Draft custom order - image insertion

Store Design

Topic summary

A merchant selling custom-sized privacy screens is frustrated that Shopify’s draft order system doesn’t allow images to be added to custom line items. When creating draft orders for bespoke sizes (which represent ~30% of their orders across 55 product designs), customers receive invoices showing grey placeholders instead of product images, making orders appear unprofessional.

Current limitation:
Custom line items in draft orders don’t reference product database objects, so there’s no backend field for images—only custom descriptions are supported.

Suggested workarounds:

  • Create hidden/unpublished products with images for custom sizes
  • Manually attach images when sending invoices via HTML editing
  • Use third-party apps like Draft Order Pro, Order Printer Pro, or Better Draft Orders

Merchant’s position:
They argue that if custom descriptions are allowed, custom images should be too—requesting a simple “Select Image” button. They’re frustrated at needing paid apps to solve what they view as a basic Shopify design gap.

Status: No public roadmap exists for this feature. The merchant can submit a feature request through Shopify Community or Partner Dashboard. The issue remains unresolved.

Summarized with AI on October 28. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
4

Thanks for your reply and the detailed suggestions — I do appreciate the effort. But I have to be honest: the current setup just doesn’t cut it for how we operate.

We offer 55 different privacy screen designs, and roughly 30% of our orders are bespoke sizes. These aren’t entirely custom products — they’re just size variations of items already listed in our store. Draft orders are essential for handling these requests quickly and efficiently. But when customers receive an invoice with no image — just a dull grey placeholder — it looks unfinished and unprofessional.

If Shopify allows us to add a custom product description, then why not a custom image as well? A simple “Select Image” button on the draft order page would completely solve the problem. This isn’t some fringe request — it’s a basic, practical need for stores like ours doing genuine business.

What’s even more frustrating is being pointed toward third-party apps — many of which cost extra — to solve what is clearly a Shopify design limitation. Why should we be forced to pay for an app just to make our invoices look halfway decent? We’re not trying to do anything fancy — just show customers what they’re actually buying.

I really believe Shopify needs to revisit this. A small change here could make a big difference for thousands of merchants handling tailored products.