We have done some trials with different file formats, aspect ratios and sizes to come up with a list of criteria for the best size for eBay photos for your eBay listings and auctions. This was done on some of our actual eBay listings. The listings were tested on both desktop and mobile phones to see which photo parameters use up maximum provided space, while also looking good.
eBay already recommends to use 1600 pixel photos, but they never seem to mention the full width and height that should be used by sellers. They also don't go into aspect ratios and file type recommendations. So, let's do this ourselves and come up with a good guide to follow.
Our basic assumption in this study is, the more area your photo takes up, the better. And the reasoning for this is quite simple - bigger photos tend to catch more visitor attention, and this in turn eventually translates into higher sales. Imagine if you could increase your sales by 5% if you only made your pictures 5% larger, wouldn't you do it?
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What's the best size for eBay photos?
The following are the best parameters for having good eBay photos in your listings:
- 1600x1600 pixels
- 1:1 aspect ratio (square photo)
- JPG (or JPEG) file format
- 7MB maximum file size, but you will likely use only a tenth of this
eBay has very loose requirements for photos and photo tips. The minimum size is 500x500 pixels and the maximum is 9000x9000. And almost all file formats are accepted. This leaves a lot of room for possibilities and experimentation.
However, from our experience and trials, we found that the absolute best results come from 1600x1600 photos encoded in JPG format. The 1:1 aspect ratio guarantees that you'll be using all of the space provided in search results where larger photos make a difference in catching buyer attention.
Following these simple guidelines, you'll also certainly obey the file size requirement.
Why we choose the JPG/JPEG format
This is normally the default format on most cameras today, and for a good reason. eBay allows the following file types to be uploaded: JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, GIF. The problem with all of these except JPEG, is they tend to produce very large files (many megabytes), whenever you need to have any large-sized picture. We will also show, that JPEG has the additional benefit of allowing you to reduce picture quality to dramatically reduce file size, but the apparent quality of details isn't sacrificed at all.
How these photos look on desktop computers
Through testing, we found that the 1:1 aspect ratio ends up using the most amount of available space for your item photos. The only slight issue is on desktop browsers, there's still a bit of white space around the left and right edges. But as you can see, this is true for any picture, and eBay just has these spaces no matter what we do. Oh well... At least our test photo is taking up the full height of the listing in search results.
I think eventually eBay will probably change this because the way it's working now it's wasting precious space. This space isn't used by sellers and also not used by eBay.
It's really strange how when you use any aspect ratio other than 1:1, eBay ends up punishing you by giving you a physically smaller photo in search results. This is one of our biggest reasons to choose the perfectly square aspect ratio.
The image below is showing how our photo appears in our listing details page. Please notice how the preview picture is taking up the whole space provided by eBay!
The zoom function on this photo is stunning. In our other tests, we tried 1200x1200 (discussed later), the preview wasn't nearly this good. I think this is the best format to use for small items like coins or stamps, where the tiniest details need that extra boost in visibility.
How the photos look on mobile phones
Below are some screenshots of the same eBay listing shown on a mobile device. We'll go through the whole process again, starting from search results and going to listing details and picture zoom. Notice how in all cases, we're using all available space; and this is great because the photos do a lot to sell the product. Now, granted the zoom isn't so great, but we can't expect much from a smartphone anyway.
I can't emphasize enough, the search results page is so critical here, and our photo is using just that little bit extra space here.
What about 1200x1200 and why we decide against it
One of the sizes we tried was 1200x1200, and initially, it looked promising. This picture size looks identical to its larger cousin. But, please have a look at the zoom function here and compare it to the larger format above. It's just looking much worse. Sure, the scratch on my box here is looking smaller, but I'd rather the buyer could see all defects (and features) crystal clear.
Sure, the file size was a bit smaller on these (about 35% savings), but I think it's not worth it (compare 350KB vs 550KB). And again, if you're selling an item with fine details, just go with 1600x1600.
4:3 aspect ratio (1200x800) looks the worst
And to finish up our experiments, we tried the 4:3 aspect ratio, please check the results below. To me, this is the worst possible size. Not only did our pictures look smaller in search results, but the listing details have huge blank spaces above and below the image. I'd even say that it's better to fill this space with some photo backdrop - anything is better than nothing at all.
Unfortunately, this is also usually the default ratio used by almost all digital cameras. My camera doesn't support a square ratio, but the newer cameras often do. And for me, this means I have to use software like Photoshop to crop the pictures after taking them. It's not a whole lot of work, but you have to get a hang of it.
Photoshop export settings for eBay photos
Check out our other post about starting by selling on eBay, and items you can sell that you already have. In that post, we cover many more topics relevant to eBay sellers. Now let me show you a nice Photoshop trick. A big concern of mine was what happens to the file size when I try using a photo this large. Normally, I like to stay within a range of 300KB to 800KB for my photos, because I like to use up all 12 allowed photos, which puts me in the 6MB range for photos alone when a buyer visits my listing. Even though eBay allows photos as large as 7MB each, I'd hate to force visitors to wait for that much data to load. I mean, imagine using 7MB 12 times, that's a total of 78MB for every user to load, and this is no good.
But I think I found some cool export settings in Photoshop to get around this problem. Please see the image below where I downsize the photo to just 550KB for 1600x1600 pixels, and the quality isn't noticeably lost at all!
The key takeaway here is the "quality" slider. I like to use 80% - 90%, but we can go as low as 60% to dramatically reduce file size, and the photo detail will still be sharp. By the way, that's the main reason all cameras support JPG formats because it provides a really good quality-to-filesize ratio.
Other eBay photo restrictions to keep in mind
eBay will usually let you slide by breaking some small rules, but not always, and especially not if a buyer reports your listing. The following are the most important ones to keep in mind when you're editing your photos:
- Don't add frames or borders to your photos
- Don't add watermarks
- Don't put text into your photos
- Don't use placeholder images (such as "coming soon")
- Make sure the whole item is visible in the main photo
Usually, you would follow these rules by common sense alone, but it's good to keep these in mind.
More tips on taking good eBay product photos
Check out our tutorial below on taking good product photos for eBay, because there are lots of tips here and some really simple Photoshop hacks that will put your photos way ahead of your competition. We won't be doing anything that breaks eBay rules, we'll only make our photos better.
If you found this tutorial useful, please share and comment, would love to hear your thoughts on this or additional helpful tips.
Been helpful
This helpful for me. Just have trouble with pixels. I have just sign on with Adobe, Feel lost already. Thank you for explaining a lot of right things to do.
Helpful
This article has some good advice regarding Ebay photos and resolution that I was interested in. It would be interesting to see the result of two identical items listed (same price etc) and different size photos...I use my iPhone and also a Canon 5D to shoot my items, and so the file size difference is huge, but obviously if eBay favours the canon listing over the iPhone its a no brainer, but according to your article it sounds like the iPhone is fine!