How to Optimize Images for eCommerce Websites?

To optimize images for eCommerce one has to focus on things like image size, file type, color profile, resolution, and more.

When done right, these factors help your website run smoothly and present high-quality product images.

It is now common knowledge that when you optimize images for an eCommerce website, you improve your search ranking and customer experience with it.

I’ve spent over 10 years working with eCommerce images, testing different ways to make them look good while keeping them fast to load.

And in this post, I’ll be sharing how you can optimize images for an eCommerce website.

Let’s start right away.

Why Should You Optimize images for your eCommerce?

When you optimize images for eCommerce, you want to:

• Make products look high quality – Your images should be clear and sharp so customers can see every detail.
• Show accurate colors – The colors in the image should match what the product looks like in real life.
• Keep load times fast – If images are too big, they take longer to load, which can slow down your website and frustrate shoppers.
• Improve SEO performance – Search engines prioritize fast-loading websites, and optimized images contribute to better rankings.
• Enhance mobile experience – Mobile shoppers expect fast-loading pages, and images that are too large can slow down their experience.

If your store has a lot of products, you need to find a way to balance quality and speed. That’s why it is important that you optimize images for eCommerce.

Best Image Format for eCommerce Websites

The type of file you use for images affects both quality and file size. According to a recent PixelPhant survey, most fashion eCommerce brands use:

• WebP (54.2%) – This format keeps images looking great while making the file size smaller, helping your website load faster.
• AVIF (20.4%) – This is even better than WebP in reducing file size, but not all browsers support it yet.
• JPG (17.2%) – A common format that works everywhere but doesn’t compress as well as WebP or AVIF.

For the best results, use WebP or AVIF whenever possible and fall back to JPG if needed.

Ideal Image Size for eCommerce (in kb)

Based on the PixelPhant survey:

• Most fashion eCommerce brands try to keep image sizes less than 100KB.
• High-end brands might go up to 200KB to keep quality high.
• Stores with lots of products usually stay between 100KB and 200KB to avoid slow load times.
• Thumbnails should be kept under 50KB to speed up category and product listing pages.

When you optimize images for eCommerce, the size will play a critical role. Super high-quality images may be large and take more time to load.

Hence keeping images in this range and using professional retouching services can ensure you present high-quality images while keeping the file size small.

Best Resolution for eCommerce Images

There’s a common myth that DPI/PPI matters for online images—it doesn’t! What really matters is the number of pixels in the image.

• A 72 DPI 1000×1000 pixel image and a 300 DPI 1000×1000 pixel image will look exactly the same on a website.
• The 300 DPI image, however, will have a much larger file size for no reason.

For product images, aim for at least 1200×1200 pixels so customers can zoom in without losing quality. Some eCommerce platforms recommend 2000×2000 pixels for extra clarity.

Best Aspect Ratio

It is important to note that most eCommerce are now mobile first. Meaning, they ensure that it is easier for mobile users to interact with their products. Hence, 53.6% of brands have a portrait image. This ensures that both mobile and desktop users can see their products entirely on their screens.

Tips to optimize images for eCommerce

Use the Same Aspect Ratio for All Product Images

Maintaining a consistent aspect ratio across all product images ensures a visually appealing and well-structured website.

A uniform layout prevents misalignment, making the browsing experience smooth for customers.

Additionally, it eliminates unexpected layout shifts that can harm user engagement and SEO.

Use the sRGB Color Profile

Before uploading images, ensure they are saved in the sRGB color profile. “S” stands for Standard. This is the standard color profile for web display, ensuring that product colors appear consistent across different devices

While there are other profiles as well like Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB, etc using them can result in colors appearing dull or overly saturated on some screens.

When you optimize images for an eCommerce website, it’s best if you stick with standard profiles.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A CDN improves website speed by storing copies of your images on multiple servers worldwide.

When a customer accesses your site, images load from the closest server, reducing load times on your site.

Some of the most commonly used CDNs are Cloudflare, Scene7 by Adobe, and Cloudinary.

While it is recommended that you use CDN for eCommerce, it becomes a must-have for eCommerce stores with international customers.

This will ensure that images load quickly no matter where the shopper is located.

Monitor Website Performance Metrics

When you optimize images for an eCommerce website, keep track of how images affect your website metrics. You can Pagespeed Insight by Google to track the following metrics.

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – Measures how quickly the largest visible content loads.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – Tracks unexpected layout shifts that occur while images load.
• First Input Delay (FID) – Determines how fast a page responds when a user interacts with it.

By monitoring these metrics, you can identify areas for improvement and ensure a seamless browsing experience.

Use Descriptive Alt Text for SEO

Alt text provides a brief description of an image. This makes it accessible to visually impaired users and improves search engine optimization.

Search engines rely on alt text to understand image content. With various AI tools, it has become much easier to write Alt text and image descriptions.

You can even ask ChatGPT to give you Alt Text and description based on the title of your eCommerce product.

Enable Lazy Loading

Lazy loading ensures that images only load when they are needed. Instead of loading all images when a page first opens, images appear as users scroll down. This reduces initial page load times and improves browsing efficiency, especially for image-heavy eCommerce websites.

Conclusion

Optimizing images for eCommerce is about balancing quality, speed, and efficiency.

By choosing the right file formats, and maintaining consistency you improve the overall customer experience.

At PixelPhant we ensure that eCommerce photo retouching and image optimization work together.

Along with your retouching standards, our retoucher also ensures that the files are optimized for the web specifically as per your requirements.

With this cohesive approach, we are working with brands across the globe to retouching and optimize images for eCommerce websites.

Interested in getting started? Get a free photo retouching trial for your eCommerce today.