BigCommerce and SureDone each hold their own copy of your product images. This guide covers both directions: what happens to images when you import products from BigCommerce, and what SureDone sends back when it lists or updates a product.
Where images live in SureDone
Every SureDone product uses the same image fields, no matter which channel they came from:
- media1 through media10 — one image URL per field. media1 is the main image.
- mediax — images 11 and beyond, all in one field, separated by an asterisk (
URL11*URL12*URL13). - media1alttext through media12alttext — the image description (HTML alt text) for the matching media field. These are custom user fields, labelled "Media 1 Description", "Media 2 Description", and so on. Descriptions are supported for the first 12 images only, and each is limited to 200 characters.
- bigcommercemedia — an internal record linking your SureDone image URLs to the image IDs BigCommerce assigned them. Do not edit this field. If it gets out of sync, see Troubleshooting below.
For how to get images into these fields in bulk (by URL, or by uploading a .zip of image files), see Uploading images via Bulk. For size guidance, see Recommended Image Sizes.
Importing images from BigCommerce
Your images stay hosted on BigCommerce. An import brings in the URLs of those images, not the image files — the files are not copied to SureDone unless you ask for that (see "Hosting the images on SureDone" below).
- The first ten images are imported into media1 through media10. Any images after that go into mediax, separated by asterisks.
- The image flagged "use as thumbnail" in BigCommerce is moved to the front, so it becomes media1.
- The remaining images keep the order they have in BigCommerce.
- When you import a product with variations, each variation row starts with that variation's own image in media1, followed by the product's other images.
- Image descriptions are imported into media#alttext fields, for the first 12 images only. SureDone creates these custom user fields automatically during the import, and only as many as your BigCommerce products actually use. You can also create them yourself ahead of time, as long as you follow the naming convention above.
Hosting the images on SureDone
If you would rather SureDone host the image files instead of pointing at BigCommerce, tick Import Media URLs when you upload the bulk file. SureDone downloads each image and replaces the URL with an assets.suredone.com address. This is free, but it makes the file take noticeably longer to process, so only use it when you need it.
Sending images to BigCommerce
When SureDone lists or updates a product, it sends the images in media1–media10 in order, followed by anything in mediax. Whichever image ends up first becomes the thumbnail on BigCommerce. Descriptions from media#alttext are sent with them, for the first 12 images.
A few behaviours are worth knowing:
- Images are only sent when you include a media field in the update. If a product is already listed on BigCommerce and you edit its price, stock or title without touching any media field, SureDone leaves the images on BigCommerce exactly as they are. This also means that if someone changes the images directly in BigCommerce, SureDone will not put them back until the next update that includes a media field.
- Clearing a media field removes that image from BigCommerce. SureDone compares the images you are sending against the ones already on the listing, then adds, updates and deletes so BigCommerce matches SureDone.
- Duplicate images are skipped. Before uploading, SureDone visually compares each new image against the ones already on the listing. If one is a near-identical match, it is not uploaded again. This prevents the same photo appearing twice when the same product is sent more than once.
- SureDone sends the large version of any image it hosts, not the smaller version shown in the editor.
Variations
BigCommerce allows one image per variant. SureDone sends the first image from each child product. Clearing that child's media1 removes the variant image on BigCommerce. Any additional images on a variation are not lost — on import they are folded into the parent product's media fields.
Using different images than media1–media10
If your image URLs live in other custom fields, you can point BigCommerce at them instead of at the standard media fields:
- Go to Channels > BigCommerce and select the instance you want to change.
- Open Custom Fields Mapping.
- Map media1 through media10 (and mediax, if you use it) to the SureDone fields that hold your image URLs.
- Save the mapping.
From then on, SureDone reads the images for that BigCommerce instance from the fields you mapped.
Troubleshooting
"Sync issue between SureDone and BigCommerce image IDs" or "Product image not found"
This happens when images were deleted directly in BigCommerce but SureDone still has their IDs on record. To rebuild the image set from scratch, run a relist with a media reset — in a bulk file, set action=relist and bigcommercemediareset=true. SureDone will remove every image on the BigCommerce listing and re-upload the ones in SureDone.
Images changed in SureDone but did not change on BigCommerce
Make sure the update actually included a media field. An edit that only changes other fields will not touch images. If you are correcting images in bulk, send a file with just the guid and the media1–media10 columns.
Images appear broken in the SureDone editor
Usually the image URLs are not on a secure server (http:// rather than https://). Re-upload the affected products with Import Media URLs ticked so SureDone hosts them instead. See Uploading images via Bulk.
Changes made in BigCommerce are not showing in SureDone
Changes made directly in BigCommerce never sync back automatically. Run an import or a bulk upload to bring them into SureDone.