Plans: V1.0: Pro, ENT | V2.0: Growth, ENT | V3.0: Scale, ENT (Whitelist enabled)
Platforms: All platforms
Sales channel: TikTok Shop (US, UK, EU, MX, JP)
Overview
If you sell the same product in multiple colors or patterns, Main image color swatches let you show these options directly on the product's main image in TikTok Shop.
The feature combines the original main image with visual color or pattern swatches and sets the new image as the first image of the TikTok Shop listing. This helps shoppers see the available options before opening the full variant selector.
For example, if a bag is available in black, brown, pink, and blue, shoppers can see these options directly from the main product image.
You can customize the swatch layout, position, number of colors, shape, and background in Shop design. You can then apply the design to the products you select.
Why use main image color swatches?
Main image color swatches help you make your product options more visible and communicate the value of offering multiple colors or patterns.
Make more options visible: Show available colors or patterns directly on the main image.
Improve visibility across shopping touchpoints: The enhanced main image can appear when shoppers discover your products through ads, affiliate videos, or the TikTok Shop tab.
Get more value from Consolidated Listings: If you combine products with different colors or patterns into a consolidated listing, swatches help shoppers understand the range of options available from a single product image.
Match your brand style: Customize the swatch layout, position, shape, number of colors, and background to create a look that works with your product images and brand.
How does it work?
Configure color swatches
In AfterShip Feed, go to Shop design.
Open the color swatch design options.
Choose a layout: Horizontal or Vertical
Select the swatch position:
For horizontal layout: Bottom-center or Bottom-right
For vertical layout: Right-center or Bottom-right
Choose how many colors to display: 4 or 10.
If the product has more colors than the selected number, the remaining colors appear as a number.
Choose a shape: Square or Circle
Choose a background: None for clean product photos or Solid if your photos are busy or colorful.
The live preview updates as you change the settings, so you can review the design before applying it.
Apply color swatches to products
Configure your swatch design in Shop design.
Click Apply.
Select the products you want to apply the swatches to.
After you click Apply, AfterShip creates a new main image with the swatches and sets it as the first image. The process may take a few minutes.
A banner appears on the page to show the status of the current task.
After the image is created, it is pushed to your TikTok Shop listing. If the image update fails, your original image remains in place.
Note: Main image color swatches do not update automatically. To change the swatch design or apply swatches to new products, select your product scope and click Apply again. Refer to the Re-apply color swatches.
Which products are eligible?
Within your selection, color swatches are added only to TTS active products containing a color option with 2 or more colors.
How are color swatches generated?
Shopify metaobjects
If you use Shopify Metaobjects to manage product colors, AfterShip retrieves the corresponding color values from Shopify. You must ensure that:
Grant Feed permission to access Metaobjects.
Link the relevant product SKUs so Feed can access the Metaobject data.
AI color extraction from SKU images
If Feed cannot retrieve the Metaobject data, AI color extraction is used as a fallback.
The AI analyzes the variant images and automatically crops and displays the product color images as swatches.
Swatch order
Swatches appear in the same order as the color options on the listing.
For products linked to a Consolidated Listing by Product Group, you can change the swatch order by changing the product sequence within the product group.
How do images sync to TikTok Shop?
For each qualifying product, AfterShip creates a new main image along with the swatches and sets it as the first image.
The original main image moves to the second position.
If the product already has 9 images, the oldest image is removed to make room for the new swatch image.
If the product’s Auto-update image was enabled, applying swatches turns it off for that product only. This prevents the swatch image from being overwritten later.
Re-apply color swatches
To change the design or cover new products, adjust your settings and click Apply again — it updates swatches across the products you selected.
If you changed the design settings
Products that already have swatch images are updated with the new design.
Newly qualifying products get swatch images for the first time.
If you did not change the design settings
Existing swatch images remain unchanged.
Only newly qualifying products get swatch images.
Remove color swatches
You can remove existing color swatches in either of the following ways.
Turn on Auto-update image for the product. AfterShip re-syncs the images from your e-commerce platform and replaces the swatch image with the original image.
You can manually delete the swatch image from the product's images.
What’s next?
Once you apply color swatches to your products, shoppers can see the available colors or patterns directly from the TikTok Shop main image. You can return to Shop design anytime to update the swatch design, apply it to new eligible products, or remove existing swatches.