White background product photos that marketplaces accept

Five marketplaces, five definitions of the same two words. Two of them have no definition at all. It is worth being precise about what each one really checks, because “it looks white” and “it measures white” are different claims, and only one of them is tested.

What each marketplace actually requires

Every cell below is taken from the marketplace’s own current seller documentation. The sources are listed underneath so you can check any line yourself.

Marketplace	Background	Product fills	Smallest it accepts	File formats
Amazon (main image)	Pure white, RGB 255, 255, 255. A rule.	85% of the frame. A rule.	500 px on the longest side. 1,000 px or more to get zoom.	JPEG, TIFF, PNG, non-animated GIF. No WebP.
Walmart (main image)	Seamless white, 255/255/255. A rule.	No percentage stated. “Crop the item as close as possible to the image frame.”	1,500 x 1,500 px for zoom. 2,200 x 2,200 px is the published spec.	JPEG, JPG, PNG, BMP. No GIF.
Google Shopping	Solid white or transparent. A staged photo is also allowed. No watermarks or promotional overlays.	75% to 90% of the frame. A rule.	500 x 500 px. 1,500 x 1,500 px recommended.	JPEG, WebP, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF
eBay	No rule. Advice only: a neutral backdrop, and white is “generally best”.	Not stated.	500 px on the longest side. 1,600 x 1,600 px recommended.	JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, WebP, HEIC, AVIF
Etsy	Not stated.	Not stated. Etsy asks for the opposite — leave a border so the thumbnail can be cropped.	No hard floor. Under 635 px and you rank lower. 2,000 px recommended.	.jpg, .gif, .png, .svg, .heic. No transparent PNG.

The two things that table is really telling you

Only three of the five set a rule you can fail. Amazon, Walmart and Google Shopping each set a background rule with a real consequence. Break it and the upload is blocked, or the listing is hidden. eBay and Etsy put their background advice under photo tips, not policy. Nobody at eBay rejects a listing for a grey backdrop.

“Not stated” means not stated. Where a cell says that, we checked the official docs and the rule is simply not there. We left the gap rather than fill it from someone else’s article. Here is why that matters. A fill figure of 85% is widely attached to Walmart online. It is not in Walmart’s own guidelines anywhere. Follow a rule nobody enforces and you waste time. Invent one they do enforce and you lose the listing.

Build once, to Amazon’s rule

Amazon is the strictest on background and framing. Build to Amazon’s rule and you clear the background test everywhere else. Two small changes clear the rest too:

• Export JPEG. It is the only format all five accept.
• Aim for 2,000 px on the longest side. Amazon only needs 500 px. But Etsy ranks anything under 635 px lower, and asks for 2,000 px. Walmart’s published spec is 2,200 px. Shooting large costs nothing and keeps all five happy.

One page to close if a search sends you to it. eBay still hosts an old guidelines page at pages.ebay.co.uk/picture/guidelines.html. It is live and it is indexed. It says white background, minimum 100 x 150 pixels, maximum 1000 x 1600 pixels, JPG only. Every one of those contradicts eBay’s current help centre. It is eBay’s own page, and it is out of date.

Sources. Amazon: Seller Central product image guide (G1881). Walmart: Product detail page image guidelines, last updated May 2026. Google Shopping: Merchant Center image requirements. eBay: Adding pictures to your listings and the picture policy. Etsy: Requirements and best practices for images and the listing image policy. Checked September 2026. Marketplaces change these pages without announcing it, so check the link before you rely on a number.

Why “nearly white” fails

A seamless paper backdrop under studio lights does not photograph as 255. It photographs as 248, or 251, with a gradient across the frame because the light falls off toward the corners. On a screen this looks white. To an automated check it is a light grey with a gradient, and the listing gets flagged.

Compositing solves this in a way that lighting cannot: the subject is cut out and placed on a field that is white by construction rather than by exposure. There is no falloff to correct, because there is no light involved.

The pass that produces all of it

1. Cut once, keep the master. Produce a transparent PNG and archive it. This is your negative. Everything else is a print from it.
2. Composite onto white for the marketplace upload. Export JPEG. Do not send a transparent PNG as a main image: Amazon and Walmart both require pure white behind the product, and a transparent file has nothing behind it at all.
3. Crop to fill. Get the product to 85% of the frame. That is Amazon’s rule exactly, and it also sits inside Google Shopping’s 75% to 90% band, so one crop satisfies both. It is the step most people skip, and it is the one that makes a listing look professional next to its neighbours in a search grid.
4. Keep the transparent master for everything else. The lifestyle shot, the banner, the email header and the ad creative all want the subject on something other than white, and they all want it from the same cutout.

The mistake worth avoiding

Do not flatten onto white and then discard the transparent file. It is the single most common workflow error in product photography, and its cost is invisible until the day marketing asks for the product on a coloured field and someone has to re-cut two hundred photographs that were already cut perfectly well once.

Ready to try it? Start with the white background maker, or read the background removal basics if you want to understand what is happening underneath.