Product content for Zalando and OTTO: requirements, differences and checklist

Zalando and OTTO at a glance

Zalando: what matters for images, names and attributes

Images

Zalando checks images strictly and rejects even small deviations:

• Format: portrait at a ratio of 1:1.44. Zalando rounds to two decimals; an image at 1.445 becomes 1.45 and is rejected.
• Size: recommended 1801 × 2600 px, at least 762 × 1100 px. Premium and designer brands need at least 1800 × 2600 px.
• File: JPG only, sRGB, at most 20 MB. Blurry images are rejected even at the right pixel size.
• Minimum count: 3 images for apparel, accessories and shoes (the first is a model front view or a packshot), 2 for home, 1 for beauty, toys and electronics.
• Not allowed: visible mannequins, and child models for nightwear, underwear and swimwear.

Background: two official Zalando pages contradict each other here. The image guidelines also allow plain ambient backgrounds for the packshot, the post-production guide requires white, and Zalando has its own rejection reason for packshots whose background is not pure white. The safe choice is a pure white packshot (#FFFFFF) with the product filling about 80 percent of the frame.

Article name

You write the article name yourself, with at most 101 characters. It is not translated and appears the same in every country, so Zalando recommends English or internationally understandable names.

• Not allowed: material terms (such as wool, silk, leather, gold) and sustainability terms (organic, eco, vegan, recycled).
• Not recommended: descriptive titles such as “Men's half zip crew neck sweater”, brand, colour, internal numbers or EAN. These already live in the attributes.
• Zalando reserves the right to change or remove names.

Attributes

On Zalando, data quality decides whether an article shows up in filters and search. Required for every article are, among others, age group, article name, brand, outline (formerly “silhouette”), gender, size chart, main colour, supplier colour, season, price, EAN, SKU and size. Material is required per category and picked from a list. Apparel needs at least three consecutive sizes, shoes five.

AI images

Zalando introduced its own rules for AI content in 2026: visible AI labels in the image are banned; an invisible marking (such as C2PA metadata) is strongly recommended and mandatory from December 2026. AI images with distorted textures or text, implausible lighting or changing model features within one image set are rejected. Our advice: packshots, cut-outs and backgrounds around a real product photo, yes; invented models, no.

By the way: the often quoted figure that “over 90 % of content” at Zalando is AI-generated refers, according to Zalando, to marketing content such as teasers and campaigns, explicitly not to product detail pages.

OTTO Market: product data, copy and images

Who can sell on OTTO

OTTO Market is a Germany-only marketplace: sellers need a German legal form with a registered office in Germany and German-speaking customer service; delivery is within Germany only. Copy is therefore written in German.

Required data per variant

Through the OTTO interface (Products API v5), every variant needs an EAN, a product reference, a SKU, the product description with brand and category, prices, media files and the compliance details under GPSR (such as manufacturer or EU responsible person). Further required attributes depend on the category; OTTO supplies them with allowed and recommended values. Only with these values do navigation and filters work fully.

According to OTTO's terms of use, the EAN is “of outstanding importance”: it must be unique and must not start with “2”.

Title, description and bullet points

• Title: OTTO assembles the product name itself from brand, category, product line and attributes. Your lever is the product line (the proper name, such as “501”), at most 70 characters, the same for all variants.
• Description: under 2000 characters, simple HTML (paragraphs, lists, bold); OTTO removes links. According to OTTO, the description is relevant for search.
• Bullet points: 3 to 180 characters each, in practice at most five.

Images

At least one image is required, at least 500 × 1000 px, at most 4500 px wide, JPG or PNG in RGB (no CMYK). OTTO recommends at most 10 images per variant, a cut-out main image on a white or light neutral background with the product filling about 85 % of the frame, and file names without umlauts or special characters. Energy efficiency details do not belong in the image.

Why content quality counts twice on OTTO

When several sellers offer the same product, OTTO shows only one product page. According to its terms of use, OTTO decides automatically, based on the quality of the material, whose content appears there. Good images and complete attributes decide whose content customers see.

The most common rejection reasons

Zalando

1. Wrong aspect ratio, blurry images or too few required views.
2. A visible mannequin, or a packshot whose background is not pure white.
3. The outline does not match the image or the data.
4. Material or eco terms in the article name; material missing or mapped wrongly.
5. Image address not reachable, or image assigned to the wrong colour variant.

OTTO

1. Missing or duplicate EAN, or an EAN starting with “2”.
2. Wrong category, or attribute values outside the allowed list.
3. Image does not match the variant, CMYK instead of RGB, too small, umlauts in the file name.
4. Missing GPSR details (required since API v5).
5. Bullet points over 180 characters. Rejected content sent again unchanged is rejected again without a new message.

Checklist before uploading

Where AI helps and where it does not

For marketplace content, AI mainly saves time on routine work: writing copy to fixed lengths, deriving attributes from product data, bringing images into the right format and checking before upload whether anything is missing. It does not replace the real product photo, nor the check that material, care and sizes are right. Invented models are not a good idea on Zalando and OTTO right now.

That is exactly how the ecomDNAI Marketplace Content Creator works: it always starts from a real product photo, image sizes, text lengths and languages follow the chosen marketplace, and a check shows what is still missing before export. The Marketplace Optimizer rates existing listings against the rules of each marketplace.