A rejected image is the most expensive small problem in marketplace selling. The product is ready, the stock is in the warehouse, the listing is written — and it will not go live because the background is 250,250,250 instead of 255,255,255, or because the shot is square and the platform wants portrait.
The frustrating part is that these rules are not secret. They are just scattered across a dozen seller help centres, written in different vocabularies, and revised without announcement. Here is the practical version.
Why the rules exist at all
Every marketplace is trying to make a grid of products from thousands of unrelated sellers look like one coherent catalogue. That is the entire reason for the white background rule, the fill percentage, and the ban on text and badges.
It also explains which rules are enforced strictly and which are not. Anything that affects how the product looks next to other products in a search grid is enforced hard. Anything that only affects the detail page is enforced loosely. If you understand that, most of the specifics stop feeling arbitrary.
The specifications, platform by platform
These reflect the requirements as they stand at the time of writing. Check the platform's own seller help before a large shoot — the numbers move, and several categories have their own stricter rules on top.
| Platform | Typical size | Ratio | Background | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon India | 2000×2000 (1000 minimum) | 1:1 | Pure white, RGB 255,255,255 | JPEG, PNG |
| Flipkart | 1500×1500 (1000 minimum) | 1:1 | White or light grey | JPEG, PNG |
| Meesho | 1080×1440 | 3:4 | White preferred | JPEG, PNG |
| Myntra | 1500×2000 | 3:4 | White or off-white | JPEG |
| Ajio | 1500×2000 | 3:4 | White or light grey | JPEG |
| Nykaa Fashion | 1200×1600 | 3:4 | White or neutral | JPEG |
Two patterns matter more than any individual row.
Square versus portrait is the real fork. Amazon and Flipkart are square marketplaces. Myntra, Ajio, Meesho and the fashion platforms are portrait. If you shoot only square, every fashion platform will need a reshoot or a badly cropped compromise. If you shoot with portrait framing and enough margin, you can crop down to square without losing the product.
Amazon is the strictest, so shoot to Amazon. Pure white with no gradient, the product filling at least 85% of the frame, nothing cropped, one item only, and absolutely no text, logo, watermark or promotional badge on the main image. Anything that satisfies Amazon will satisfy everyone else. Nothing else is true in reverse.
The resolution question people get wrong
Amazon will accept a fairly small image. That is not the number you should care about.
Zoom is what matters. When an image is large enough, the detail page lets buyers zoom into the product, and zoom is one of the few listing features with a visible, consistent effect on conversion. Ship 2,000 pixels on the longest side and you never have to think about it again. Ship the minimum and you have a technically compliant listing that converts worse than your competitor's.
Storage is cheap. Reshoots are not.
What actually gets listings rejected
In order of how often we see it:
- Off-white background. A studio shot on white paper photographs as light grey. It needs to be cleaned to true 255,255,255, not "looks white on my screen".
- Product too small in the frame. Sellers leave generous margins for safety and fail the 85% fill rule.
- Text or badges burned into the main image. "Free Delivery", "Best Seller", a size chart, a brand logo placed as a watermark — all rejected on the main image, all perfectly fine on secondary images.
- Props. A phone photographed next to a plant, a saree with jewellery styled beside it. Only the product being sold belongs in the main image.
- Wrong aspect ratio on fashion platforms. A square image uploaded to a 3:4 slot gets letterboxed or auto-cropped through the model's head.
- Multiple products in one shot when they are not sold together as a set.
Notice that five of these six are main-image rules. Secondary images are far more permissive — that is where lifestyle shots, infographics, size charts, dimension callouts and packaging shots belong, and where most sellers under-invest badly. Amazon gives you several image slots. Using two of them is leaving the listing half-built.
Category rules on top of the general ones
Some categories add requirements that will catch you out:
- Ethnic and fashion wear — the full garment needs to be visible with its drape; borders and embroidery need close-ups; most platforms expect a model or mannequin rather than a flat lay.
- Jewellery — close-ups of settings and any hallmark, plus a size reference so buyers can judge scale.
- Packaged food — the FSSAI licence number and nutritional panel must be legible in secondary images, and the sealed packaging shown.
- Electronics — ports, buttons and the complete box contents, usually as a dedicated shot.
The efficient way to do this
Photograph once, correctly, and derive everything else from that shoot.
- Shoot in portrait framing with margin — enough space around the product that a square crop still leaves the product filling the frame.
- Shoot large. 3,000 pixels or more on the long side. You can always go down.
- Clean the background once to true white, on the master file, before any crop.
- Derive each platform's size from that master: square 2000×2000 for Amazon and Flipkart, 3:4 for the fashion platforms, and whatever else you need for social or your own site.
- Keep the master files. When a platform changes its spec — and one of them will this year — you re-crop instead of rebooking a studio.
A seller doing this properly shoots a product once and lists it on eight platforms. A seller doing it reactively pays for the same product three times and still has one listing stuck in review.
That derived-catalogue work is a large part of what we do day to day, across Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho, Myntra, Ajio, Nykaa, JioMart, Snapdeal and the quick-commerce platforms — one shoot, every platform's specification, without the reshoots. You can see how we structure it on our services page.