Product images

DotApparel supports integration with Image Storage, a media management tool that's great for storing images.

Aside from pulling product attributes from the ERP, the DotApparel app is also able to source product images from AWS S3 buckets, and Cloudinary. The task to download product images runs once per day and will scan the image source for any images which match a particular naming convention, before uploading them to the relevant products in Shopify.

Configuring Image Storage

To attach your Image Storage (i.e., Cloudinary) to DotApparel, simply click “Settings” in the app, and scroll down to the Images section. Here, you will need to provide your API credentials which are available from the Image Storage's dashboard. When complete, the app will automatically begin scanning Image Storage for images on a daily basis and uploading any images it finds into Shopify.

Image Integration Options

You can choose the type of image integration you need to suit your needs:

• Create Only This option adds new images to your Shopify products without affecting any existing images. It’s ideal when you want to upload images for newly created products while leaving images for existing products unchanged.

• Create and Replace (Most Common) This is the most commonly used integration method. It adds new images to your Shopify products and updates existing images with the latest versions. If you frequently update product images, this option ensures all images are current without duplicating existing ones.

• Create, Replace, and Delete This method not only adds new images and updates existing ones, but also removes any old images that no longer correspond to the product in your image repository (e.g., Cloudinary). This option is useful for maintaining a clean and accurate image library, ensuring only relevant images are linked to your products.

• Safe Mode Safe Mode is the most conservative option designed to sync images only to products without any images on Shopify.

Naming convention

For DotApparel to find the right images for each product in Image Storage, the image file name must contain the same style code, and colour code, followed by an optional position.

{styleCode}_{colourCode}_{position}.jpg

With this convention, if we had three images for a product with a style code ABC, colour code BLUE, then we might upload the following images.

1 ABC_BLUE_1.jpg

2 ABC_BLUE_2.jpg

3 ABC_BLUE_3.jpg

In addition to the style code and colour code, merchants can incorporate other metadata in the file names such as product names. It’s important that no matter what naming convention you choose, it’s consistent in Image Storage.

Automatic Image Sync for New Shopify Products

We have streamlined the image sync process so that when a new product is added to Shopify, DotApparel Core will automatically check for any matching images using the product’s unique style code. If there were previous failed attempts to sync the images, the system will reset those failures, ensuring the product’s images are included in the next round of automated daily syncing.

Enabling Product Create Webhooks

For this to work, make sure the Product create Shopify webhooks are enabled:

1. Go to Settings in your Shopify store.

2. Navigate to Shopify webhooks.

3. Ensure the Product create webhook is enabled.

4. Click Refresh webhooks

This will ensure to sync images with newly created Shopify products for upload

Manually Trigger an Image Sync

As long as a correctly named image is stored in Image Storage, DotApparel Core will automatically sync the image to the corresponding Shopify product during the next daily image sync. However, merchants may want to take manual action to sync newly added images instantly.

This can be done through a manual image sync trigger which is a 2-step process:

1. Download from storage

2. Upload to Shopify

Pricing for Cloudinary

While our merchants who leverage the Cloudinary integration typically opt for the Plus plan priced at $89 USD per month, the Free plan is available for those who wish to explore it. However, it comes with a 30-day free credit allowance, capped at a maximum of 25 monthly credits (equivalent to 25GB of image storage).

Your choice depends on the number of images and image size. To ensure a seamless image integration without interruptions, we highly recommend the Plus plan.

See Cloudinary Pricing

Video Sync Not Supported

DotApparel Core does not support syncing videos from Cloudinary, S3, or other storage platforms. Shopify only accepts video links from YouTube or Vimeo, or files manually uploaded in the product media section.

To display videos on your store, you'll need to either:

• Link a YouTube or Vimeo URL, or

• Upload the video directly to Shopify.