Let buyers personalise a product

What it is

Some products are finished by the buyer: a photo frame with their photo in it, a mug with a picture printed on it, a pendant with a name engraved. Custom photo upload lets a product ask the buyer for a picture, and optionally for one short line of text, before they can check out. Both travel with the order, so you open the order and see exactly what to print.

It is available on every plan, and it does not cost you storage: buyer uploads are not counted against your store's upload allowance.

Set it up on a product

1. 1Open Products, open the product, and scroll to the card marked Custom photo upload.
2. 2Tick Customers upload their own photo for this product.
3. 3Write Instructions for the customer. This is the line the buyer reads before they pick a file, so be specific: *Upload the photo you would like printed. Use a clear, high-resolution image.*
4. 4Decide whether Require the photo before checkout stays ticked. It is on by default.
5. 5If you also want a line of text, tick Also let customers add a text note and fill in the Note label. The label is what the buyer sees, so make it the actual question: *Name to engrave*, *Date for the card*, *Spelling as you want it printed*.
6. 6Optionally set the Live preview area. Drag the box over your product photo to mark where the buyer's image lands, then drag its corner to resize. Add a product photo first, or there is nothing to drag on.
7. 7Press Save product.

If you skip the preview area, everything still works. The buyer just sees a plain thumbnail of their upload instead of it composited onto your product.

Required or optional

• Required, the default, marks the upload with a star in the cart and blocks the Place order button until a photo is attached to that line. The check is repeated on our server, so an out-of-date page cannot slip an order through without one.
• Optional labels the upload Upload your photo (optional) and lets the buyer check out without one. Use this when you can print a stock design if they do not supply anything.
• The note is always optional, whatever the photo setting is. It is capped at 500 characters.

What the buyer does

• On the product page there is a Preview your photo panel. They can pick a photo and see it dropped into your preview area straight away. This is a look, nothing more: the file is not sent anywhere, it does not save, and it does not stop them adding the product to the cart. The panel says so, with the line *You will upload your final photo in the cart at checkout*.
• In the cart each personalised line has its own upload block with your instructions above it. They press Choose photo, see it uploading, then see the preview and a Replace photo or Remove option.
• If you turned the note on, the box underneath carries your label as its placeholder.
• Each line in the cart is personalised separately. Two frames means two photos.

Where the buyer's input turns up

• On the order in your dashboard. Open the order in the Orders tab. Under the personalised item is a Customer photo block: a thumbnail you can click to open full size, the note in quotation marks if there is one, and a Download full image link that saves the file under the buyer's own filename.
• In the SitesPlaced Android app, the same order shows the buyer's photo as the item thumbnail and the note under the item.
• In a WhatsApp order. If the buyer checks out over WhatsApp, the message you receive carries a Custom photo: line with the image link and a Note: line under that item.

Extra charges

Personalisation has no price field. Asking for a photo or a note never adds anything to the total. If personalising costs you more, you have two honest ways to charge for it.

• Build the cost into the product's price, and say in the description that personalisation is included. This is the simplest and the one most sellers use.
• List a separate personalised version of the product at the higher price, and turn the upload on only for that one.

Good to know

• Buyer uploads are stored in your store's own folder and do not count against your storage allowance.
• There is a limit on how many photos one person can upload in a short window, which keeps the upload form from being abused. A genuine buyer with a few items will never hit it.
• Every uploaded file is checked to be a real image, not just something named like one.
• Untick the box and save to stop asking for photos. Orders you already have keep their photos and notes.
• Download the photo before you archive or clean up an old order, if you may need to reprint it later.