Upload day for a new instruction
A negotiator has a new instruction going live this afternoon. The photographer's files arrive by a download link: forty images, each several megabytes, some shot in portrait, two in a format the browser cannot show. The floorplan comes from a separate supplier as a PDF. The negotiator uploads them all to your product from their phone on the train, which takes ages and fails halfway through.
When the listing does go out, the main photo is a close-up of a tap because it was first in the folder. Two images are on their side on one portal and fine on another. The floorplan is missing from a portal because it was a PDF when the portal wanted an image. The vendor, who paid for professional photography, notices every one of these.
Why listing media goes wrong
Your product was probably built to accept an image and store it. Listing media is more demanding than that, because it comes from several sources and goes to several destinations with different rules.
- Photographers deliver large, high-resolution files meant for print as well as web.
- Phones save images in formats such as HEIC and with orientation stored as a flag that some systems ignore.
- Floorplans and EPC graphs arrive as PDFs, which portals and web pages may not accept as images.
- Each portal has its own size, format and count limits, and your product does not check them.
- Photo order is whatever order the files were uploaded, and nobody reorders them under time pressure.
What bad listing media costs
Photos are the first thing buyers and tenants look at, and the first thing vendors judge their agent on. A rotated or missing image on a portal is a visible failure that the vendor blames on the agency and the agency blames on your product. Large files slow your product down on mobile, where negotiators do much of their work, and push up your storage and bandwidth costs. Support tickets about missing or broken images are common, and each needs someone to find the file and work out what went wrong.
How we build a listing media pipeline
What we build processes every image and floorplan once, carefully, and produces the right version for each place it goes.
- Direct upload from phone or computer to storage in the background, resumable, so a weak signal on a train does not lose the batch.
- Conversion and orientation: HEIC and other formats converted, orientation applied to the pixels so every system shows the image the right way up.
- Floorplan and EPC handling: PDFs converted to images at a sensible resolution, with the original kept.
- Versions for each destination: a large version for your listing pages, portal-ready versions within each portal's limits, thumbnails for lists, and print versions for brochures.
- Checks and suggestions: very dark, blurry or duplicate images flagged, and an image classification step that suggests an order with the exterior first, followed by the main living spaces, for the negotiator to confirm.
- Media status on the listing, showing which images and floorplans are ready for each portal and which have a problem.
| Input | What the pipeline does | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Large photographer files | Resizes into versions per destination | Fast pages, portal-ready images |
| Phone photo in HEIC | Converts and fixes orientation | Shows correctly everywhere |
| Floorplan as PDF | Converts to image, keeps original | Floorplan appears on portals |
| Close-up first in folder | Suggests exterior as main photo | Negotiator confirms order |
| Duplicate or blurry shot | Flags it | Negotiator removes or keeps |
The negotiator stays in control. Suggestions are just suggestions, and the order and choice of images is theirs to confirm.
The same instruction going live
The negotiator uploads the photographer's folder from their phone on the train. The upload carries on in the background and resumes when the signal returns. By the time they reach the office, the images are converted and oriented, the floorplan PDF has become an image, and the product suggests the front of the house as the main photo followed by the kitchen and living room. They swap two images, confirm, and publish. Each portal gets images within its limits, and the listing status shows ready on all of them.
Are listing images causing tickets?
- Photos appear rotated on some portals but not others.
- Floorplans are missing from portals because they were uploaded as PDFs.
- Negotiators complain about slow uploads from phones.
- The main listing photo is often whatever was first in the folder.
- Your storage costs are high because original files are served everywhere.