Listing products on eBay is an important sales strategy for many online retailers. After all, eBay is the 38th most popular website in the world. It is the sixth most popular in both the UK and Germany.
With over 185 million users worldwide, eBay is an online marketplace with huge opportunity for global sales.
Partly as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, over 2020, the gross value of eBay goods sold grew 22.1% to $37.53 billion. In many ways, there has never been a better time to sell on eBay.
However, with more competition than ever before on the platform, without the right eBay images, your products are likely to get lost.
And without adhering to eBay’s strict image requirements, your listings might never get approved in the first place… Even something as simple as eBay image size can be fundamental to your success on the platform.
The quality of your data feed is what will determine success and one of the most important parts of your data feed is how well you optimise your eBay images.
In this guide, we’re going to explain everything you need to know when creating and uploading your eBay images.
To ensure good user experience, eBay have implemented a number of image requirements. To get your listings approved and your products seen, you need to ensure that your eBay images meet eBay guidelines and image policy.
EBay Image Policy ensures that all images used belong to the person using them. Current eBay Image Policy rules are:
1. All images must comply with eBay image size rules and technical requirements (more about these requirements in the next section).
2. You must have rights to use the image and the image cannot infringe on the intellectual property rights of any third-party.
3. You must include a minimum of one image per product. The maximum number of free images you can have is 12, but we talk about how to add more than 12 photos to ebay listing later in the article.
4. The images must be of the product and they must show a real representation of that product. To meet eBay Image Policy, make sure you don’t crop out any key details.
5.The images should not show anything other than the product that is in the listing and should not include:
Some users’ eBay feeds are filled with placeholder images that convey messages - for example, that an item is out of stock. However, this is banned in eBay Image Policy so including information on delivery, item condition, and other seller information within an eBay image is not advised.
eBay watermark policy dictates that watermarks of any type are not allowed.
6.You should only use stock photos for items that are new or in impeccable condition. We talk more about using stock photos on eBay later in the article.
There are slightly different rules to follow when it comes to primary eBay images and general eBay image guidelines. Primary images should:
Bundles can be a great way to drive sales on eBay. However, eBay image guidelines dictate that images of bundles should show all products included and not include seller details such as how many bundles are on offer.
Take Note Of Technical Requirements:
While general eBay image size guidelines dictate that images should be a minimum size of 500x500 pixels and a maximum of 9,000 x 9,000 pixels, the best size for eBay photos will differ slightly depending where on the page it will be included.
The best size for eBay photos is that which facilitates quick page load times. The best eBay image sizes are as follows:
You can use an eBay picture size tool to resize pictures for eBay, but it’s important to remember that the more compression you put into an image, the less sharp it’ll appear.
For this reason, minimal resizing is advised. You should try to attain the best size for image photos upon photo upload.
If you do need to resize pictures for eBay, however, a great eBay picture size tool can be found here.
Beyond eBay watermark policy and eBay image guidelines, there are a few less talked about but equally important things to bear in mind when setting up to take photos for eBay.
The answer to the question of how to take pictures for eBay with a white background is a lot simpler than it first may appear. Most of us will have a white or cream background at home, but if not a screen can be ordered cheaply online.
Lamps or camera lighting should be used as a backlight to ensure that there are no product shadows. Whilst it is not necessary to edit eBay photos, the results can be touched up simply using iPhone or desktop software and increasing exposure.
When you start actually taking photos for eBay, be sure to consider the quality requirements; these are:
1. You cannot use placeholder images.
2. Images should have a white or light grey background. This means you should not include images that have black backgrounds or backgrounds of any other colour.
3. One of the images should be a primary image – this is the first image on your listing. This should be a front view of the product, either straight on or at a slight angle. It should also be an image that is as close-up to the product as possible. This ensures maximum visibility of the product's details. On listings for multipacks, the primary image must clearly show the main product.
4. While primary images must be of the front of the product, secondary images can show the product from different angles.
5. You can use images that include two representations of the product. When you do so, it must be clear that both representations are of the same product with each representation being different. For example, showing the product from the front and the back in the same image is okay, but simply having two mirrored representations of the product on the one image is not.
6. You can crop images, so long as the cropping does not remove important product details.
There is a difference between the question of how to take eBay pictures and that of how to take good eBay pictures. To fully optimise the images on your eBay listings, use the following tips:
Another important thing to remember when optimising eBay images relates to changing or updating images.
To add product images to your eBay data feed, you will need to upload them to a location on the internet. Often, this is the location of the image on your own website.
When you want to update an image, however, you will need to upload the updated image to a new URL.
Mistakes in your listings slow down your sales efforts and can create problems with your workflow. How can you prevent this from happening?
Let's take a quick look below at some listing examples for the same product. The difference in how the two adhere to eBay image guidelines is what sets them apart.
Samsung Galaxy S8 Listing - the bad
What’s wrong with it:
Samsung Galaxy S8 Listing – the good:
What’s right with it:
Casio Men Watch – the bad:
What’s wrong with it:
Casio Men Watch – the good:
What’s right with it:
Nike Air Sneakers – the bad:
What’s wrong with it:
Nike Air Sneakers – the good:
What’s right with it:
Kettle – the bad:
What’s wrong with it:
Kettle – the good:
What’s right with it:
Yes, but you should only use stock photos that you get from your product vendor. Using generic stock photos means that you are likely to get flagged by the eBay image policy, but manufacturer photos are fine as long as you are selling a new and undamaged product.
Many users look to add images within their descriptions to provide clarity to their listings. When considering how to add pictures to ebay description, the easiest method is to copy and paste images having uploaded them to the Internet- for example, in your Dropbox or Google Drive.
To add more than 12 photos to an eBay listing, you traditionally had to join eBay’s paid listing service. However, by adding photos to the image description as we outlined earlier in the guide, you are able to work around this.
You only have to look at eBay guidelines to understand the importance that eBay places on images. Images are key to making sales and skyrocketing your e-commerce business on eBay
Checking and updating the images in your eBay data feed is an administrative exercise, but it will help increase your sales on the platform… As well as following the tips in our eBay images guide, be sure to check back on your page to see which types of images perform well.
To optimize your eBay feed and watch your sales grow, check out our feed marketing solution.