I wanted to start a thread of recommendations for new store owners. Our experiences with can help save others alot of time and trouble.

Organization

Before you get started you should decide on your file folder structure. Would you open a file cabinet drawer and drop everything in one big pile? You don't want to do this with your store's file structure either. Create folders you think you'll need and add to them as you find the need for more.

Images
Decide on a system before you start. This will save you time later. For example create all thumbnails with a tn- prefix or _sm suffix.

Try to use either gif or jpg instead of both, but if you must use both try to limit it to gif for full size images and jpg for thumbs or vice-versa.

Less Is More!

You do want to keep organized but try not to go too crazy. Do you really want to deal with having /images/products/here/there/and/every/where/thumb/smile.gif? Remember that less is more. For example: If your using a thumbnail prefix or suffix you don't really need a seperate folder for them. You can store them with the full size images.

Our System

Every store and store owner will be different but our setup for example is :

Images:
We have a seperate folder for each mfg, another folder for catagory images and one more for all design aspects of the site (bullets and other graphics)

Thumbs:
tn- prefix on thumbs, all thumbs placed in the same folder as the full size version of the same image.

Product Image File Names:
We name all image files (thumbs and full size) using the product part numbers.

I very much agree, nice post...gatta love people who put time into a post like that.

Robert-
Thanks! I am going to vote you this month's forum MVP!

Just doing my part to help and the Store owners. If you guys were based in Massachusetts I'd be applying for a job.

Thanks alot thou, I appreciate the recognition.

Good idea....

Think I am going to use it.

Thanks HToM.

Also, everyone else feel free to post any suggestions you may have. By sharing our experience and knowledge we can make easier for new store owners. Which could result in less tech calls and give more time/money to use on future development and features

Thanks Robb,
Newbies like me need this kind of advice!
Alison

Why didn't you send this to me before I made my site? Seriously, you could have saved me days of heartbreak. I've completely messed up on this, and I'm really paying for it now.

It took me about a year to figure out that images should be named for their part numbers, but I've pretty much gotten that straightened out. Now if only I had made separate folders for each manufacturer!

Depending on how important it is for you to protect the names of your vendors from competition you might be better off without folders named after vendors. Right clicking and looking at the properties for an image would provide vendor information to anyone digging through your site trying to pick up leads.

Another way to organize your folders is to consider your keywords as a possible source of folder names. They then appear as part of the site html for each related image called. (I actually don't know if search engines care about that). If you sell books, folders called /childrens-books with subfolders like /childrens-books/board-books/..... /childrens-books/Soft-books/..../childrens-books/easy-reader/

This thread is great as it really spells out all the considerations for image management. It's something you don't think about when you start the web site, but 1000 products later, it hits you they probably should have been organized.

It also makes sense to consider image file viewable sizes. Consider ahead of time how big you want the thumbnails to be. How many thumbnails do you want per row on a category page? If you want 3 or 4, I recommend no larger than 75 pixels wide, but if you are doing 1 or 2, I recommend no larger than 100 or 150.

If you are going to be using email addresses and have a few employees or users of the email, I suggest coming up with an email username scheme ahead of time - firstname.lastname@monstercommerce.com - or - first initial THEN lastname@monstercommerce.com - or simply - firstname@monstercommerce.com - and then stick to it. You will most likely be adding users as time goes by and the first time you have two - jim@monstercommerce.com - users, you can be prepared.

Set up email aliases ahead of time too, sales@, orders@, returns@, customer.service@ and so on. Choose one address to point these too and you can always change these later.

Decide your 'voice' prior to writing any text on your site. Are you making it more professional or more personal? The following three examples might make this more clear:

Set goals. Realize that your site will never really be 'done,' but will always be a work in progress. Still, you should set goals rather than aimlessly tweaking. For instance, set a goal to add at least 100 products in a month. Or decide to add 10 pages of text content in the same amount of time. Or adding category or manufacturer pages... This will help keep you on task and better organized.

Decide your category organization ahead of time as well. Keep in mind not how YOU think of your products from your internal management standpoint, but how your customers will think of your products. This is not always the same thing. Consider how they might browse for products and have your categories mirror this. Also, if you finish your category structure, but realize that it doesn't really communicate all the ways your products can be organized, consder the manufacturer menu (even if you don't use it for manufacturers) or add in product groups to communicate this information.

I also recommend our Get Started page -
http://kb.monstercommerce.com/GetStarted/getstarted.asp
- and our Go Live Checklist -
http://kb.monstercommerce.com/GetStarted/golivelist.asp

this is greeat....I am just looking for stuff like this as we just started about 3 weeks ago.

Very useful post... I am just glad I did that from the beginning. I just used my categories as folders and then broke it down to manufacturers for each category. Then just the name of the item for each pic .jpg

LMAO!!!

Questtion on the jpg vs the Gif files. I am used to working with Jpg files due to photophraphy etc. I know I saw on this board somewhere which one was better, but I was curious why you shouldn't mix the two.

When uploading files in the file manager there is a checkbox to create a thumbnail....I am thinking it is always good to use this, and it names the thumbnails automatically with Thumb in front of it. And stores it in the same product folder. Is there any reason NOT to use this? (it would fit the suggestions above).

Also, there is a checkbox that says keep aspect ratio and also is the image high quality. I called tech support and the person I talked to didn't know when to check the image is high quality - for exmaple if it is a certain size or pixels etc. Do you guys know.

And we would always check keep the aspect ration right?

Also on teh categories going across, I was curious if anyone started there site one way 91 or 2 products and then went to 3 or 4 or vice versa. Looking to see what people found once they went live.

I always use the "make thumbnail" as my thumbmaker and keep aspect ratio. I also always check "image is high quality". It works for me!

BTW I use mostly jpgs...

I am seeing a lot on the size of the pictures...100pixes, 75 etc.

When I go into Photoshop Elements there is a lot of info on the pictures and I am not sure what I should be changing. I can change the picture --- but what is it exactly that should be the 100 or 75 etc.

Example my logo is currently this:

Pixel Dimensions
522 width
192 height

Document size
2.3 width (inches)
.84 height

227 pixels per inch

I was hoping it would be just as simple as changing the 227 to 100, or changing multiple things...

Thanks.