketplaces to display your product media without needing to store your media themselves when you create or update product content in your listings.

Upload your product media URLs with your product feed. 

Requirements 

• Product images must be publicly reachable. Therefore, the following apply:
  • Only HTTP and HTTPS URLs
  • No username, password, or authentication requirements

Upload media to ChannelEngine

Upload your product media URLs with your product feed:

1. Upload your product feed. 
2. Map your image fields to the ChannelEngine image fields or a custom field that you create on ChannelEngine.

• ChannelEngine fields - you can upload ten images via your product feed to ChannelEngine fields; ChannelEngine will automatically resize the photos with whitespace for the thumbnails that appear in your product's Product details page.

• Custom fields - you can upload an unlimited number of images via your product feed to custom fields; images loaded into custom fields are not resized by ChannelEngine for their thumbnails.

For guidance on setting up your product feed, check out ChannelEngine: product feeds.

Recommendations

• The more content a product has, the higher its chances of converting. Make sure to provide as many quality images as possible. Different marketplaces allow for different numbers of images per product.
• Most marketplaces require a minimum resolution of 500x500 px for product images. Smaller images are rejected.
• Most marketplaces require a maximum resolution of 5,000x5,000 px for product images. Larger images are rejected.
• Most marketplaces require product images in a specific file format, such as JPEG or PNG. If your product images are all in PNG and the marketplace you are working with only accepts JPEGs, you need to convert your images before mapping your image URLs to the marketplace's attributes.
• Most marketplaces require a white background for main product images. Additional product images may contain different backgrounds, other items, different angles, etc., to better showcase the product.
• Most marketplaces have unique requirements regarding product images. These requirements are listed in the Mappings section of each marketplace's guide in the Help Center.
• Most channels 
• Images hosted on cdn.channelengine.net or img.channelengine.net are not allowed. If used, they are replaced by placeholder images.
• If you are unable to host your product images, you can use a service such as Dropbox, Google Photos, or Imgur. 
  • For guidance on hosting images on Dropbox, check out ChannelEngine: use Dropbox to manage product images.
  • For guidance on hosting images on Google Drive, check out ChannelEngine: publish product media via Google Drive.

FAQs

The marketplace is rejecting my images due to their dimensions, but the dimensions seem to be correct. Why is this happening?
If your image files meet the marketplace's requirements in terms of minimum and maximum resolution, chances are the storage service you are using, such as Azure Blob Storage, is resizing the images. To verify:

1. Go to the URL of one of the rejected images using a browser such as Chrome, Edge, or Firefox.
2. To access your browser's dev tools, press F12 on your keyboard.
3. Look for the img HTML tag on the Elements tab of the dev tools.
4. Check the image's width and height. If they differ from the dimensions in the locally saved file, your storage service is resizing your images.
5. If you do not know how to change the settings in your storage service, get in touch with their support team.

I updated the image URLs for a specific product, but the new images aren't appearing on the Product details page on ChannelEngine.
On the Product details page, click Clear image cache, and on the pop-up that opens, click the Clear image cache button. This clears the ChannelEngine image cache and refreshes the product images with the latest versions. For a deeper explanation on why your images do not appear on ChannelEngine, check out ChannelEngine: why is my product image not visible or updated?