Contents
Amazon product video is not one slot with one set of rules. There are several places a film can appear on a listing, each owned by a different part of Amazon, and only some of them have published technical requirements. This page sorts out which is which before it gets to what the film should contain.
Where video appears on Amazon
| Placement | What it is | Who controls it |
|---|---|---|
| Detail page video | Plays in the main image gallery beside the photos | You, through Seller Central |
| A plus content | Video inside the enhanced description further down the page | You, brand owners |
| Brand Story | The brand module that appears across your listings | You, brand owners |
| Sponsored Brands video | A paid ad unit in search results, autoplaying muted | You, through Amazon Ads, with published specs |
| Shoppable and creator video | Reviews and demonstrations filmed by influencers | Creators, not you |
That last row is worth separating, because it is what most search results for this phrase are actually about. Amazon runs a creator programme where influencers earn commission on videos they make. It is a real thing, it is just a completely different subject from a brand putting a film on its own listing.
Who can upload one
This changed, and plenty of older advice has not caught up. According to Jungle Scout, Amazon originally allowed only brands enrolled in Brand Registry to add a video to a listing, and now anyone can. Sellers outside Brand Registry can upload to a single ASIN, while Brand Registry members can cover up to 300.
How to add a video to an Amazon listing
The upload itself takes about two minutes. Everything that goes wrong happens before or after it, so here is the whole path.
- Open the video manager. In Seller Central it sits under Inventory, then Upload and Manage Videos. Brand Registry has to be active on the account, otherwise the menu item is not there at all.
- Upload the file and the thumbnail. The thumbnail is a separate image and Amazon will generate one from a frame if you skip it, usually badly. Supply your own.
- Attach it to ASINs. One video can be linked to several ASINs, which is the reason a variant family only needs one film if the differences are cosmetic.
- Add the title and the alt text. Both are indexed inside Amazon search, so write the product name rather than a file name.
- Wait for the review. Usually a few hours, sometimes a day. The video stays in Processing until it clears, and there is nothing to do in the meantime.
The two things that block an upload most often are an account without Brand Registry and a file that misses the specification below by a small margin, most commonly the aspect ratio or the frame size.
The specification Amazon publishes
For the paid unit, Sponsored Brands video, Amazon publishes the full specification. These are the numbers worth building to, because they are the strictest of anything on the platform and a file that satisfies them will satisfy the softer placements as well.
| Requirement | Amazon specification |
|---|---|
| Duration | Between 6 and 45 seconds, 20 seconds or less highly recommended |
| Dimensions | 1280×720, 1920×1080 or 3840×2160 px |
| Aspect ratio | 16:9, square pixel only |
| File size | 500 MB or less |
| File format | MP4 or MOV |
| Video codec | H.264 or H.265 |
| Frame rate | 23.976, 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 29.98 or 30 fps |
| Video bit rate | Minimum 1 Mbps, 4 Mbps or higher recommended |
| Scan type | Progressive |
| Audio codec | PCM, AAC or MP3 |
| Audio | Stereo or mono, minimum 96 kbps, minimum 44.1 kHz |
Two rules in that document are easy to miss and cause most of the avoidable rejections. The video has to match the language of the marketplace it runs in, and it must not carry black, coloured or blurred bars, horizontal or vertical. If your film was cut for a vertical social feed and then letterboxed into 16:9, that second rule is the one that will catch you.
How long it should be
Shorter than you think, and shorter than most brands submit. The paid unit caps at 45 seconds and Amazon itself recommends 20 or less. For the detail page there is more room, but the shopper is standing in a gallery of photographs with a buy button in front of them, and the film is competing with the button rather than with entertainment.
A useful discipline: write the film to one question the photographs cannot answer. If you cannot name that question, the video will not earn its place no matter how long it runs.
What to actually show
An exploded view answers the question a bullet point only claims to answer. Nothing here was filmed, and nothing had to be taken apart.
- Scale against something familiar. The single most common return reason in marketplace selling is that the item was not the size the buyer pictured.
- What is inside. Sealed housings hide the reason your product costs more than the cheaper one next to it in search results.
- The thing that is hard to believe. Whatever your bullet points claim, the film is where you demonstrate it rather than assert it.
- Assembly or installation. Doubt about fitting something is a silent reason for abandoned carts, and it is cheap to remove.
- What is in the box. Dull, and it consistently reduces the questions that arrive afterwards.
What not to do is the brand film. Logo, music, lifestyle montage, product at the end. It performs on a home page and does nothing on a listing, because by the time somebody is looking at your gallery they have already chosen to consider you.
Why these get built in 3D
A cutaway with callouts. There is no way to film this without destroying a unit, which is the plainest argument for building the film in 3D.
- Nothing ships. No sample has to travel to a studio, which for furniture and appliances is the largest hidden cost of a shoot.
- Cutaways and exploded views are impossible to film. You would have to destroy a unit, and it would still look worse.
- Variants come off one model. A range of twelve colourways is one build and twelve renders, not twelve shoots.
- It works before production. The listing can be ready before the first unit exists.
Which format fits which problem is set out in animated product video, and what such a film costs is in 3D animation cost. The image side of the same listing is covered in Amazon image requirements.
Films like these are what our 3D product animation service produces, quoted by the second and delivered in the frame size Amazon asks for.
Why uploads get rejected
- Letterboxing. Bars of any kind are named in the specification.
- Wrong language for the marketplace. A single film pushed to every country fails this on most of them.
- Prices, claims and urgency on screen. Anything that dates or that Amazon has to verify is a risk in a video it cannot easily re review.
- Competitor comparisons. Reliably a problem.
- A thumbnail that is not representative. The still frame is held to the same standard as an image.
FAQ
If you are planning listing films for a range rather than a single product, send the catalogue and the return reasons you see most. The films that pay for themselves are almost always the ones aimed at whatever is coming back.
Ian Diev
Content Writer, Editor
Ian loves writing about innovative 3D technologies and their impact on architecture and design. In his spare time, he makes indie music, watches obscure movies, and cooks culinary masterpieces for friends.