Run the request once, in this order
A shoe photo request is a small piece of work with a fixed order, and doing it out of order is how buyers end up with eight frames of the same side of one shoe. Start from the question you will not be able to answer later, rather than from the part of the shoe you find most interesting, because the interesting part is usually visible in the seller’s own gallery already.
- Write the three angles down before opening the request form, one line each.
- Add the single measurement you actually need, and name the part of the shoe it applies to.
- Submit the request while the item is still in storage, before any merge request goes in.
- Read the reply against your three lines and mark each one answered, partly answered or missed.
Set size matters more than people assume. A six-frame set has room for exactly six views, and the lateral pair, both soles, the tongue label and the box label can account for four of them before anything unusual has been photographed. That leaves two frames, which is the entire margin between a set that settles a return and one that describes a shoe.
The order above also protects you from a second problem, which is a request written in prose. A numbered list of three lines is easy to check off when the reply arrives, while a paragraph about how the pair looks in the listing photos invites a reply that answers none of it and cannot be shown to have missed anything.
The same discipline applies to the measurement line. One measurement, named precisely, is worth requesting, while a general request for measurements produces whichever two or three the person holding the tape finds easiest, and those are rarely the ones a size chart turns on. If you are comparing against a chart, ask for the dimension the chart uses and say so in the request, because a sole length and an insole length are different numbers and only one of them appears on most charts.
Input: the three angles, and what each one settles
Three views carry nearly every decision a photo set can support. Each answers one question, and each is close to useless for the other two, which is why a set containing three frames of the same side can feel thorough and settle nothing. Three views of one side are one angle, however many files they arrive in.
| Angle | Settles | Cannot settle |
|---|---|---|
| Both shoes, one lateral frame | Whether the pair matches | Comfort or lasting |
| Both soles in one frame | Wear and moulding marks | Hardness or grip |
| Tongue, size tag, box label | The size actually received | Whether it runs true |
| A ruler across the insole | Measured length of this pair | Fit on your foot |
The third row decides more returns than the other three combined, because a size mismatch is a fact while a pair that looks slightly uneven is an impression. Put the tongue label, the size tag and the box label in one frame so that a single image either agrees with your order line or visibly does not.
The fourth row is the one buyers forget, and it is the one that ends arguments. Shoes are sold by label and worn by measurement, and those two numbers are not the same number. A ruler laid across the insole in the same frame as nothing else gives you a length you can compare with the chart you used, rather than a label you have to trust.
What comes back, and what makes a reply usable
Open the reply and check four things before you look at the shoe itself, because a set that fails any of them cannot support a decision no matter how good the shoes look. The check takes about a minute and saves the second request that most buyers end up sending.
- Duplicates: two frames that differ only in framing mean one angle was delivered rather than two.
- No scale: a mark photographed without a reference can only be described in adjectives.
- An illegible label: ask for the label alone, close, in focus, with the code readable at full size.
- A single shoe: one shoe cannot show whether the pair matches, which is the most common real defect.
A six-frame set containing three distinct angles has three angles of coverage, whatever the file count says. Write that number down, because it is the only part of the exchange you can compare between orders.
Coverage is the number worth recording, not the number of images. Two orders with the same frame count and different coverage are not the same evidence, and the difference only becomes obvious months later when one return was decided on a measured length and the other on somebody’s impression of a photograph.
Reading the set as one of three decisions
Every usable set produces one of three outcomes, and the difference between them is what the frames show rather than how you feel about the pair. Naming the outcome is what turns a set of images into an instruction for the next step.
- Accept: the pair matches, the label matches the order line, and the measured length sits inside the range you expected.
- Ask again: one angle is missing or unreadable, and that missing view is the one that would decide the question.
- Return: the pair does not match, the label disagrees with the order line, or the measured length sits outside your range.
Only one of those three outcomes has a clock attached to it, and the clock belongs to the storage state rather than to the shoes. A return is cheap while the item is still on a shelf and expensive once it is inside a sealed parcel, so the decision is worth making in the same week the photos arrive rather than after the next order is placed.
If the answer is a return, the pair of documents you already hold does most of the work: the order line states what was bought, and the label frame states what arrived. The [return and dispute pages](/table/returns/) describe what a return is read against, and the label frame is usually the first item on that list.
Two of the three outcomes are worth writing into your own notes, and the third is not. Acceptance and return both change what you know about a seller, while a request for another angle is an open question that has not produced information yet. Kept that way over a year, the pattern of acceptances and returns against one seller becomes the only performance measure you will have that describes your own purchases rather than somebody else’s.
Where the three angles stop being useful
Three angles settle identity, pairing and visible condition. They settle nothing about how the shoe feels underfoot, how the material ages, or whether a size that measures correctly will fit a foot of that length. A return argued on those grounds is a preference rather than a mismatch, and it will be read as one. Saying which of the two you are raising is more useful than arguing about it afterwards.
There is also a limit on how much a still image can carry. A crease that only appears when a thumb presses the toe box, a glue line that opens when the shoe flexes, a sole that separates after a week of walking: none of these can be photographed at a warehouse bench, and asking for another angle will not produce any of them. The [QC stage walkthrough](/steps/qc-photos/) describes the same boundary from the other side of the process.
How long a warehouse takes to answer a photo request, and whether an extra angle costs anything, are agent-side answers. This page prints no figure for either of them; ask and keep the reply.
Worked example: a six-frame shoe set spends one frame on the lateral pair, one on both soles, one on the tongue label and one on the box label, which accounts for four frames and leaves two for anything else. Naming three angles before the request is what decides whether those spare frames get used on a defect or on a duplicate view. (Worked example)
This note explains the mechanics; the list is where the items are.