How to Share Product Photos with Retailers and Stockists
Wholesale buyers need current photos, trade prices and an easy way to say what they want. One folder of product photos can serve stockists and consumers at once, without a single re-send.
Short answer
Keep one folder of product photos and publish it twice: a public gallery as the consumer lookbook, and a password-protected gallery with trade prices in the captions for stockists. Buyers browse on any device, shortlist what interests them, and send the list back with exact product names. Nothing is attached, nothing expires, and nobody quotes from March's file.
A stockist relationship runs on product photos: the buyer needs to see the range to order from it, and later needs the same photos to sell it. The default workflow is attachments: a zip on WeTransfer, a dozen JPEGs in an email thread, a Dropbox link someone made in 2023 that may or may not still hold the current range. Every one of those puts a version of your catalogue into the world that stops being true.
- The two jobs the photos do
- One folder, two catalogues
- Trade prices without a spreadsheet
- Orders start as shortlists
- Let them take the photos
- Onboarding a new stockist in one message
- Common questions
The two jobs the photos do
Photos sent to a retailer do two different jobs at two different times. Before the order, they are the range: the buyer scrolls them to decide what to stock. After the order, they are marketing assets: the retailer needs your product shots for their own site and social. Attachments serve neither job well, because job one needs currency and job two needs full resolution, and a compressed email JPEG from four months ago is neither.
One folder, two catalogues
Keep the product photos where they already live, organised one subfolder per category, named as products. Then publish that folder twice:
- The public gallery: the consumer-facing lookbook, linked from your bio and site. No prices, or retail prices.
- The trade gallery: the same folder behind a password, with wholesale prices in the captions. This is the link stockists get.
Because both read the same folder, adding a product updates both, and there is no moment where the trade view and the real range disagree. The mechanics are the same as building the catalogue itself.
Trade prices without a spreadsheet
For most small brands the price list is the same twenty to two hundred lines it has always been, and a caption carries it fine: "Oslo Table · RRP $890 · Trade $445 · MOQ 2". The buyer sees the number beside the photo, which is where they want it, instead of cross-referencing a PDF price list against a separate set of images. When prices change, captions change, and every stockist's link is already correct.
Orders start as shortlists
In a catalogue gallery the heart is a shortlist. A buyer working through your range marks what interests them and sends the list back with their name attached: exact product names, not a paragraph describing photos. An ask about this item button on each photo handles the one-off questions, and lands in your inbox with reply-to set, so the answer is one keystroke away. Neither requires the buyer to make an account, which matters, because buyers do not make accounts.
Let them take the photos
After the order, switch downloads on. The retailer pulls full-resolution originals for their site and social directly from the same gallery, which means your products get promoted with your photography rather than their phone shots of a delivery box. Being the supplier whose assets are effortless is a genuine reorder factor, and it costs you a toggle.
Onboarding a new stockist in one message
Here is our current range: [link]. Password: [word]. Prices shown are trade; heart anything that interests you and send the shortlist, or ask on any photo and it comes straight to me.
One message, no attachments, and it is still true in six months. Compare that with the folder-of-zips ritual, and the difference is not convenience but trust: the buyer always knows what is current, and you always know what they are looking at.
Common questions
Should each stockist get their own password? For most brands one trade password is fine, rotated occasionally. If a relationship ends badly, change it once.
Can they order directly? They shortlist and inquire; the order itself completes however you invoice today. A catalogue that pretends to be a checkout without stock control causes more problems than it solves.
What about huge ranges? Sections handle hundreds of items comfortably. Past a thousand SKUs with variants you are shopping for a B2B platform, and the photos are still organised and named, ready to migrate.