With the wide range of devices on which people now read their email, I wondered if this had caused retailers to adjust their email templates – my assumption would be to make them narrower.
So I thought I would review some of the retail emails to which I subscribe in order to see if there was an ideal email width or any kind of recommended standard.
I reviewed the width of emails from 155 retailers, which ranged in width from HSN with the narrowest at 580px to Harry & David with the widest email at a whopping 894px!
To be fair, Harry & David recently redesigned their email template and it looks narrower, but for some reason, they have stopped sending me emails so I have yet to receive one with the new design.
Here’s how the retail email widths compare in chart form. The average email width is 675px.
Digging a little deeper into the data, we can see that:
- 17% of the retail emails are 600px wide or less
- 44% of emails are 650px wide or less
- Almost 75% of all the emails reviewed are less than or equal to 700px wide
| Email Width | < 601px | < 651px | < 701px | < 751px | < 801px |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % of Emails | 17% | 44% | 74% | 92% | 98% |
Interestingly, although the ideal email width has for many years been recommended at between 550-600px, only 17% of retailers are following this guideline. On the other end of the scale, only 8% of retailers opted to make their emails wider than 750px.
As far as the ‘ideal’ email width is concerned, three widths stood out as being preferred, which can be seen by the plateaus in the chart above:
- 600px
- 650px
- 700px
Each of these widths was used equally by 14% of retailers, and as a group they accounted for 42% of the retail emails studied.
Looking at the data in terms of ranges gives a more general idea of where email width preferences fall:
| Email Width | 576-625px | 626-675px | 676-725px | 726-775px | 776px+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % of Emails | 22% | 29% | 34% | 10% | 5% |
I was surprised that not one of the ranges stood out clearly as the most popular, which shows that when it comes to ideal email width there is not a great deal of consensus among online retailers.
Finally, here’s the full table of results (click on a header to sort the data):
| Retailer | Email Width (px) |
|---|---|
| HSN | 580 |
| RedEnvelope | 585 |
| Crabtree & Evelyn | 590 |
| Cabelas | 592 |
| SkyMall | 593 |
| Anna Scholz | 600 |
| Bonobos | 600 |
| FansEdge | 600 |
| Patagonia | 600 |
| Reebok | 600 |
| Zappos | 600 |
| AutoAnything | 600 |
| Soap.com | 600 |
| Bon-Ton | 600 |
| Conns | 600 |
| Dillard’s | 600 |
| Mothercare | 600 |
| Orvis | 600 |
| SmartBargains.com | 600 |
| Brookstone | 600 |
| IKEA | 600 |
| Linens-N-Things | 600 |
| Ashford | 600 |
| Blue Nile | 600 |
| Buy.com | 600 |
| Zazzle | 600 |
| HP | 607 |
| OfficeMax | 607 |
| Appleseed’s | 608 |
| Office Depot | 612 |
| Gettington | 619 |
| Ford | 620 |
| Starbucks | 620 |
| NorthernTool | 622 |
| Walmart | 629 |
| CafePress | 630 |
| JC Whitney | 633 |
| Sierra Trading Post | 636 |
| eForCity | 640 |
| figleaves.com | 640 |
| L.L.Bean | 640 |
| Kohl’s | 640 |
| Target | 640 |
| Micro Center | 640 |
| Sam’s Club | 641 |
| The Sharper Image | 642 |
| Ralph Lauren | 646 |
| Horchow | 650 |
| Aeropostale | 650 |
| Boden USA | 650 |
| Chadwicks | 650 |
| Crocs | 650 |
| Cusp | 650 |
| dressbarn | 650 |
| Frederick’s of Hollywood | 650 |
