E-commerce product photos: the shots you need, the right file weight and the rules of 2026

Published on 4 November 2026by Tauro Lab9 min read

In short E-commerce product photos stand in for the customer's hands: a clean main shot, close-ups, the product in use, a size reference, back and flaws. Window light, a plain background and a steady phone are enough. Resize and compress every file and give each image alt text. Since 2024 a product picture is also a product safety requirement in the EU, and since 2025 accessibility rules apply to online shops that are not microenterprises.

In a shop, customers pick the product up. They turn it over, look at the stitching, try the size, ask whether the colour is really that one. Online they can do none of this: all they have is your photos. If the photos do not answer their questions, they go and find the answers in another shop.

Good product photos for an online shop do not need a studio. They need a method: knowing which shots to take, taking them the same way every time, preparing the files so they do not slow the page down, and knowing which rules, in 2026, also cover images.

E-commerce product photos: the shots you need

Every photo answers a question the customer would ask with the product in front of them. Use the table as a checklist.

Shot	Question it answers	Typical mistake
Main photo	What am I buying?	Messy background, product cropped at the edges
Close-up	What does it look like up close, what is it made of?	A single, blurry close-up
Product in use	How does it fit, look at home, feel in the hand?	A setting that hides the product
Size reference	How big is it, really?	Nothing next to it for comparison
Back, sides and flaws	Is there anything I cannot see?	Showing only the best angle

The main photo

This is the one that appears in product lists, in search results and in Google Shopping: the whole product, centred, with a little space around it, on a plain background, with no text, logos or badges on top.

Close-ups and flaws

Zips, seams, labels, finishes: the parts the customer would touch. If something could come as a surprise, such as a colour variation in a natural material or signs of wear on a second-hand item, show it. In the EU, consumers normally have 14 days to withdraw from an online purchase: a surprise when the parcel is opened is the start of a return.

Use and size

A person wearing or holding the product says more than a line of centimetres. If there is no obvious reference, put something familiar next to it, like a pen. Write the measurements in the text as well.

Background and light: how to do it well without a studio

For most products a smartphone, a window and a sheet of card are enough. Consistency matters more than equipment:

daylight from a window, without direct sun casting hard shadows. Keep the phone's flash off;
a large sheet of pale card that curves up from the table to the wall, so there is no visible edge;
the phone on a stand or a pile of books, not in your hand, so the photos come out straight and identical;
the same angle, distance and framing for every product in the same category.

Look at each photo on your phone next to the real product. If the colour does not match, fix it before uploading: the wrong colour is the first cause of returns you can avoid.

When it is worth hiring a photographer

Some products are hard: jewellery, watches, glass, polished metal, anything that reflects. One wrong reflection makes a valuable object look cheap, and the right light takes equipment you do not have at home. If your catalogue is like that, or you sell high-priced items, a product photographer can be worth the money.

The sizes Google Shopping asks for

If you want to appear in Google Shopping ads and free listings, your images must meet the Merchant Center specification. It is worth shooting with it in mind, so you do not redo the work:

Requirement	What Google says
Minimum size	At least 500 x 500 pixels; 1500 x 1500 or more recommended
Space taken up	The product fills between 75% and 90% of the image (a recommendation, not a requirement)
What must not be there	Promotional text, watermarks, added logos, borders, graphic stamps
Generic images	No placeholders and no single photo reused across different products, except in a few categories
View	The product for sale visible, whole and unobstructed

Other marketplaces have their own rules, often stricter for the main photo, background included: read them in their seller centre before you shoot.

File format and weight: good-looking but light

A photo straight from a phone often weighs several megabytes, far more than anyone needs to see it on a screen. Uploaded as it is, the product page opens slowly. And the main photo is usually the largest element on the page, the one measured by LCP: according to web.dev the result is good if, in at least three visits out of four, it appears within 2.5 seconds. For the full picture of these measures, see our guide to Core Web Vitals.

