Product photos sell your stuff. But they also slow down your store. Shopify found that a 1-second delay in page load cuts conversions by 7%. The tightrope: compress enough to load fast, but keep enough quality that customers can zoom in and see stitching, texture, and detail. Here's how to walk it.
| Platform | Recommended Size | Max File Size | Best Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify | 2048×2048 px | 20 MB (but keep under 500 KB) | JPG |
| Amazon | 1000×1000 px min | 10 MB | JPG (white BG) |
| Etsy | 2000 px on longest side | 10 MB | JPG |
| WooCommerce | 800-1200 px wide | No hard limit | JPG or WebP |
| eBay | 1600 px on longest side | 12 MB | JPG |
For product photos on white backgrounds, JPG at 85% quality is nearly indistinguishable from the original at normal viewing distances. At this setting, a 3 MB product photo drops to roughly 200-400 KB — a 85-90% reduction. Multiply that by 10 product images per page, and you've just saved your shoppers 25 MB of downloading.
Exception: if your product has fine text (labels, ingredients), compress less aggressively — 92% quality — or use PNG for that specific image. JPG artifacts around text erode trust; customers read blurry text as "low quality product."
Most e-commerce themes have a zoom-on-hover feature. The zoom image should be higher resolution than the gallery thumbnail. Strategy: upload a 2048px image at 90% quality. The platform generates smaller thumbnails automatically. The full-res zoom image stays sharp; the thumbnails load fast. One upload, both goals met.
Over 60% of e-commerce traffic is mobile. A product page that loads in 1.2 seconds on Wi-Fi might take 8 seconds on 4G if images aren't compressed. Use Compress2PNG to batch-compress your product catalog — same visual quality, 5x faster mobile load.
5 minutes of compression per product shoot = a store that loads fast, ranks higher, and converts better.