eBay says your picture is too small

Why supplier images fail it

Gallery photographs on a supplier page are usually large enough. The ones inside the description frequently are not: they are sized for a phone, often 300 or 400 pixels wide.

Those are the images worth keeping — size charts, close-ups, what is in the box — which is why dropping them is the wrong answer.

What to do

• Enlarge the image past the minimum before sending it. Quality suffers slightly; a missing size chart costs more
• Look for a larger version. Many image services serve the same picture at several sizes and the small one is a choice, not a limit
• Photograph it yourself, which is also the only version that is unarguably yours
• Leave it out if it says nothing the other photographs do not

The other image rules

• Up to 24 pictures per listing
• No borders, watermarks or added text on the gallery image
• Ordinary web formats; unusual ones are refused before the size is even checked

Questions

Is 500 pixels the width or the longest side?

The longest side. A tall narrow image needs 500 in its long direction.

Does enlarging hurt quality?

A little. A slightly soft size chart is better than no size chart, and buyers do not zoom into description images the way they do the gallery.

Why does my gallery image work but not the description ones?

Because they are different files. Suppliers serve large gallery photographs and small description ones.

Read next

• eBay photo requirements

  The 500 pixel minimum, how many photos a listing takes, what eBay does not allow on an image, and why supplier photos so often fail.

• eBay cannot read a WebP image

  Why eBay refuses WebP images, why AliExpress serves them by default, and the simplest way to get a format eBay accepts.

• How to import an AliExpress product to eBay

  What has to move from an AliExpress page to an eBay listing — photos, description, variations, item specifics — and what goes wrong doing it by hand.