Any Updates on New Collections and/or Cover Images?

[cutencomfy]

I have really been working to improve my collections and cover images to generate more visibility and sales, and really have no idea if I’m making any impact. Does anyone from Zazzle or any creator have any insight?

Are these things “supercharging” anyone’s sales? Have you found what works and doesnt work? I see more and more products with cover photos and “editors picks” gaining prominence in Zazzle’s marketplace and fewer zazzle products seem to be found in google search results.

Some updated guidance from Zazzle sure would be helpful. Thanks!

[Jadendreamer13]

• In my experience, cover photos can either help or hinder sales. Carefully curated, well-designed cover photos do increase sales because they encourage potential customers to stop the scroll, click on a product, and make a purchase. When designing cover photos, I find that the keep-it-simple golden rule of design works best. So, in order to make cover photos that stand out in the marketplace, it’s important to keep cover photo backgrounds simple, clean, and uncluttered, so that the product being offered is the star of the show—not the background. Backgrounds should serve a supporting role. They give customers an idea of what the final product will look like and how they might be used. Try limiting background items to one or two items only. Remember the design rule of thirds. Two items in the background plus your product make three items, so stop there. Keep background colors neutral, or pull a color out of your product design, and use a muted version of that color. If your product is something that would be used in a child’s nursery, place it in an environment that displays how and where it will be used in a room. For example, include nursery wallpaper only if it’s a simple pattern where the wallpaper and pattern are barely visible—like a subliminal message that says, “buy me.” Make products large enough to take up most of the frame. Customers can’t see products that are too small. Zazzle is guilty of this in their automatically generated in-situ photos, that’s why they don’t help creators generate sales. A lot of designers make the mistake of adding too many colors, elements, special effects, and typefaces in an effort to improve a design and make it stand out. That philosophy does not work. So, if a design is not selling, ask yourself what items can be removed to simplify a design (kind of like Coco Chanel’s advice to put together an outfit and accessories, then remove three things).

[cutencomfy]

Thank you for all the great advice on creating cover images! Has using this method resulted in better sales for you? Is there any way of knowing if products with covers have better click through rates or sales than those that don’t. I still have products without covers that sell (probably because they filled a niche and were found through google).  It’s actually fun to create beautiful covers but it has to make sense financially, for me.

[Jadendreamer13]

Yes, it’s worked for me.

[KeegansCreation]

Make products large enough to take up most of the frame. Customers can’t see products that are too small. Zazzle is guilty of this in their automatically generated in-situ photos, that’s why they don’t help creators generate sales. 

The Zazzle wallpaper in-situ photos are horrific. They put the camera so far away from the wall that the design is always tiny, even if the customer uses the closeup feature. But I also figure they are accurately sized. The tricky part is to maintain accurate sizing of the pattern but move in a lot closer. RawPixel has a ton of blank walls behind furniture so sourcing that was easy but fidgeting with pattern size until it seemed to match Zazzle's is a fair bit harder. Some designers have overshot and made wallpaper mockups which are practically wall murals and too big to be accurate so I am trying to avoid that while also trying to avoid Zazzle's standing on the other side of the room method. Like so:

Vintage Deer
by KeeganCreations

Is this accurately sized? I hope so. Very tricky.

[cutencomfy]

Beautiful design, and I had forgotten that Zazzle added wallpaper. It would be so fun to design, and now even more with all the ai tools that exist… but I have to get off this treadmill and make some money. I love designing and even making cover images but I’m at the point where it has to make financial sense for me to spend time on. I wish I had some nugget to hold on to or lean into but I just don’t see it. I have a few things going at zazzle that work for me and I have to stick to those areas… and I am a diamond level seller here since 07.

[Connie]

I think Zazzle did that "across the room" view so that customers will actually get an accurate idea of the real scale. But it sure is tough making close-ups accurate!

[ColsCreations]

I don't think Zazzle's in situs are accurately sized though. I've got a post here w/ pics of why I think that.

@Connie 

[KeegansCreation]

Oh my. Hmmm. It didn't even occur to me that Zazzle's scale might be off. Thank you for doing the math. I was assuming their scale was correct and then eyeballing my fictional furniture to match their fictional furniture. I figured what is the point of doing the math since we don't know the width of fictional furniture even though we know the width of the wallpaper is 2 feet.

But as you point out, we really do know the width of some fictional furniture. Cribs are standardized. And other furniture doesn't have such a super wide range so you can probably make a decent guesstimate to guess reasonably how many repeats of your design can fit behind the furniture.

In my vintage deer example I have been deliberately vague. My wallpaper represents about 1.5 rolls wide or 3 feet. It is behind a table of unknown width and next to a window with a curtain. The only thing the eye can really use for scale is the vase. Perhaps it is 7 inches wide at the base. Does that seem reasonable for the vase pictured? I guess so. I think so.

Gawd! This is Zazzle's most difficult product to scale in mockups. So difficult that even Zazzle couldn't do it.

[Connie]

@KeegansCreationI think it's because AI doesn't understand scale, and most of these in situs are probably AI generated. When I do cover photos, I'm very particular about scale, looking up the average dimensions for things to try to make sure everything is to scale. I haven't gotten around to doing the wallpaper mockups yet, though.

[Connie]

@ColsCreationsYou are right! I always love your analytical posts with examples.

[Connie]

I guess I've been doing it wrong- I do 3 things PLUS the invitation. I didn't think to include the product itself as the third item.

[shoshannahscrib]

Hi! I think @Jadendreamer13 has excellent advice! 😁

I take a bit of an alternate approach and often use bold backgrounds instead of neutral ones. For example if a card is orange I might choose a purple background to make the whole image pop in a sea of white and beige. Does it work? I have no clue. 😂 My approach to making cover images is very random but I actually enjoy it, so that's probably why my covers are all over the map as far as style.

It would be interesting to perform A/B testing on different cover images to see which one works better but I already feel predicting what Zazzle chooses to show to customers is impossible. If I made two versions I have no idea if they will both be shown to customers or how or why that is. haha! If anyone has insight on that I would happily test different cover styles! 

As far as "editors picks" having cover images - if one of my items becomes an editors pick I immediately make a cover photo for it. I have not noticed that having a cover image is necessary to be picked in the first place. But that's just my experience.