Every marketplace has its own rules, its own aesthetic and its own shopper. An image that performs on Etsy looks out of place on Amazon. An image that converts on your Shopify store can get an Amazon listing suppressed.
Here is what each platform requires, what each audience responds to, and how to cover all three without shooting three times.
One caveat before the specifics: marketplace requirements change. Treat the numbers below as the working shape of each platform and confirm against the current seller documentation before a big upload.
Amazon
The technical rules
- Main image: pure white background (RGB 255, 255, 255), product filling about 85% of the frame.
- Resolution: 1000 px on the longest side is the hard minimum; 1600 px or more is what actually enables zoom, and zoom is what customers use to decide.
- Formats: JPEG, TIFF, PNG or GIF — JPEG in practice.
- Colour: sRGB or CMYK.
- File names: include the product identifier (ASIN, UPC or EAN).
No text, logos, watermarks, borders or props in the main image. Amazon enforces this, and enforcement means suppression rather than a warning.
The image slots
Up to nine, of which around seven typically show. A sequence that works:
- Main: white background, product only
- Model or lifestyle shot — the product in use
- Infographic with feature callouts
- Scale reference or size comparison
- Detail close-up: texture, stitching, hardware
- Back or alternate angle
- What is included in the box
- Further lifestyle or comparison frames
What Amazon rewards
Fill every slot you are given — an incomplete gallery leaves the shopper's questions to your competitor's listing. Infographics work harder here than on any other channel, because Amazon shoppers are comparing specifications, not browsing. A+ Content gives you rich imagery below the fold; use lifestyle frames there. And check everything on a phone: the majority of Amazon shopping happens on mobile, where your fifth image is a thumbnail the size of a stamp.
Shopify
The technical shape
- Resolution: 2048 × 2048 px square is the safe recommendation.
- File size: up to 20 MB per image, though you should be nowhere near that.
- Formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP.
- Ratio: square is standard; many themes handle portrait or landscape.
The strategy
Shopify gives you what marketplaces do not: complete control of the visual identity. That is freedom and responsibility in the same package — nothing stops you from shipping an incoherent gallery.
Four to eight images per product, in a fixed order across the catalogue:
- Hero shot on your standard background
- Model shot, front view
- Model shot in a lifestyle setting
- Detail close-up
- Back view
- Fit or size reference
- Colour variants
- Styled flat lay
What matters here
One aspect ratio, everywhere. Mixed ratios turn a collection page into a ragged grid, and that is the first impression of your whole brand.
Alt text on every image — for accessibility first, search second.
Map images to variants so choosing a colour changes the picture. It is a small thing that removes a real moment of doubt.
Test in your actual theme. Galleries crop differently; what looks composed in your folder can be beheaded in the template.
Because a Shopify store is judged as a whole rather than listing by listing, consistency does more work here than anywhere else — the framework is in how to create consistent brand imagery.
Etsy
The technical shape
- Resolution: around 2000 px on the shortest side.
- Ratio: 4:3 landscape suits the thumbnail crop; square works too.
- Formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF.
- Up to ten images per listing, plus video.
What the Etsy shopper wants
A different aesthetic entirely. Etsy buyers are buying the maker as much as the object, so clinical studio perfection can actively work against you. What lands: natural light, evidence of craft, process, scale against a familiar object, and lifestyle that feels personal rather than staged.
A sequence that suits the platform:
- Hero shot: best angle, natural light, in context
- Clean product shot on a simple background
- Detail close-up: texture, stitching, material
- Scale reference against a hand or common object
- Process or craft shot
- The piece being worn or used
- Packaging — what actually arrives
- Colour variants
- Customer or styled UGC photo
- Brand story: workshop, materials, team
Etsy specifics
Your first image is a search thumbnail before it is anything else — it competes against forty others at postage-stamp size. Warm, natural-toned photography tends to outperform cool studio work. Include a size chart for apparel, and add a video: Etsy actively favours listings that have one.
Covering all three efficiently
Do not build three separate image sets. Build one master set and adapt:
- Produce the base images: white background, model shot, lifestyle, details.
- Amazon: white background as main, infographic overlays for the supporting slots.
- Shopify: your branded background as hero, lifestyle second.
- Etsy: lifestyle as main, warmer light, add process and packaging frames.
This is where generated photography earns its place. From a single product upload you can produce the white-background frame for Amazon, the branded studio frame for your own store and a warmer lifestyle frame for Etsy — same garment, same fit, same colour, three visual languages. Ten output ratios means the crop is chosen at generation rather than salvaged afterwards. The workflow is in from flat-lay to model shot.
Before you upload
- Resolution meets the platform minimum, ideally 2000 px
- File size optimised without visible artefacts
- Alt text written for every image
- Colour accurate and consistent across the set
- Product fills the right proportion of the frame
- Correct aspect ratio for this specific channel
- Front, back and detail all covered
- At least one model or lifestyle frame
- File names carry the identifier or keywords
- Checked on a phone, at thumbnail size
Where to start
Audit one listing per channel against the lists above and write down what is missing. It will usually be the same two things everywhere: a model shot and a scale reference. Fix those across the catalogue before you optimise anything else — the cost of doing so is now small enough that having gaps is a choice.
