Marketplace image rules without the guesswork
A listing photo and an ad photo have different jobs. One has to survive a grid of nearly identical competitors. The other has to earn a stop in a feed. Knowing which rules apply where saves a round of rejected uploads.
A note before the specifics
Marketplace help pages change. What follows is practical guidance we use when preparing files, not a substitute for the current seller documentation on Amazon, Etsy, Shopify or any ads manager. When a platform updates a pixel size or bans a badge, that page wins.
Amazon-style main images
The main image is usually a packshot: the product itself, filling most of the frame, on a pure white background. Text, logos, watermarks, badges and lifestyle props are typically not allowed on that first image. Color should match the unit the customer will receive.
Additional images are where you show scale, details, the back of the box, and in-use context. If you only have budget for a few frames, spend them on an honest main image plus the views a shopper zooms to before they buy.
Etsy
Etsy is more forgiving of lifestyle and handmade context — shoppers often want to see materials and setting. The first image still has to show the actual item clearly. If your listing is for one candle, the first frame should be that candle, not a moodboard.
Consistency across a shop (similar crop, similar light) helps people recognize you in search results even when each listing is allowed more personality than a big-box catalog.
Shopify and your own site
On a store you control, you usually want both: a clean packshot for the product grid and cart, and lifestyle frames for the product page. Shoppers compare; a white background makes that fair. Lifestyle frames then answer “how will this look in my life?”
Keep crops consistent so a grid of twelve products does not jump in scale. Square files are the easy default; you can letterbox rather than stretch.
Ads are a different crop
Feed placements commonly use 1:1 and 4:5. Stories and Reels use 9:16. A perfect Amazon main image, with the product floating in white, often looks sparse in a story. That is why Launch and Club orders include separate ad sizes and headline options — the listing file and the ad file should not be forced to be the same picture.
Headlines belong in the ad unit or as a designed overlay you chose, not as mystery text baked into a marketplace main image that forbids it.
What to double-check yourself
Before you publish, open each channel's current image specifications: minimum pixel length, file type, white-background definition, and any ban on text or insets. If a platform asks you to disclose AI-edited imagery, do that in the place they specify. We can keep the product itself unaltered so the thing in the picture is still the thing in the box.