How to change the default image for products on Shopify

Changing the Default Image on Shopify with no coding required

We recently built a Shopify store for a wine merchant. As you can imagine there were a lot of bottles to get onto the store but we didn't have photographs for all of them. There are two options here, take all the photos yourself or take them from existing products online. It turns out that not all the bottles were in stock so we photographed what we could but that left 50 wines with no photograph. The idea of trawling through the internet and using someone else's image involved so much time and to find the precise photo of that vintage and grape made it impossible. As a result, we were left with 50 wines uploaded featuring the default image provided by Shopify for Products with no image. It looks just like this and isn't great for two reasons:

It is very dull looking and looks rubbish amongst proper photography.
People don't buy what they can't see.
It looks like the website is broken.

In this post we will share with you how we got around the problem of having 50 products with no image. The obvious and simple way is to go through each products in turn and add a new image. Our solution is much quicker and only takes a few minutes and involves no coding.

Create a Replacement Image
How to find which products are missing images
How to upload your replacement default image to Shopify
How to export your Shopify Porducts to a Spreadsheet for easy management
Using Excel to add images to products whcih are blank
In Conclusion

Create a replacement image

Assuming you don't have all the images required, can you come up with a replacement for all of them that will look good amongst the pro images? In our case, we created a bottle of wine with a branded logo. This meant no one else could use our image and it would fit with the rest of the branding on the website. You can do this with a lot of products and in this case, we used Canva to create the image.

You can select a product either from your current photos or as we did in this case a blank bottle from the elements library in Canva. All you then need to do is upload a copy of your logo and stick it onto the bottle. Make sure it lines up and then download it as a .png with a transparent background. Don't forget when you do this to select a design that fits your other product photography dimensions. If the rest are square make it square. If it is portrait make sure the new version is portrait too. If you want to remove the background from images, use Canva. We have written and recorded a video on the subject here...

How to find which products are missing images

When we first looked at doing this using the Shopify interface we thought this is going to take along time to select all the products which are missing images. Then we thought outside the box and decided the easiest way to do this is to use a spreadsheet. If the product has no image there will be a blank space in the IMG box on the spreadsheet. You can then filter by empty box and voila you have a list of products with no image.

How to upload your replacement default image to Shopify

Once you have created your image, you need to upload it to Shopify and then capture the url of the image. The url is the address of the image and is what you use to add images to something like a spreadsheet. You can't add images as files because they will be too big and make your spreadsheet o heavy to use. Go to Content - Files - Upload new in your Shopify backend. Upload the image and add Alt tag if required. We would suggest adding the brand name to the image so it comes up in search. The url is available on the right hand side of the file. It looks like a paperclip, click it and copy the address. You will then use this to put the image source into the spreadsheet.

How to export your Shopify Products to a Spreadsheet for easy management

Now we know how to create a list of products with no image we can go about downloading/exporting all products from Shopify and editing them as a bundle in Excel. Step 1 - Log in to Shopify Step2 - Click on Products Step 3 - Click Export on the top right hand side Step 4 - Choose the file type as Excel or CSV Step 5 - The export will either download to your computer or be sent to the admin email. Step 6 - You can chose to export just the products you see or the whole library. In this instance we want the whole library.

Using Excel to add images to products which are blank

Sorting your products in the Excel spreadsheet is done using filters. Watch the video above for a guide.

Add filters to the top row.
Find the IMG Source Column
Select the filter icon and deselect all
Now using the filter select Blanks.
This will reveal all products with no image url (no image)
Paste in the url of your replacement default image here to all empty products.
Re-upload the spreadsheet to Shopify and your empty products will have the new image.

In Conclusion

Once you have re-uploaded the spreadsheet to the back end of Shopify it is ready to go. You can then search for one of your previously blank products and see what it looks like. The one thing you really need to remember is to make sure the dimensions are the same as the rest of the images otherwise your store will look wonky. Good luck with this, If you need any help with things like this then please get in touch. If the guide is not in our library then we want to know so we can create more useful content for you the Shopify Store owner.