Organize variant images
This video walks you through the core setup of the app — how to arrange your product images so the app displays the correct ones when a customer selects a variant on your storefront.
In this video you will learn how to:
Drag and drop images into the correct variant buckets in the Manage product media page
Reorder images between variants
Set up common media — images such as size charts or lifestyle shots that appear after every variant's gallery
Enable the app on a product to make it live on your storefront
Advanced — Customize featured image
This video covers an important advanced topic related to how your product's featured image behaves across your store.
The problem
In Shopify, the first image in your product media is used as the featured image — the thumbnail shown on collection pages, search results, and product recommendation sections. Because SA Variant Image Automator places common media at the beginning of the product media section, the first common image becomes the featured image across your store. This may not always be the image you want customers to see when browsing your collections.
The solution
If you want to use a specific image as the featured image on collection and listing pages — different from what appears in the product gallery — you can do the following:
Create a copy of the image you want to use as the featured image
Place that copied image in the first position of your common media section
Enable the Hide Featured Image setting in the app
When this setting is enabled, that first common image will be hidden from the product gallery on the storefront — so customers will not see it repeated inside the gallery when they are on the product page. However, Shopify will still use it as the featured image on collection pages, search results, and other listing pages as usual.
Using a theme with a hover-over image on collection pages?
Some Shopify themes display a second image when a customer hovers over a product thumbnail on the collection page. If your theme supports this and you want to set a specific hover image as well, you can place two copied images at the beginning of your common media section — one for the featured image and one for the hover image. Reach out to our support team and we can configure the app to hide both of the first two common images from the product gallery instead of just one, so neither image appears inside the gallery on the product page while both continue to work correctly on your collection page.