Cover Photos Questions/Comments

[klstock]

I just read the announcement where Zazzle says they will be prioritizing products with cover photos. If so, then doing a search by "popular" would not be accurate, it would be arbitrary and misleading. I used to have several beach and tropical invitations that would be on the first and second pages of results because they have sold well. Now I have to dig a few pages in to find them (and they have cover photos!). If you do a search for "tropical wedding invitations" or "beach wedding invitations" and look at the results that show up on the first page, about half of them have zero to do with "beach" or "tropical".... 

The cover photos are extremely time consuming. If a person wants to do them on items of their choosing, and has time for it, great. I try to do as many as possible, but if you are doing a collection that has 20 - 30 items in it, there is no way I have time to do cover photos for every single product, and some don't need it. Some look good as they are with the focus on the product and artwork.

There is cost and time involved - is there an increased cut for the designers who are now functioning as a free art department? Yes in some cases, it may generate more sales - and yes the designer would profit from sales - but if the designer is the one incurring the fees (canva pro for example, or some are purchasing product mockups) and the designer is the one taking the time to make these cover photos - which takes time away from making OTHER stuff - then a bigger chunk of the profit should go to the designer. 

[KeegansCreation]

Which AI model are you using? I tried it with Midjourney but it skews surreal so the results were just not appropriate for a mockup.

[Wildart]

the best one, without limits to the number of images you can do in a day etc, is Starrai.com, there are others such as nightcafe, or images.ai, they are great too

[idraw]

@Wildart
The site is starryai….add a y….
says can do 5 free a day.

[NigelSutherland]

What would help us with producing our own cover images would be for Zazzle to offer a product view to download as a cut-out image - that is, no background. A transparent png perhaps. 

[whimsywhim]

Gosh yes!  I tried photographing the product with my cell phone which takes great photos.  It was horrible.  I couldn't even do anything with my editing / imaging program.  I have a question if designers take photos of the product with a cell phone or iPad, etc or take a screenshot. 

[Cat]

That would be SUPER helpful! On flat items (cards etc) you can get that effect by downloading the artwork, but if it's something else... well, I hope your cutout skills are better than mine!

[mylittleeden]

I second that!

[waterart]

Yes Zazzle should at the very least give us transparent pngs of products to cut down the amount of work this means for us.

[avgsuperheroine]

So much yes. I'm fine with having to do a mock up if I must, but PLEASE zazzle, make it easier to get a product image.

[KeegansCreation]

That would help so much.

[whimsywhim]

Stupid question - do you guys do a screenshot of the product and download it then take out the background?  Or do you take a photo of the product with a cell phone / Ipad (whatever), download it and take out the background?  

Thank you.

[Sara_H]

@whimsywhim go to the product page and there is a option under More Options to either download the artwork or the mockup

[whimsywhim]

Oh, thank you so much!!!!

[Scharke]

I cannot find this option

[avgsuperheroine]

I've never seen this option I had no idea! Thank you!

[Van]

I have to vent. I am not trying to start a ruckus  but pointing out some things that there are probably other people thinking but hesitate to say.

I've spent hours messing around with this mock up cover photo stuff and it's not going very well. I personally prefer the simpler views Zazzle offers but I feel if I hope for my products to be found in the marketplace I have no choice but to do these uploads..... I stink at promoting my products so I depend on the marketplace and third party for sales.

Here's the thing, from my point of view. Awhile back we met z-rank. I had no problems doing that but have only gotten my store to a 6. NOW we have the hurdle of designers who upload their own cover images being given priority over those who don't. We're told that statistics show products with covers do better - so shouldn't that be a naturally occurring thing instead of those products being given priority over products without those covers?

Don't get me wrong - I think it's a cool idea - but not everyone is going to be able to jump this new hurdle. I'm only a mediocre designer myself but I enjoy what I do. There are, however, so many wonderful designers on Zazzle who will be penalized because they won't be able to meet this new 'requirement' and that seems terribly unfair. As far as myself, I certainly can't buy mock ups - I don't make enough sales.