Three steps are enough to slim the photos down:

resize each photo to the largest size it will be displayed at: there is no need to upload the camera original;
compress it until the eye cannot see a difference: if you spot blocks, you have gone too far;
pick a light format. Besides JPEG, Google's image guide lists WebP and AVIF among the supported formats, and they usually weigh less at the same quality. Google also recommends giving the browser several versions of the same photo for different screens (srcset).

Then the phone. Google mainly indexes the mobile version of a site: try the product page on mobile data, not your home wifi.

If someone else looks after your site, ask them three things. Are images resized automatically for phones and computers? Are they in a light format? Does the main photo appear straight away, while the others only load when the customer scrolls to them?

Alt text and file names

Alt text is a written description of an image. It is read by software that helps people who cannot see the screen, and Google uses it to understand what is in the photo. In its guide, Google calls it the most important attribute for giving information about an image, and asks for text that describes it without stuffing it with keywords.

Take a shoulder bag, an invented example. Good alt text is 'Cognac leather shoulder bag, front view'. Useless alt text is 'bag leather bag cheap buy online': someone using a screen reader would hear a string of words that means nothing.

The same goes for the file name: 'leather-shoulder-bag-cognac-front.jpg' tells you something, 'IMG_4521.jpg' does not. Put photos next to the text that describes them: Google uses that too. If an image is purely decorative, the alt text is left empty.

The rules that touch your photos in 2026

Product safety. Since 13 December 2024, Regulation (EU) 2023/988 requires every online offer to show the information needed to identify the product, including a picture of it, its type and other identifiers, plus the manufacturer's name and address and the safety warnings in the consumer's language (Article 19). The photo is no longer just marketing: it is one of the pieces of information you owe.
Accessibility. Since 28 June 2025, e-commerce services must meet the requirements of Directive (EU) 2019/882, in Italy Legislative Decree 82/2022, with the AgID guidelines of 4 March 2026. Microenterprises, fewer than ten people and up to 2 million euro in turnover or balance sheet total, are exempt for services. Image alt text is one of the things that get checked.

If you retouch photos with AI, for example to change the background, the product must stay the one you ship: same colour, same proportions, same accessories. To find out whether a rule applies to your shop, have an adviser check your case.

Start with your best sellers

Do not redo the whole catalogue in one go. Start with your ten best sellers and follow these steps:

Set up a fixed corner: window, background and phone stand, always in the same place.
Reshoot with the same method: main shot, close-ups, use, size, back.
Resize and compress the files, then write alt text and a file name for every image.
Open the page on your phone on mobile data and see how long the main photo takes to show.
After a month, compare the returns on those ten products with the month before: that is the number that tells you whether the photos answer the questions.

We do not take the photos: Tauro Lab builds the online shop that displays them, from catalogue to payments, as our e-commerce page explains. If you already have a shop and want an opinion on how it shows images, write to us. If you are in Turin and still deciding where to start, there is also our guide on how to sell online from Turin.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use the photos my supplier sends me?

If the supplier allows it, yes, but on their own they are not enough: the same images appear on other sites and customers have no reason to prefer yours. Add at least a few shots of your own, such as a close-up or the product in use.

How many photos does each product need?

It depends on how many questions the customer has. A simple product needs few, one with sizes, materials or features needs more. Stop when no question is left unanswered, and look at the reasons for returns: every 'I did not expect it like this' is a missing photo.

Does it have to be a white background?

Not on your own site: you can choose the style you like, as long as it is the same across the whole catalogue. Google Merchant Center does not impose a background colour; it asks for a clean, unobstructed image. Some marketplaces do require it for the main photo: read their rules before you shoot.

Can I generate product photos with AI?

You can use it for retouching that does not change the product, such as the background or the light. An image showing a product different from the one shipped is a surprise on opening and therefore a return, Google Shopping does not accept generic or placeholder images, and the EU product safety regulation asks for a picture that identifies the product on sale. It has to be that one.

Sources

Written by the Tauro Lab team, a web agency and software house in Turin. About us