JPG, PNG or WebP: Which Image Format for Your Store?
You're staring at your product photos wondering whether they should be JPG, PNG, or WebP — and whether the format is the reason an upload keeps failing. The short answer for online sellers: use JPGfor product photos, reach for PNG only when you need graphics or transparency, and convert WebP to JPG before uploading. Here's why, in plain English.
JPG: the default for product photos
JPG (also written JPEG) is the format every marketplace recommends for photographs. Amazon prefers JPEG, eBay recommends JPEG, Shopify recommends JPG for products and banners, and Etsy treats JPG as the right choice for most listing photos. It compresses photographs into small files that upload fast and display consistently on every device. For 95% of what a seller uploads, JPG is the answer.
PNG: for graphics and transparency
PNG is lossless, so it preserves every pixel exactly — ideal for logos, infographics, size charts with crisp text, and any image that needs a transparent background. The catch is file size: a photograph saved as PNG is many times larger than the same image as JPG, which slows pages and can stall uploads (Etsy warns that images over about 1 MB may not finish uploading). Also note that Etsy doesn't support transparent PNGsand will flatten them, so don't rely on PNG transparency everywhere.
WebP: great for the web, risky for uploads
WebP is Google's modern format that produces small, high-quality files — wonderful for fast-loading web pages, which is why so many images you download now arrive as .webp. But for uploading to a marketplace it's risky: Amazon doesn't accept WebP for product images and Etsy doesn't list itas supported. eBay and Shopify do accept it, and Shopify even serves WebP automatically behind the scenes — but you don't need to upload WebP yourself to get that benefit. If you have WebP files, convert them to JPG first.
The seller's cheat sheet
- Product photo → JPG, quality ~90%.
- Logo, graphic, or transparent cut-out → PNG (but check the platform accepts transparency).
- Screenshot of text or a spec sheet → PNG for crispness, or JPG at 90% if the platform prefers it.
- A WebP file from a supplier or the web → convert to JPG before uploading.
Convert to the right format for free
Whatever you're starting with, QuickWand has a free, in-browser converter for it. Use the PNG to JPG converter to turn heavy PNGs (or screenshots) into upload-ready JPGs, the WebP to JPG converter to fix WebP files your store rejects, and the image compressor to get any photo under a marketplace's size limit. Everything runs on your device, so your photos are never uploaded to a server.