I’ve been creating covers with multiple views and text since the start, so I am wondering how having them all separated will benefit me over the one cover image? Split testing would be the only way to tell. But in all honesty after creating hundreds of covers (at the sacrifice of marketing and new product design) I am uncertain how much time I will have to create 10 images per product … not much is the answer. Hence sadly this innovation (which I like and can see the promise) I may have to skip … meanwhile I have 2 questions.
We were advised products with covers would rank higher in the marketplace than those without and many have seen great results re this. Will it now be the case that the multi-media images will trump the products with covers?
Will people be able to show other items from the collection ie … RSVP’s , Save the dates etc that accompany the invitation re this multi-media set?
Maybe what we need is for Zazzle to explain captions to us–why and when we’d use them and how they’d benefit both us and the customer. Zazzle’s captions simply state the aspect of the view: front, back, side, etc., which serves a purpose when front and back views of a product are the same on both sides until images are placed on those sides.
Not really for me, having read it through twice.
Some of the images of ‘Don’ts’ are too ambiguous. Being specific about “merchandise products and adding call outs” - it would be helpful to see some good examples of this in action. i.e. what does 'merchandise products mean, what is permitted in a call out.
I’ve now read that entire page, and I’m even more unsure of Zazzle’s vision. How many ways can you show a postcard? Other than showing front and back at the same time, what’s left? Same for a keychains or name tags or a number of other such products? I can see a few different placements for posters–living room, bedroom, nursery, kitchen, etc. depending on the image, maybe the same for a pillow, but surely not for so many of the other products. In other words, isn’t the number of views extremely dependent on the way in which a product ls likely to be used?
This statement stuck out: “Lastly, Media Images for the product page could be an opportunity for you to connect with customers on a human level. You may want to answer questions such as “What kinds of designs do you specialize in?” as well as “ Where are you from?” Forging a human connection with customers is a critical element in social commerce!”
What?! Why on earth would we talk about ourselves as if this is a social media site when all we’re doing is trying to sell a tumbler? The only time this has ever been important to me is when buying food products on the internet. I want to know the ingredients, how they’re produced, and the business’s vision and ethics. Here, all we designers do is design. The only time I’ve been interested in an artist has been in the fine arts.
Beyond this is an underlying concern that, no matter how good our designs, they’ll be pushed way down in the listings for lack of multiple views that take huge amounts of time to create and are, essentially, repetitive. Will some of the great designers sales be reduced for lack of unnecessary multiple views? As I said, how many views of a postcard will help it sell?
Best way to look at it Barbara is how it is done on Etsy and Amazon. They add dimensions, instructions, and various in-situ images, . A lot of work for one product.
When I ran my own business, I would sometimes put a week’s worth of work into presentation of a product, then advertise that product, but the hard work truly paid off. I’m not seeing any uptick here in my own sales of products where I’ve created covers and promoted them. Maybe I’m overly skeptical, or maybe, without real examples from Zazzle, I’m not understanding what they’re going for, what they’re envisioning.
I love the idea of using Amazon as a model - where you get things like size charts, measurements, etc. But if I’m understanding correctly (and I may not be) once the customer starts to personalize the template, all designer uploaded views disappear. In a certain sense that makes sense because customer changes would not be reflected in those views, but it makes them much less useful in terms of providing extra info for the customer.
Doesn’t matter. You get useful info (such as image sizes) to get started and you can always head back to these previews if you missed something. I didn’t test these yet, but I assume it works like the single custom mockups we had until now, and in that case, the preview is still there and selectable. It’s basically not much different than editing front and back of an item, in this case you also have to change preview and reopen the form.
Thanks @Fiorenzo - I understand now. The custom previews don’t disappear altogether, Zazzle just makes the standard display into the current one so it reflects the customer’s changes. Thanks for clarifying!
Happy to share useful hints, I heard about this news also by accident yesterday while reading a forum post - not the announcement one. I must say, I’m excited. I use to offer a handful of predefined text styles on various products and now I have finally the opportunity to make them all visible on dedicated previews. A truly precious feature for the ones who like to spend some little extra time.
I’m having trouble envisioning how this works from a customer perspective. Are there just extra choices in terms of the views/covers? If anybody out there has created multiple covers for a product, would you mind posting a link so we can see how it looks? Thanks!
Hey Cat… here’s one I’m playing with https://www.zazzle.com/2024_watercolor_storefronts_medium_calendar-158440783514856380
I’m using the extra photos to show off some candid photos of the paintings I made for this calendar. I had another photo with my face in it holding one of the paintings… but I deleted it. It seemed TOO personal. It’s hard to know where the line is here! It would be great if Zazzle could link to some best practices examples.
I was wondering about adding pics of the art or art in progress. I think that really tells the story of the piece, but maybe not the product. It seems a little ambiguous in terms of how to use the additional photos, but I feel like extra views of the product itself is a bit repetitive (for what I have to offer) since Zazzle provides them. I like how you did that a lot!
It dawned on me while off doing unrelated things that we may have gotten caught in a web of ten, focusing on that number as if it were a goal. What Zazzle said was “up to ten,” not the necessity of ten. Some products might do well with a greater number of images, some would neither require it nor benefit from it. We might do better considering how a product image could show this or that and go for it, while at other times, like me and my simple postcards, we’ll draw all but a blank after a single cover. Zazzle has given us the freedom of options.
Thank you so much, that’s very helpful! So from the customer’s perspective it’s just like there are more insitus to look through - somehow I was thinking that the customer was shown a screen with all of the images at the same time or something. Anyhow, your images look great and a calendar is a great product to add more covers to since there are so many different pieces of art to look at. I’m sorta struggling trying to figure out how I’ll come up with more than one cover for a wedding invitation - it’s already a struggle not to repeat the same covers too many times. Hmmmmmmmmm…
I’ve done a few invitations (not wedding) and included cover pics showing the front, front and back together, and digital version. I could probably include candids of my artwork being made, but I’m not sure that’s really interesting to someone if art isn’t the whole focus of the product (like the calendar). I think I read to only include the product you’re listing, but it would be nice fo show off coordinating items…
For this invitation https://www.zazzle.com/modern_script_photo_overlay_qr_code_wedding_invitation-256389342978961612 I’ve shown it on just a few of the other paper choices and also with the different corner/edge types. In the captions I’ve said what the paper is and how many papers they can choose from, and in the caption for the pic with the different corner choices I’ve added a tip that they may have to move the text slightly so as not to be cut away. It’s quite time consuming so I’ll do it for a few of my bestsellers to test the water and see if it makes a difference to the choices customers make and the impact on sales. Time will tell. Hopefully the option to download the Zazzle mockups with transparent backgrounds will become available (fingers crossed!) as this will save a lot of time having to remove the background for each one (which I mainly do in Adobe Express).
I’m not sure if this is the best way to go so would also love to see some best practices and whether we are allowed to add like a general text only image with helpful explanations for customers which could then be uploaded relatively quickly to any products to which the same advice applies.