Photos and videos

The first thing every buyer sees is your primary photo. Then they see your gallery. Then, much later, they read the description. If the photos aren't credible, no buyer ever gets to the description. This is the practical guide for sellers.

The primary photo

The primary photo is the one that appears in:

• The marketplace card grid in /equipment.
• The carousel slide on dashboard saved-listings.
• The OpenGraph preview when someone shares the listing on Slack/Telegram/LinkedIn.

Pick deliberately:

• Show the whole asset, not a detail. Buyers in a card grid need to recognise what category it is at a glance.
• Use a clean background. Yard or apron is fine; chaotic clutter is not.
• Frame it well-lit, level, and centred. Bright daylight beats interior lighting every time.
• Don't use the OEM brochure shot. Moderation flags it, and serious buyers immediately mistrust it.

Set primary explicitly when uploading — the upload UI has a "set as primary" toggle on each photo. If you don't set one, the first photo by position becomes primary.

Gallery — what to include

A serious listing has 10-20 photos covering:

1. Exterior, multiple angles — front, rear, both sides, top if relevant.
2. The plate — serial number, registration mark, VIN, model plate. Don't blur it; buyers need it for verification.
3. The condition signals for that asset type:

- Heavy equipment — undercarriage, tracks, tyres, bucket/attachment wear, hydraulics, cab interior, engine bay. - Aircraft — engine, cockpit, logbook page open, registration markings, recent maintenance areas. - Trucks and vans — bed/box, drivetrain, odometer, cab, tyres. - Marine — hull, deck, engine room, instrumentation.

1. Anything not perfect — show the wear, the dents, the recent repair. Buyers who find a defect after paying never come back; buyers who saw it upfront and bought anyway are happy customers.
2. Documentation snippet — if you have a recent inspection report, a photo of the cover page can be a strong signal.

Photo order

Beyond the primary, the gallery is shown in the order you set. Front-load the strongest photos. The buyer is most likely to stop scrolling at photos 3-5; if those are bad, they leave.

Videos

Videos are optional but disproportionately effective. A 30-60 second walkaround clip:

• Shows the asset starts, runs, moves.
• Confirms there's no obvious smoke, leak or odd noise.
• Is hard to fake — videos are a much stronger trust signal than photos.

Upload limits:

• One or more videos per listing. Position works the same as photos.
• A thumbnail is generated automatically; you can also set one explicitly.
• Keep them under a few minutes — buyers want a walkaround, not a documentary.

Common mistakes

• Three blurry phone photos. The deal is dead before it starts.
• All exterior, no interior or undercarriage. Buyers assume you're hiding something.
• Photos with the previous owner's branding visible. Either crop / blur or explain in the description.
• Inconsistent angles. Six photos from the same angle don't show six things; they show one thing six times.
• Photos from when the asset was new, used to sell it three years later. Recency matters.

On image quality and Cloudflare

Haubot serves images through Cloudflare's image resizing pipeline. Original uploads can be high resolution — the platform generates the right sizes for cards, galleries and lightboxes automatically. Upload the highest-quality file you have; the platform handles the rest.