If you’re an Etsy seller, you’ve had to upload listing photos, and those photos needed to be resized. But what size should you make them? And honestly, does it really matter in the long run?
Etsy says that listing photos should be 2000 pixels for the shortest side of the image, and a resolution of at least 72ppi. Those sizes are listed as the best practices for making sure that the photo can be enlarged by customers in order to see details of the listed item. They also specify that the first listing photo should be landscape orientation or square.
Source: Etsy Requirements And Best Practices For Images In Your Etsy Shop
Those are the best practices, but is it really required to size your images that way? Although these sizes are suggestions, you might not have to do them that way.
Table of Contents
- Is there a specific size that Etsy listing photos HAVE to be?
- Should Etsy listing photos be square or rectangular?
- Should you follow or ignore the Etsy listing photo guidelines?
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Is there a specific size that Etsy listing photos HAVE to be?
The best practices that are outlined in the Etsy guide are just suggestions and don’t have to be followed 100%. If you try to upload a photo that Etsy thinks is too small a small warning triangle will appear and warn you. However, as long as the photos are 1000 pixels wide (or even a little less) but the resolution is high enough, the photo will work fine as a listing photo.
Size of photos is measured in both the resolution ppi (pixels per inch,) which is the number of pixels in each inch of the image, and in the number of pixels along the edges of the image.
When you have a photo that’s a low resolution (the ppi on the inside) and is also small along the edges, it will look really pixelated and fuzzy when you enlarge it a lot.
Etsy says that listing photos need to be a certain size so that they can be enlarged for the customer to see details, but this begs the question of how big people really need to make the photos.
When a customer is looking at a photo on a phone or a laptop, a photo that’s only 1000 to 2000 pixels across (or even smaller) and 72ppi is going to look fine. If the customer tries to enlarge it too much it will look pixelated, but people don’t tend to enlarge things that much when they’re shopping.
There is no specific, exact size that Etsy listing photos have to be in order for you to upload them. I size my photos at about 1000-2000 pixels across the upper edge because I also use them on my website, which requires smaller photos so that the page will load quickly.
Should Etsy listing photos be square or rectangular?
Etsy says that the first listing photo should be either landscape or square. Landscape orientation is longer on the top and the bottom and shorter on the sides, so it’s a horizontal rectangle. Square is obviously the same size on every side. Both shapes of photos will be positioned at the center of the frame, unless you adjust it in the listing manager.
Now that’s the trick…You can reposition the photos when you’re editing the listing.
So if you have a photo that’s a vertical rectangle, you can still move it to reposition it in the frame so that Etsy displays it the way that you want in the search results and on your shop’s home page.
This listing has a landscape orientation and this graphic shows how it looks on the three main locations for shopping on Etsy.
On the left is the shop’s home page, the center is the search results page, and the right is the listing page itself.
All three look the same and show the complete photo, and Etsy is happy with it because I just sold one about ten minutes ago.
This listing photo is a vertical rectangle and is a collage of three photos. I’ve positioned it in the listing manager to show the bottom part of the photo in the search results and on the shop’s home page.
When you see it on the listing page, you see the entire photo.
This size and orientation of the photo is also fine on Etsy, because I sell this fairly often too. Etsy isn’t punishing the listing because it’s not square or a landscape orientation.
This leads to the main question that most sellers have, which is whether your photos matter for search placement on Etsy. You can read this article for an answer to that, along with a demo of how to position your photos this way.
Should you follow or ignore the Etsy listing photo guidelines?
If you can follow the Etsy photo guidelines it’s fine, but it’s not necessary. When Etsy photos are displayed on different devices, they’re automatically sized for the device, and most devices and computers aren’t large enough to create a pixelated image. Unless the original image is low resolution and the customer tried to enlarge it a lot, there won’t be a problem using a smaller file size.
As long as the customer can see the photo and clearly see what the item is, that’s fine.
When you try to upload a photo on Etsy that’s “too small,” Etsy will give you that warning triangle, but you can usually ignore it. The warning doesn’t mean that you can’t upload the photo, and it definitely doesn’t affect your search placement.
If you’re not sure if the photo is too small, just check the listing after publishing it. If the photos look fuzzy, you might want to use a larger file, but most of the time it will be fine.
So if you get the dreaded warning triangle when you’re uploading photos, you can probably ignore it. Just make sure that you check the listing after publishing it to make sure that everything displays correctly and you’ll be fine!
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