| Neiman Marcus | 650 |
| Sports Authority | 650 |
| Tommy Bahama | 650 |
| Diapers.com | 650 |
| Fingerhut | 650 |
| Hayneedle | 650 |
| Spiegel | 650 |
| Walgreens | 650 |
| World Market | 650 |
| CircuitCity | 650 |
| Dixons | 650 |
| Newegg.com | 650 |
| Pottery Barn | 650 |
| Harrods | 654 |
| eCOST.com | 655 |
| Petco | 660 |
| Kate Spade | 660 |
| Motorcycle Superstore | 660 |
| Overstock.com | 660 |
| CompUSA | 660 |
| Coldwater Creek | 662 |
| B&H Photo | 664 |
| Loft | 670 |
| 1-800-Flowers.com | 675 |
| Baby Phat | 680 |
| TK Maxx | 680 |
| B&Q | 681 |
| The Home Depot | 682 |
| CDW | 685 |
| J.Crew | 686 |
| Nordstrom | 687 |
| H&M | 690 |
| J&R | 690 |
| CB2 | 690 |
| Chapters.Indigo.ca | 692 |
| Bare Necessities | 695 |
| Charlotte Russe | 696 |
| Build.com | 699 |
| adidas | 700 |
| Ann Taylor | 700 |
| Athleta | 700 |
| Banana Republic | 700 |
| Bluefly | 700 |
| Converse | 700 |
| farfetch.com | 700 |
| Fred Perry | 700 |
| Gap | 700 |
| Next | 700 |
| Talbots | 700 |
| Topshop | 700 |
| Beauty.com | 700 |
| Sephora | 700 |
| Bass Pro Shops | 700 |
| Layla Grace | 700 |
| Lillian Vernon | 700 |
| Marks & Spencer | 700 |
| REI | 700 |
| RadioShack | 700 |
| UncommonGoods | 700 |
| Zales | 700 |
| J.C. Penney | 704 |
| Crutchfield | 708 |
| The Land of Nod | 708 |
| Bath & Body Works | 709 |
| Crate and Barrel | 710 |
| Anthropologie | 718 |
| Abercrombie & Fitch | 720 |
| aerie | 720 |
| Barneys New York | 720 |
| Express | 720 |
| Gilly Hicks | 720 |
| The Limited | 720 |
| Saks Fifth Avenue | 720 |
| The Container Store | 720 |
| Tiffany & Co. | 720 |
| Staples | 720 |
| 77kids | 725 |
| Dell | 728 |
| Chico’s | 730 |
| Debenhams | 732 |
| Coach | 737 |
| American Eagle Outfitters | 740 |
| Dune Shoes | 740 |
| Lands’ End | 740 |
| Brooks Brothers | 742 |
| Apple | 742 |
| Eddie Bauer | 748 |
| Swatch | 749 |
| Hallmark | 758 |
| Victoria’s Secret | 760 |
| Anne Klein | 770 |
| Tory Burch | 770 |
| Currys | 770 |
| John Lewis | 782 |
| Restoration Hardware | 784 |
| Gymboree | 800 |
| Costco | 800 |
| Frys | 820 |
| Old Navy | 836 |
| Harry & David | 894 |
It’s worth noting that almost all of the emails reviewed were graphically heavy and virtually none were of the newsletter format, a study of which may produce very different results.
Note: Thanks to Tableizer for making it a snap to convert these tables from Excel into HTML.
It is a good idea to keep your emails to a fixed width of no more than 550-600 pixels. This should ensure that in the majority of cases, your subscribers can view your email as you intended.
As the % of the world using 800 x 600 resolution for browsing is now very small it makes you wonder why the email widths have not moved up in the same way as website widths. I suppose the reason why not is that emails are always viewed in a box within the email client and therefore occupy significantly less width than the whole screen.
Historically, I’ve always gone for between 600-700 px wide.
Very useful info…thnks for it:)
@vern — you should also take into account the increasing number of people who will be viewing your email on a mobile device.
I would recommend making sure that the email is readable no matter what the width is by keeping it simple. It’s a shame it is not possible to have multipul css designs for various email clients and devices.
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600. The only way to go!