To me, this feels close to a 'pay to win' thing. For example - there are games where you spend real life money to be boosted over players who don't which gives the spenders an often unfair advantage over other players. Now, obviously it's not necessary to spend money on mock ups - but there is the matter of time investment which is pretty much the same thing.

My point is, for whatever reason, be it time or being able to buy mock ups, there will be a lot of good designers who just can't meet this requirement to receive "priority" and that seems terribly unfair.

[whimsywhim]

It's very disappointing that it's not sales volume anymore.  Mock-ups take an egregious amount of time.  It's especially so since we need to take out the background.  It's just one more hurdle that takes a tremendous amount of time and effort away from putting more products for sale.

[ievajen]

for flat things download artwork and paste into your new background, then can transform is needed, it's faster than changing background

[VV]

This is weird. You had 11 Kudos. I clicked the thumbs up to give you another. When I did, it changed to 10 kudos. Weird.

[KeegansCreation]

There are alternatives to paid mockups that you can use for a lot of products (but not for duvet covers or shower curtains). There are free sites to download backgrounds: Morguefile and Pixabay (both of which have Shutterstock photos at the front so scroll past them), RawPixel (some free) and Unsplash. In a pinch you can clear off a table in your house and take an overhead shot. Put some leafy branches (or other unbranded nice looking object) to the side of the frame.

It takes a freaking long time to do this in a graphics program so prioritize your best designs.

As an example, I got a free picture of a beach, isolated the sunglasses mockup from Zazzle, painted in shadows and blurred them. This took awhile but it bumped up the page placement of the product significantly. So it's worth it to invest time (don't have to invest money) in at least a few of your best products. Investing time is a more even playing field because a lot of Zazzle's products have no equivalent in the world of purchased mockups. There are tons of 11 oz mugs you can buy mockups for. But just try finding a purchased mockup for the espresso cups, latte cups or bone china cups. So anybody who wants to do those has to invest time. Golf ball markers, tissue paper, candy and cookies...there are tons of things Zazzle sells that mockup makers don't make mockups for so it's an even playing field there with anybody who wants a cover photo having to invest time.

School Of Sharks
by KeeganCreations

[klstock]

nice job on the sunglasses - maybe Zazzle can pay you to make some mockups! A graphic designer doing this type of thing would be earning $25 per hr at the low end here. 

[VV]

Wow, this kudos counter isn't working properly. I clicked on it and the counter when down a number. So I clicked on it again and it went up. Now it's down again.

[mylittleeden]

Yes time is the issue I have a old program and limited space so it is going to be a massive time eating job. I can't possibly do 14,000 products either!

[klstock]

The investment of time and/or money should be up to what the designer is able or wants to do. I have maybe 2 hours most days that I can do Zazzle stuff. I do not have time or a desire to make cover photos for everything I make and I don’t even make that much stuff. I have done this sort of work as a job and I hated it – so if I didn’t like doing it while I was getting paid good to do it, you can imagine I will not be spending 2 hours a day doing it for free. I will do a cover photo here and there but I will not be doing it for every product.

Zazzle stated that the point for doing these cover photos is “to tell the unique story of your product to stand out from competitive products in the Zazzle Marketplace” – then it doesn’t follow that so many of the editor’s picks that are prioritized to the first pages of results now - are designs utilizing commonly used clipart.

I create original art for the most part and I do not need cover photos to “stand out from competitive” products. Maybe someone using the same clipart that has been seen 500 times on Zazzle and everywhere else on the internet needs some bells and whistles to stand out from the other 499 who used that same clipart, but I don’t! Let customers enter their search term and have the results that come up actually match that search term, and be designs that have earned that spot in the first pages of results as a result of sales.

The way I see it is, if Zazzle is going to bump back my unique design in search results in order to prioritize someone using cookie cutter clipart on the basis of a cover photo or lack thereof – then, yes it may be my loss for not having the time or desire to do a cover photo for everything, but it is going to be Zazzle’s loss too because my stuff sells.

