Home › Guides › Product photos for marketplaces
Preparing Product Photos for Online Marketplaces
Every marketplace sets a minimum image size, and listings that fail it are rejected or shown less. Here is what each one wants and how to meet it.
Why size requirements exist
Marketplaces want customers to be able to zoom in. A shopper who can inspect the stitching on a bag is far more likely to buy it than one looking at a postage stamp. That is why the big platforms enforce a minimum pixel count, and why several of them switch zoom off entirely for images that only just scrape past it.
The practical effect is that an undersized photo does not merely look worse. It can reduce how often your listing is shown at all.
Typical requirements
These change from time to time, so always check the current help pages, but the general shape has been stable for years.
| Platform | Usual minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 1000 px on the longest side for zoom | 1600 px or more |
| eBay | 500 px on the longest side | 1600 px |
| Etsy | 2000 px on the shortest side | 2000 to 3000 px |
| Shopify | No hard minimum | 2048 x 2048 |
| Facebook / Instagram shops | 500 px | 1024 px or more |
Notice that Etsy measures the shortest side while most others measure the longest. That single difference catches a lot of sellers out.
The common problem
Most sellers hit the same wall. The photos exist, they look fine on screen, but they came from a phone that saved at a modest size, or they were sent by a supplier already shrunk for email, or they were pulled from an older listing.
Re-shooting is the ideal answer. When that is not possible, upscaling is the practical one: an AI upscaler can take an 800 x 800 supplier image to 3200 x 3200, comfortably clearing every threshold in the table above.
A workflow that works
- Start with the largest original you can find. Ask the supplier for the full-size file before doing anything else. It is always better than reconstructing.
- Crop to the product. Marketplaces generally want the item filling most of the frame. Crop first so you are not enlarging empty background.
- Square it if required. Amazon and Etsy both favour square images. Crop to a square before upscaling so the final pixel count is not wasted.
- Upscale to comfortably above the minimum. If the platform wants 2000 px, aim for 2400 or more so a later crop does not push you back under.
- Save as JPG at maximum quality for photographs, or PNG if the image has a pure white background you want kept perfectly clean.
- Check the file size limit. Some platforms cap uploads at around 10 MB. A very large PNG can exceed that, in which case JPG is the answer.
Things that get listings rejected
- Watermarks, logos or promotional text over the image, on platforms that forbid them
- Borders or frames around the photo
- Backgrounds that are meant to be pure white but are actually light grey
- Images below the minimum pixel count
- Props or accessories that are not part of what you are selling
A note on honesty
Upscaling makes an image larger and sharper. It does not change what the product looks like, and it should not be used to hide flaws. Enlarging a photo of a damaged item does not make the item less damaged, and marketplaces take a dim view of listings that misrepresent condition. Use it to meet technical requirements, not to mislead.
When your photos are cropped and ready, run them through the upscaler. You can queue several at once and download them together.