Marketplace Listing Image Guide

Six Platforms, One Table

The numbers below are the published specs for each platform's main (primary) image. "—" means the platform does not publish a hard value. Treat the strictest column as your master spec: shoot to it once, and every other platform is a crop away.

Sources: each platform's published image guidelines (Amazon Seller Central, Walmart Marketplace Learn, eBay, Etsy Help, Shopify Help, Google Merchant Center). Reviewed 2026-10-26. Non-official values are marked as third-party estimates.

The Divide That Matters: Enforced vs Advisory

Most "marketplace image requirement" articles dump every spec into one table and imply they all carry the same weight. They don't. The useful split is between rules a platform actually rejects or delists for, and rules it merely suggests.

Amazon: Pure White + ~85% Fill

Amazon's main image rules are the strictest and best documented: a pure white background (RGB 255,255,255), the product filling roughly 85% of the frame, square, at least 500px on the longest side (1000px+ for zoom, 1600–2000px recommended), JPEG/PNG under 10MB. Text, logos and watermarks are banned on the main image. Our Amazon Main Image Normalizer measures all five and normalizes in your browser.

Walmart: Same Direction, Stricter Numbers

Walmart shares Amazon's pure-white rule but pushes every number tighter and adds traps Amazon doesn't have: 2200×2200px recommended, 1500px zoom floor, a 5MB cap (vs Amazon's 10MB), an exact 255/255/255 background value, and a GIF ban. Most importantly, a primary image under 500×500px auto-unpublishes the listing with no warning — a silent delisting floor Amazon doesn't have. Our Walmart Main Image Normalizer targets exactly these differences.

Google Merchant: The Fill Rule Amazon and Walmart Don't State

Google Merchant is the one platform that publishes an explicit fill range: 75–90% of the frame, with a white, light gray or transparent background recommended. The minimum is just 100×100px (250×250px for apparel), but the recommendation is ≥800×800px. Because its fill and background rules overlap heavily with Amazon's, the Amazon normalizer's output also clears Google Merchant for most products. Our Google Shopping Image Normalizer checks the 75–90% fill range and resizes to Google's recommended 1500px+ without recoloring your background.

eBay, Etsy, Shopify: Where the Rules Relax

eBay

1600×1600px recommended, 500×500px floor, up to 12MB, and eight accepted formats including HEIC and AVIF. The white background is recommended, not required — reflective or dark products can shoot on a dark backdrop. There is no fill rule. Our eBay Main Image Normalizer normalizes to the recommended white background and exports a 1600px square.

Etsy

No white-background requirement at all. Etsy recommends ≥2000px and, uniquely, encourages lifestyle and in-context shots for the first image. If you're listing on Etsy, a white hero is a choice, not a rule. Our Etsy Listing Photo Normalizer never forces a white background — it resizes to Etsy's recommended 2000px.

Shopify

No platform-level image spec. Most themes render at 2048×2048px and downscale, so shoot at 2048px+ for sharpness. Background, fill and format are entirely your brand's call. Our Shopify Product Image Normalizer exports at 2048px without forcing a background change.

Pixels Decide Sharpness. DPI Decides Nothing.

No marketplace reads the DPI field; it reads width and height. Switching a file from 72 to 300 DPI leaves the pixel grid untouched and adds no detail — it only changes the number a printer would use. What counts is the largest size your image is shown at. A 600px slot on a 2× display already needs 1200px, and a zoom step multiplies that again. That is why the usual recommendation lands near 2000px, and why upscaling cannot help: interpolation makes a bigger file, not a sharper one.

Padding Keeps the Subject. Cropping Raises the Fill.

To reach a required ratio you either cut pixels away or add canvas. Cropping deletes the edges, so the product occupies a larger share of the frame — exactly what a fill-ratio floor rewards — but a tall subject can lose its top and a wide one its sides. Padding keeps every pixel of the product and adds neutral canvas around it: nothing is clipped, yet the fill ratio falls and a strict minimum can fail. Crop when the edge holds nothing you need; pad when the silhouette is the whole product.

Transparent Backgrounds Do Not Survive JPEG.

Transparency lives in an alpha channel, and JPEG has none. Export a transparent PNG as JPEG and the alpha values must go somewhere; depending on the encoder they land on black or white, which is why a file that looks clean in a browser arrives as a black box in a listing. Flattening onto white before encoding removes the ambiguity: what you preview is what ships. Keep PNG if the platform accepts it and you need the cut-out — but do not assume it survives, because many pipelines convert downstream.

Every Re-save Costs Detail. EXIF Costs Orientation.

JPEG is lossy, so each save discards a little more: five passes at quality 90 are not the same file as one pass. Do the geometry and background work in a single export, then stop. EXIF is the second trap. Phones store rotation in a tag, not in the pixels, so stripping the tag without baking the rotation in leaves a portrait shot sideways. Our tools read the orientation tag, rotate the pixels, then drop the tag, so the file looks the same in every viewer.

Frequently Asked Questions