Image Formats by Marketplace: Etsy, Amazon, eBay and Shopify

Why marketplace rules beat web best practice

On your own site you control delivery: you can serve WEBP or AVIF with a fallback and nobody notices. On a marketplace you are a guest. The platform decides what it accepts on upload, how it re-encodes, and what it serves. Your job is to give it a file it will not mangle.

That usually means JPG in sRGB, at a generous size, with no transparency and no embedded colour profile surprises. It also means keeping a higher-quality master so you can export again when a platform changes its rules.

Reference table (verify before a large batch)

Platforms change limits without much notice. Treat this table as the current baseline and confirm on the official help page for your category before exporting hundreds of files.

Etsy: JPG in sRGB, sized for zoom

Etsy’s zoom depends on image size, and zoom is how buyers inspect texture and finish. Export at least 2000 px on the shortest side as a high-quality JPG in sRGB. PNG is accepted but makes photographic files much heavier for no visible gain; GIF is only for animation.

Upload all ten slots where the product justifies it, and keep the first image clean and high-contrast. The platform re-encodes and resizes for display, so do not upload a 6000 px camera file and assume it will be optimised — you are paying upload time for pixels nobody sees.

Amazon: compliance first, aesthetics second

Amazon’s image requirements are stricter than most sellers expect. The main image usually needs a pure white background, the product should fill most of the frame, and promotional text, borders or watermarks can get a listing suppressed. JPEG is the safest upload format.

Size matters because zoom and mobile display both depend on it: at least 1000 px on the longest side to enable zoom, and 1600 px or more for the best results. Because Amazon runs its own processing pipeline, embedded metadata is unreliable — put the information in the listing fields.

eBay: generous formats, weaker display

eBay accepts the widest range of formats, which makes it easy to upload almost anything — including files you should not. Keep JPG as the default, avoid transparency, and stay around 1600 px on the longest side unless a category says otherwise.

Because display sizes are capped, very large files add upload time without visible benefit. Compress with a normal photo setting rather than maximum quality.

Shopify and your own store: use the modern formats

Shopify accepts WEBP and HEIC and generates its own responsive variants, so uploading a clean JPG or PNG master is enough; the CDN handles delivery. For a custom storefront you control the format directly: serve WEBP or AVIF with a JPG fallback, and let the browser pick.

On your own site, also set width and height (or an aspect-ratio box), lazy-load below-the-fold images, and never lazy-load the hero image. Those three changes often matter more than the format itself.

Google Merchant Center and Shopping ads

Product feeds have their own rules: no promotional overlays, no borders, no watermarks, and a clean white or neutral background is expected for most categories. The recommended size is 1000 × 1000 px, with 800 × 800 as a floor. Square images avoid cropping surprises across ad placements.

Because the feed image is often the first impression in Shopping results, treat it as a separate export from the marketplace gallery — same product, different crop rules.

The export matrix that avoids rework

Keep one master per image and export per channel. The master should be the largest, least-compressed version you own — ideally the original or a high-quality JPG/PNG at full resolution. Never overwrite it with an export.

A practical matrix for a single product shot: Etsy 2500 px JPG q85; Amazon 2000 px JPG q90 on white; eBay 1600 px JPG q80; Shopify 2048 px JPG master (CDN converts); feed 1000 px square JPG q85. Five files, one source, no guessing.

Common rejection reasons

• Uploading WEBP to a platform that only accepts JPG or PNG.
• Transparency flattened to black during a PNG-to-JPG export.
• A CMYK file that shifts colour when converted to sRGB.
• A main image with text, borders or a watermark.
• A product that fills too little of the frame.
• A file smaller than the platform’s zoom threshold.
• Upscaling a small image instead of reshooting it.

A 3-minute pre-flight check

Before a large upload, take one finished file per channel and check five things: it opens in a browser, its dimensions match the table, its colour looks right on a phone, transparency is intentional, and the file size is under the limit. Fixing one sample is cheap; fixing 200 rejected uploads is not.

Frequently asked questions

Does Etsy accept WEBP?

JPG, PNG and GIF are the safe upload formats. Convert WEBP to JPG before uploading to avoid rejection or unexpected re-encoding.

What size should Amazon main images be?

At least 1000 px on the longest side to enable zoom, and 1600 px or more for best display. Check the requirements for your specific category.

Can I use the same image file for every marketplace?

You can, but you will lose quality or fail a rule somewhere. Export per channel from one master instead.

Why did my colours change after upload?

Usually a colour-profile mismatch, often CMYK or an embedded profile the platform ignores. Export in sRGB and compare a sample.

Is PNG better than JPG for product photos?

For photographs, no. PNG is much heavier with no visible gain. Use PNG only when you need transparency or flat graphics.