How to Deliver Product Photos to an Ecommerce Client

A product shoot produces many near-identical frames. The same bottle appears front, back, three-quarter and on a lifestyle set. Thumbnails alone do not tell a merchandiser which one belongs to which listing.

The filename is the only piece of context that travels everywhere. It shows in the gallery, it appears in the picks export, and it survives inside the ZIP. It will still be attached to the file when the client uploads it to their store.

So the product code has to be in the name before the upload, not added later. A rename after the gallery is live gives you two sets of names for one set of photos. The guide on renaming files before proofing explains the timing in detail.

The pattern below is a recommendation, not a rule of the product. Adapt it to the codes your client already uses in their own system.

Assembled, that reads tb-0412-navy-front-03.jpg. Keep it lowercase, use hyphens instead of spaces, and leave out accented characters. Those three habits keep a name intact across every system it passes through.

Rename at import in your editing software, before you cull. If you shoot tethered with a capture name template, set the code there instead.

One caveat for phone uploads. Photos sent from the iPhone app get generated names, not your template. For a product shoot, upload from your editing software so the codes arrive intact.

Group the frames into sections, one per product line or per listing batch. The client sees one scrolling page with a jump-to bar at the top that shows each section and its count. Frames you have not placed in a section appear first, under Highlights.

Each section also has its own share link. That link is view-only. It has no picks, no comments, no labels, no ZIP and no full-resolution file. Use it to show a category lead their products, not to collect decisions.

Switch on what the merchandiser needs before you send the link. Picks and downloads are on by default. Comments and colour labels are off by default and are switched on per gallery.

Add a short welcome note that explains the method in two sentences. For example: star the frames you want, love the hero shot for each product, label by channel. The note shows under the gallery title.

Protect the gallery with a password if the products are unreleased. The password covers every section, and there are no separate passwords per section.

Everything that matters happens when a photo is open full screen. The grid shows only a badge on picked frames.

The filename. A small pill in the full-screen view shows the file name. The comment panel repeats it in its header. A merchandiser can confirm tb-0412-navy-front-03 before marking anything. The slideshow is the exception: it is a full-screen slideshow that advances on its own and shows no filename.

Stars and loves. One tap on the photo stars it and a double tap loves it. The star and heart buttons do the same. A practical convention: a star means approved for the listing, a love means the hero image.

Colour labels. Five colours are available: red, yellow, green, blue and purple. Each photo carries one label, and tapping the current colour clears it. Agree on the meaning up front, for example green for the website and blue for marketplaces.

Comments. The merchandiser can write a note on a frame or draw on the photo to circle a problem. A drawing can stand alone as a note. You get an email, at most one per gallery every 15 minutes.

Comments are signed with the client name set on the gallery, or with Client when none is set. The page never asks the commenter for a name. Set the client name in the proofing settings before you share the link.

An ecommerce client may send more than one reviewer. A merchandiser, a brand manager and a marketplace lead may all open the same link. Plan for how the gallery handles that.

Picks are one shared set per gallery. Colour labels are one per photo, shared by everyone with the link. A change made by one person appears for another only when that person reloads the page.

Comments from everyone carry the same gallery client name. If you need to know who said what, ask reviewers to start each note with their initials.

Name one person as the owner of the final send. When that person sends the picks, the name and email they type replace the gallery client name and email. Comments written after that point carry the new name.

Studio-side, there are no seats or roles. A two-person studio shares one account. The guide on collecting selects without spreadsheets covers why keeping every decision on the photos beats a shared sheet.

The merchandiser taps Send my picks in the bottom tray. On the last photo, that button also replaces Next. The confirmation asks for a name and an email and warns that sending locks the picks.

Once sent, stars and loves can no longer be changed. Labels and comments keep working, so late notes still reach you.

You are told in three ways. An email arrives with the loved and starred counts. An event appears in your feed. An iPhone push arrives if a device has picks notifications switched on.

Now the export button appears in the gallery manager: Export picks (.txt). It downloads a file named after the gallery with one filename per line. Loved photos come first, then starred ones. Nothing in the file marks which is which, so note where the loved block ends from your email counts.

Because every name carries a product code, that list is already a shot list. Paste it into your delivery checklist, or send it to the client as the record of what they approved. If you edit in Lightroom Classic, the plugin can bring the picks straight back into your catalogue by filename instead.

If the client changes their mind, use Reopen picking. The existing picks stay in place and the tray comes back on their next visit. The client is not notified, so tell them yourself. A second send emails you again.

The gallery holds proofs sized for fast viewing. They are for choosing, not for the product page. The delivered files are the ones you export from your masters.

Export the picked frames at the size and format the client has asked for in writing. This page does not list any marketplace image rules, because they change and each client has its own. Keep the same filenames in the export so the ZIP matches the approved list line for line.

Upload that ZIP to the gallery. The client sees a download button and a line saying how many days it stays available. You get an iPhone push when they download it, if download notifications are on.

A caution on the download switch. Switching downloads off hides the Download all photos button and the per-photo download. It does not hide the full-resolution ZIP, and it does not hide the social-crop buttons that appear after picks are sent. Upload the ZIP only when you are ready for the client to take it.

If payment comes first, paste your own payment link and attach the invoice PDF. The client sees a Pay your invoice button. Nothing connects that payment to the ZIP, so upload the ZIP yourself once the payment has cleared.

Product clients often ask where their images stand. The gallery can answer that without an email.

On the retouch round page, you flag each finished photo as retouched. The client then sees a green check badge on that photo. A pill reading X of Y picks retouched, with a progress bar, counts those flags across the picked photos.

Marking a comment done is a separate action. It strikes the note through and adds a Retouched chip to that note. It does not flag the photo, so do both when a frame is finished.

This workflow is a delivery gallery, not a digital asset manager. If the client needs metadata fields, usage rights tracking or per-user logins, they need a dedicated asset system.

There are no seats, no roles and no per-reviewer identities. A large retailer that requires named approvals for audit should use a tool built for that.

The gallery hosts JPEGs. It does not store RAW files or masters, and it does not resize to marketplace specifications for you. Your masters stay on your own drives, and the export step stays yours.

For a wider view of how commercial work fits, read the client gallery guide for commercial photographers.

This page states no external figures, no competitor claims and no marketplace image requirements. Every product detail above is a clientgallery.io fact checked against the running product on 16 September 2026: the filename pill in the full-screen view and the comment panel header, the slideshow without filenames, generated names for iPhone uploads, sections on one scrolling page with a jump-to bar and view-only section links, stars and loves set in full screen, five shared colour labels, comments signed with the gallery client name and emailed at most once per 15 minutes, the send that locks picks and replaces the client name and email, the Export picks (.txt) file with loved photos first and no marker, Reopen picking without a client notification, the full-resolution ZIP live for 3 days within 100 GB of standing ZIPs, the download switch that leaves that ZIP visible, the manual payment link, the retouched flag and count, the 1,000-photo and 250 GB fair-use ceilings, 5 GB on free accounts, and the plan at 10 $ a month or 100 $ a year. The naming pattern is a recommendation, not a measurement.