Cover Photo Priority?

[waterart]

Is it true that zazzle is giving preference in the marketplace to products with a cover photo?

[idraw · Accepted solution]

@waterart 
From this post—-

<https://www.zazzle.com/creators/playbook/learn+about+cover+photo>
…Our site experience will now begin to favor products with Cover Photo, which includes features in our landing pages, access to special programs, as well as ranking in search. We believe the Cover Photo update will be a welcome change for customers searching for inspiration on Zazzle while at the same time, rewards Creators who put effort into their listings on the marketplace. 

[waterart]

Gotta be kidding!! Well how about they provide us with some mockups, or at least give us product pics with transparent backgrounds to save us work and time.

[PenguinPower]

I would think providing mockups would defeat their goal, which is a diversity of images... It would however be nice if they would give us the products on a transparent background... Most of the time I am not warping my designs onto an existing thing in the photo.. so taking out the Z backgrounds is 1/2 the work.. 

[waterart]

So do the cover photos only appear in the marketplace or are they part of the product page as well?

[KeegansCreation]

They are what shows on the product page.

[MarilynR]

Since we are just getting back to Zazzle with a little more time available, we are considering what is the best use of our time. For us, we have decided first and foremost creating new, fresh designs. Then it seemed like a toss up between promoting and creating cover photos with the new policy in mind. So I went to MarBeth Holidays, our most popular store and looked at the new Insights info. Looking at most sold didn't help because most of the sales were prior to 2022. However, looking at most viewed showed me that in many cases, our limited promoting brought in 50% of the views. From what I've read, cover photos take time and work to create and you should have an actual Zazzle product that you bought. So we are going to focus on promoting over cover photos.

[KeegansCreation]

You don't need to use an actual product that you bought. Few, if any, of the cover photos you see in the MP come from that. There are two main routes:

1. Download the artwork from the product page (under More Options, and only you can do this, not customers) and upload it to a commercially purchased mockup (there are some for free but not many product choices)
2. Choose one of Zazzle's product views, download it (again, More Options), isolate it and put it on a fresh background and put in shadows.

Both options take time but only option 1 takes money and you aren't expected to actually buy the Zazzle product. 

Many people, including myself, have seen product placement jumps after making a cover photo. But it does take time so prioritizing which to do is important.

[MarilynR]

Thank you. Maybe we will try it. 

[MarilynR]

Thank you Keegans Creation. We're using option 2. We are using the products with white backgrounds and using the magic wand tool to isolate the product. We are using or creating our own backgrounds. White t-shirts are harder to isolate but we have done six products and find many fairly quick to do.

[waterart]

Didn't you have to clean up the edges? I found that when I use a selection tool it still doesn't delete well enough, and I have to clean up the edges with the eraser and draw tool. The only exception are round clocks, when I use the circle selection shape I get a perfect cutout.

[ElizabethR]

Only on white products. If the edges are colors than the magic wand tool only takes the white/off-white background but leaves the product. With most products, I can have the tolerance at 100%, but white products need 0 tolerance. No more white t-shirts!!!!!!! 😄😄😄😄

[waterart]

I made a couple of cover photos, it's very time consuming, especially removing the background from products. I rather use my time and effort on another POD

Dog Bone Personalized Pet Bowl
by studioart

Dog Bone and Pawprint Design Placemat
by studioart

[KeegansCreation]

They came out well though.

[waterart]

Thanks