Product Images
A thumbnail beside every SKU that has a listing photo, so your team can recognize a product at a glance instead of decoding a name.
Where images appear
Carpe Inventory IQ shows a small product image wherever your team identifies a SKU:
- The SKUs page — beside the product name in the table, and on each card on a phone.
- The Inventory page — beside the name in the table, on each card on a phone, and in the SKU search inside Adjust Stock.
- SKU pickers — the SKU search used on purchase orders, transfers, bills of materials, and elsewhere.
- The SKU detail page — a larger image in the header.
A SKU with no listing image shows a small placeholder in the tables and pickers with the first two characters of its code (WIDGET-100 shows “WI”) so rows stay aligned; the SKU detail header shows a package icon instead. If nothing in your catalog has an image, nothing changes — no placeholders, no toggle.
Where the images come from
You never upload anything. Each image is the listing photo from one of your connected channels — the same picture your customers see — and it is served by that channel. Carpe Inventory IQ keeps no copy of the file.
When a SKU is listed on more than one channel, the image is chosen in this order:
Shopify
The variant's own image, or the product's featured image.
Amazon
The main listing image (FBA or FBM).
BigCommerce
The variant image, or the product's primary image.
The enlarged view names the channel the image came from (“From Amazon FBA”), so you always know which listing you are looking at. Walmart and eBay listing images are not shown yet; a SKU listed only there shows the placeholder for now.
Seeing an image larger
- Hover over a thumbnail with a mouse and a larger view opens beside it; move away and it closes.
- Click (or tap, on a phone) to keep it open. Press Esc, click anywhere else, or click the thumbnail again to close it. Clicking a thumbnail never opens the row’s edit dialog.
- Keyboard: Tab to a thumbnail and press Enter or Space.
Turning images off (and on)
The Images button in the filter bar of the SKUs page and the Inventory page switches thumbnails off for that table. It works like the “Hide BOMs” button on the Inventory page: highlighted while images are on, plain while they are off. Rows get a little shorter with images off, which helps when you want the densest possible view.
The choice is remembered on this device and browser for your sign-in — it does not follow you to another computer, and a colleague using the same computer keeps their own setting. SKU pickers and the SKU detail page always show images; the button only affects the two tables.
Why a SKU has no image
- It isn’t listed anywhere. Raw materials, components, and any SKU with no channel listing have no photo to show. Images come only from listings.
- The listing has no photo. If the product has no image on the channel, there is nothing to display. Add one on the channel and it appears here after the next refresh.
- Your catalog is in Import mode. A Shopify or BigCommerce connection set to “Import it” links listings to the SKUs you imported by SKU code; images arrive with that link. A listing whose SKU code matches nothing you imported has no SKU to attach an image to.
- It is only listed on Walmart or eBay. Walmart and eBay images are not yet included, so a SKU listed only there shows the placeholder for now.
- The image was removed on the channel. A deleted listing photo disappears here too at the next refresh — the thumbnail will not keep showing a picture the listing no longer has.
Keeping images current
- Shopify updates automatically: change a product photo in Shopify and the thumbnail follows within moments.
- Amazon refreshes whenever listing details are pulled — for example “Refresh from Amazon” on the Amazon titles page, or after a title change is submitted.
- BigCommerce refreshes when you re-import that channel’s catalog from the Channels page.
If a thumbnail looks stale, re-import that channel’s catalog. Changing a listing photo on the channel is the only way to change the image shown here — there is no upload in Carpe Inventory IQ, by design.
Questions? Contact us — we’ll help you directly.