Every e-commerce project has the same hidden critical path, and it is not development. It is the product data. Four hundred products, each needing a description, a price, dimensions, a weight and at least one decent photograph, is weeks of work that nobody scheduled.
Start it the day the project is approved.
The fields you need for every product
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| SKU | Must match your accounting or stock system exactly |
| Name | As a customer would say it, not the supplier catalogue name |
| Short description | One or two sentences, used on listing pages |
| Full description | The detail, used on the product page |
| Price in N$ | State clearly whether VAT is included |
| Weight | Required for any shipping calculation |
| Dimensions | Required for courier quotes on bulky items |
| Stock quantity | Or a rule for what happens when it runs out |
| Category | Decide the structure before you start filling this in |
| Images | Minimum one, three is better, consistent background |
The ones people forget
Weight and dimensions. They feel irrelevant until the courier integration needs them, at which point somebody has to physically weigh four hundred items.
Whether prices include VAT. Getting this wrong is not a display bug, it is an invoicing problem that reaches your accounts.
What happens at zero stock. Hide the product, show it as out of stock, or accept a backorder. Each is defensible, but the decision has to be made by you, not by a default setting.
Photograph them consistently
Pick one background and never change it
Plain white or a single mid grey. Consistency across the grid matters more than any individual shot.
Same distance, same angle, every time
A product grid where every item sits at a different scale looks amateurish immediately.
Shoot square
Square crops fit e-commerce grids and social posts without re-cropping.
Name the file with the SKU
This is what turns four hundred images into an import instead of four hundred manual uploads.
Export at a sensible size
Around 1200 pixels square is plenty. Full camera resolution will make the shop unusable on mobile data.
Name every image file with its SKU. It is the difference between a bulk import and a week of manual matching.
