Zalando image guidelines

High-quality images are essential to deliver a great experience for Zalando customers. Meeting our image standards ensures faster article onboarding and maximum exposure in our store. This guide explains our baseline technical specifications, required image counts and acceptable content styles.

Investing time in high-quality, compliant images directly improves your business performance on Zalando:

• Higher conversion rates: Clear, detailed images help customers make confident buying decisions.

• Fewer returns: Accurate product representations reduce surprises when orders arrive.

• Faster time to article creation: Meeting technical standards on your first attempt prevents automated rejections and delays.

Ensure your image files meet these baseline specifications before uploading:

To successfully onboard an article, you must provide a minimum number of compliant images. Every submission requires a catalogue view. Depending on the category, you may also need a second compliant view.

Follow these rules for all image views to prevent instant rejections:

• Use plain, lifestyle or ambient settings. We automatically apply a light grey background to primary packshots that were submitted with a white background. 

• Use any background colours, setting or location for backshots and model views.

• Submit duplicate images. 

• Submit low quality or unnatural AI-generated images.

• Include non-English text on primary views.

• Feature visible mannequins in mandatory packshots and model views. 

• Include unrelated products in the frame. 

• Submit content that violates ethical or community guidelines.

• Compliant views: You can crop, partially cover or fold articles as long as the product remains clearly recognisable.

• Model views: Multiple models can appear in one image if they wear the same article. Models can be barefoot or wear shoes in model views. Don’t use child models for nightwear, underwear or beachwear; present these articles using packshots (invisible mannequin or flat-lay). Keep child model styling natural and age-appropriate, avoiding stereotypes or makeup. 

• Packshot views: Don’t remove straps or inner back views on apparel. Packaging is only accepted for accessories, jewellery, electronics and beauty.

• Catalogue views: Show the full product either from the front or at a subtle angle. For footwear, show the full side profile. For maternity clothing, use a 45° angle with the belly facing left.

Synthetic and AI-generated content must meet our high-quality editorial and technical criteria. Zalando reserves the right to reject any AI-generated assets that break believability, feature irregularities or fail to represent the product accurately.

We don’t allow visible on-image labels like text overlays that don’t show measurements or watermarks. Don’t provide content that requires visible labelling under applicable laws. This includes deepfakes and public interest text: 

• Deepfakes: AI-generated or manipulated content that resembles real persons, objects or places and falsely appears authentic.

• Public interest text: AI-generated text published to inform the public on matters of public interest.

We strongly recommend embedding invisible marking in all AI-generated content. You must embed identifying data within the metadata or as an invisible watermark in the file code. Ensure metadata is permanent so it isn’t stripped during upload.

Here you can find our AI content policy and technical standards in detail:

• Inaccurate representation of the article: Unnatural texture, patterns, shapes, material behavior, or finishes that are inconsistent with reality. Distortions or irregularities are present, such as details showing inconsistently across the image set, accessories, asymmetry or artifacts in logos and text (e.g. excessively synthetic fit/texture, distorted text, mispositioned buttons, heels merging into furniture or brand logos merged with another brand).

• Implausible setting: Unrealistic background and lighting, unnatural reflections, wrong shadows angles or proportion errors (e.g. model or product proportions look out of scale with the environment).

• Inconsistent model appearance: Airbrushed skin, unnatural teeth, inconsistent facial features, body proportions and skin tones across the same model image set.

Packshot grids are downloadable templates that assist you in aligning your article images with our packshot view standards. You can find them attached on the left side of this article.  

Apparel and Shoes (A&S grid template)

• Ensure the article covers approximately 80% of the frame (fitting between the minimum and maximum size lines on our template) to prevent unintended cropping.

• Centre the article horizontally and vertically.

Bags, Accessories and others (BA&O grid template)

All Bags packshot views:

• Centre the bag vertically in the lower third of the image for all bag packshot views.

Download the image grid templates in JPG, PNG, SVG and PSD formats from the downloads section on the left side of this article.

We may retouch your images to make sure they look consistent and appealing to customers on Zalando.

This includes:

• Positioning the packshots according to our standard view grids

• Cropping images to meet resolution and aspect ratio requirements

• Modifying backgrounds to align with our required colour range

Discover styling tips and best practice image examples tailored to specific article categories. Explore our category galleries below to find inspiration for presenting your articles:

• Apparel image guide

• Shoe image guide

• Accessories image guide

• Bags and Luggage image guide

• Beauty image and content guide

• Kids image guide

• Sports image guide

• Lingerie image guide

• Jewellery image guide

• Electronics image and content guide

• Toys image and content guide

• Visual content and post-production guide