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Some sellers were confused when they received a notice from Amazon that customers would no longer be able to upload their product photos, which was a social sharing feature, fearing they would no longer be able to upload images to their listings. An Amazon seller writing to EcommerceBytes about the policy said, "Many if the items I sell are older items that are no longer manufactured and I used this option extensively when the Amazon pictures were missing or inaccurate."

But Amazon said it is only discontinuing customer-uploaded images, not seller-uploaded images.

News of the policy has been getting mixed results - many people said the images helped them make decisions as a buyer and said they would miss them. But in a discussion board thread on Amazon, one seller said it was good news because many of the customer images had nothing to do with the product they were supposed to represent. "Good riddance," the seller wrote. Another said sellers had abused the feature by uploading images that were similar the item being sold, causing confusion. "Who really wants to see your kid with the product," the seller wrote.

In describing the customer-uploaded image feature before discontinuing it on July 15th, Amazon had said it wanted customers to be able to express their opinions about what they liked or disliked about products or demonstrate how they used products. "You can think about customer uploaded images as reviews in pictures."

Amazon.com spokesperson Erik Fairleigh said the decision to remove the customer images was due to quality and legal concerns.

In an email to a reader who had sent an inquiry Amazon.com about the new policy, Amazon wrote, "This isn't a decision we came to lightly. While customer-uploaded images has a small, dedicated group of active users, it hasn't been broadly embraced by our customers. Shutting down this feature will allow us to focus on building a better overall Amazon experience for you."

But as some sellers explained, in the past, Amazon only allowed Pro Merchant sellers to create listings and add images to existing listings, so many sellers had uploaded photos using the customer-uploaded images feature. Those sellers bemoaned the fact that those images have disappeared from product listings. "Why can't Amazon give sellers the option to transfer our customer uploaded images to the product listing if we want to with a simple check of a box on the image listing pages," one seller asked. "I realize most sellers won't bother, but some of us don't want to see all of our efforts of the past just tossed in the digital trash bin."

Another seller said they were now receiving messages from Amazon telling them that lots of their listings were missing images.

Amazon will continue to make uploaded images available to customers who uploaded them through August 31, 2013, which can be viewed from their customer gallery.

Amazon is collecting customer feedback about the discontinuation of customer-uploaded images on this Amazon.com page called Social Images Feedback.

The move to limit customers from uploading product pics comes at the same time the company is easing restrictions on sellers: Amazon.com is now allowing sellers to upload photos of certain used and collectible products. Previously sellers could only describe any flaws or missing parts using words in the condition field.

Amazon's Fairleigh said, "Sellers are still able to list photos with their products. Previously, some Sellers had been using Customer Images as a way of showing how their item differed from the Detail page product image (different cover for the book, for example). With Listing Photos, we just launched a way for Sellers to accomplish that same task in a more discoverable way. Here is the link."

Amazon sent the following email to users last week:

Hello,
On July 15, 2013, we began discontinuing the customer-uploaded image feature. Customer images will no longer show on Amazon product pages. This isn't a decision we came to lightly. While customer-uploaded images has a small, dedicated group of active users, it hasn't been broadly embraced by our customers. Shutting down this feature will allow us to focus on building a better overall Amazon experience for you.

If you have uploaded images to a product page in the past, they'll continue to be available until August 31, 2013 for you to view from your customer gallery.

If you have any feedback for us on this change, please let us know here.

We thank you for your participation in the Amazon community and look forward to seeing you again.
Sincerely,
Customer Service
Amazon.com

One seller wrote on the boards that taking away the ability for customers to share product photos had a negative effect on the buying experience. "First Amazon got rid of the original seller forums, now customer images too where many both buyers and sellers have contributed for years and adding a more personal and magical feeling to product pages. Buyers could view book covers, pages in a book or other that were not part of a main product image and contributors received some attribution for their efforts. By removing customer images from the site, it has become more like a bland business site not indistinguishable from many other sites."

Leave your own comment on the EcommerceBytes Blog.

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About the author:

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.

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