Repository of images available for use in shops

What is the need / problem ?

Enterprises have to find quality photos of the produce they sell for their shops. This can take a lot of time to source, ensure quality, upload. It also (as a side note) takes up more server storage, which is more energy required, etc etc.

Who does it impact ?

Enterprise users, mostly those initially setting up a shop but then also as they continue to add products to the shop.

What is the current impact of the problem ?

  • A poorer experience for shoppers if the photos are crap or non-existent
  • Time and effort required by the enterprise to source and upload the images

What is the benefit of focusing on this ?

  • Improved shop experience for shoppers with quality images
  • Less time required for enterprises in setting up their products with good images
  • Less server space required to store images of the same thing

Potential solutions that will solve the problem ?

  • Creating our own database of images (crowdsourcing / using existing) and allowing for access via the create/edit product UI
  • Recognising products and offering the an image from the database (“use this one, or upload your own”).
  • Allow user to set default “Always use OFN image if one is available” (would help with bulk upload)
  • Connect to a 3rd party food image repo (does such a thing exist?)

I think this is a feature that would delight users. Just this week, I was in a flower-growing meeting - looking to set up basically a ‘flower hub’, and they did not select OFN because, there is a Shopify-based marketplace that a flower growers association here built, that has a flower picture repository included. When the users saw the demo, they were very impressed by the pre-existing photos. In that case, the group received permission from large flower seed companies to use their photos for the marketplace as long as they remained ‘branded’ with a small credit. So - maybe seed companies would agree to that for veggies and fruit also?

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Moved to: Repository of images available for use in shops ¡ Issue #65 ¡ openfoodfoundation/wishlist ¡ GitHub