Visual evidence
Half of what your catalogue records, the photograph already said
We ran our own catalogue through the question we ask merchants, and got back an answer we did not want. Here it is, with the working.
Measured in October 2026. Nothing on this page is for sale.
Why did we go looking for this?
Because of something a colleague said about their own shopping, which is the kind of remark that is unremarkable until you notice it contradicts your product. Most of the time, they said, they look at the pictures. They want to search by picture. They do not read the description.
Every number Pulse produces assumes the opposite. We rank a missing field by how much recording it would narrow the shelf, and we count that field as working the moment it exists. We never asked whether anyone reads it. A fact the buyer cannot see does not decide a purchase, and we had been counting those facts at full value.
So we measured it. Twice.
On a laptop shelf, the two channels miss each other completely
These are the nine things a laptop buyer weighs, typed by hand from the filter rails and buying guides of three large electronics retailers. For each one we asked two questions: can the catalogue tell you, and can the photograph tell you.
| What the buyer weighs | Catalogue carries it | Photograph shows it |
|---|---|---|
| Memory | Yes | No |
| Storage | Yes | No |
| Screen size | Yes | No |
| Processor | Yes | No |
| Price | No | No |
| Weight | No | No |
| Graphics | No | No |
| Battery life | No | No |
| Operating system | No | Yes |
- Catalogue carries
- 4 of 9
- Photograph shows
- 1 of 9
- Both channels
- 0 of 9
Nothing overlaps. Every fact we can rank on is invisible in the picture, and the one fact the picture carries is the one the catalogue never records. We expected the two channels to back each other up. They do not even meet.
Honest caveat: the catalogue column is measured, the photograph column is our judgement. Screen size is the one we would argue about, and calling it visible does not change the shape of the result.
Then we checked our own catalogue, and it was worse
2,176 products in the catalogue we use for our own demonstrations. We counted coverage per attribute, left out ratings and sales counts because those describe the listing rather than the product, and asked of each one whether a single product photograph already answers it.
- Colour
- 100.0%photo shows it
- Size
- 45.2%no
- Capacity
- 21.3%no
- Storage
- 12.9%no
- Memory
- 7.2%no
- Variant
- 3.5%no
The only attribute recorded on every single product is the only one the photograph already answers.
- Recorded values the photo repeats
- 52.6%
- Recorded values that add something
- 47.4%
- Facts per product you cannot get by looking
- 0.90
Over half of everything this catalogue records is a second copy of what the picture shows. The average product carries less than one fact a shopper cannot get by looking at it. And every product has exactly one image. Not a median of one. All 2,176.
What does this change about the audit?
It adds a question we were not asking, and it turns out to be the one with the money in it.
A shopper can be told a fact in three ways: a field they can filter on, a picture they can look at, or a sentence they will actually read. The audit measures the first one. So the right question is not whether an attribute is recorded. It is whether the shopper can perceive it at all, and then what the cheapest repair is.
That last part matters, because the cheapest repair is often not the one we currently recommend. Today the audit says record this attribute. Quite often the attribute is already recorded and the real repair is to put it on the picture, or into the comparison table, or into the first line of the description where someone will read it.
The fact does not exist
Somebody has to go and get it. This is the audit we already sell, and it is the half of the problem we know how to price.
The fact exists and nobody can see it
Somebody has to show it. This is new, we do not sell it yet, and on our own catalogue it is the larger of the two piles.
Where is the line on generating an image?
Sooner or later someone asks whether we would just make the missing picture. The answer has a line in it, and we would rather write the line down in public than negotiate it later.
Crop an existing photograph
Every pixel is real and only the framing is ours. Most merchants already own the detail shot and have it sitting at position six where nobody scrolls. Safe.
Draw a measurement on a real photograph
A dimension line over a picture, using a number the catalogue already holds. Safe, with one rule: the overlay may only annotate an axis the photograph actually shows. Depth on a side view, not on a front view.
Composite against a known scale
Real product pixels, recorded dimensions, and a reference silhouette placed by arithmetic rather than by a model. Safe.
Generate the surroundings
Real product, invented room. Allowed, and only with the label on it that says so.
Generate the product showing a fact
A weave, a finish, a feature that nobody ever photographed. Never. This is inventing a product claim, and a picture is believed more readily than a sentence, which makes it worse rather than better. The merchant who ships it is the one who finds out.
We may generate presentation. We must never generate an unverified product fact.
What this does not prove yet
It proves the overlap, because the overlap is a property of the catalogue and we counted it. It does not prove anyone loses a sale over it. The evidence for that would be a shopper opening a picture, opening it again, and leaving. We do not collect that, which is an uncomfortable thing to admit halfway down a page arguing it matters.
So this is a measurement and a hypothesis, kept apart on purpose. Two things would kill it. Reordering a product gallery turns out not to change what people buy. Or merchants take the suggested photograph, shoot it, and nothing moves. We would rather find either of those out early, and we will publish it here when we do.
Measured in October 2026. Nothing on this page is for sale. What we can and cannot claim is the rest of it.