I have not seen more sales as a result of cover photos – my stuff sells about the same with or without them. The way I see it is, if I have to take extra time to make cover photos for every 20 products in a collection for example – then that is 20 other new products that I no longer have time to make. So, even if my doing those 20 cover photos leads to some marginal increase in sales – that “increase” is offset by the amount of time it took to do them and the loss of sales from those 20 new products that I didn’t have time to create!

[NigelSutherland]

A very eloquent post, and I agree with all you say. For those of us that design and produce for specialised niche areas, where we are found by a Zazzle search within the marketplace, a cover photo makes no difference. 

[kidGooGoo]

Hi everyone,

If you're in need of (free) mockup templates for Photoshop, this individual provides them for free, zero charge to you and great quality. Not everything is captured on their site, but some items like posters, mugs, business cards, bags, calendars, etc., are.

Hopefully this is helpful to someone! It took a lot of digging sometime ago to find this, and actually came across it when scrolling Unsplash and Pexels. I, too, was not heavily interested in paying a premium for every mockup I needed. Unsplash & Pexels are great for mockup .jpgs (if anyone needs that instead).

https://mockups-design.com/

Happy designing! 😊

[VV]

I went to Zazzle's marketplace as a prospective customer. I searched for “pillows,” perused the results and came to some conclusions:

1. The mix of so many different backgrounds made it harder for my brain to hone in on the individual pillows I liked.

2. Some of the pillows I preferred had cover photos designed by individual designers and some had Zazzle's regular mockups. While I personally appreciated the artistry of some of the individual designers' mockups, this did not influence which pillows I preferred or would buy. It did convince me that Zazzle designers often created more pleasing (to me) cover photos than did the person or persons Zazzle hired to make the ones currently in use. 

3. I think it's unfair of Zazzle to penalize designers who don't have the skills, time, or inclination to make pleasing mockups for Zazzle's site. 

4. When I shop for anything, the presentation is helpful in catching my eye, but when given such a wide variety presentations, it just makes it harder for me to hone in on the item I wish to buy. 

My final conclusion is that, yes, Zazzle could use some new and better mockups. But I ask you, is compelling each and every designer on Zazzle’s vast site to use his/her time without compensation to come up with individual, unique designs, which sometimes are beautiful and other times are lacking due to various abilities, finances, time or  . . . other things, while financially penalizing everyone in one way or another, ultimately resulting not only in bad feelings on both sides but a glut of inharmonious styles, shapes, visions and abilities in its marketplace, and slowing  the ability of customers to choose and ultimately purchase really the best and most profitable answer?

Why not choose the best designers of these mockups and compensate them (without punishing everyone else) to come up with cohesive, stylish, beautiful sets of mockups that will catch the eyes of customers without distracting from the actual products? Maybe different styles, though relating in some way, for different departments. 

[whimsywhim]

I completely agree.  Your points are spot on.  I looked up baptism invitations, and it hurt my eyes.  It was an incoherent mess.  I spent the last few days on cover photos.  It is disappointing and discouraging.  

[chefcateringbiz]

I don't really design anything that would be amazingly improved by a custom mock-up. I literally do not have time to put those together. I barely have enough time to everything as it is. I have a p/t job, I bake for $dough, and I Zazzle. Already at full bore here.

[Barbara]

I went to the front page using Firefox's private browser so nothing would be skewed as it so often is when signed in. I clicked on clocks, but I had to work my way over to them because the link is wrong and leads to "popular tapestries." Okay, so I finally got to clocks by typing it in, and what did I find? It seems no one is doing mockups for clocks. So go for it, folks. Do mockups for your clocks.

Colorwash's Home

[northwestphotos]

I would like to see Zazzle provide default insitus for ALL products. They've started doing this for all new, recent products and would like to see them go back and add insitus for all the older products. As many others have stated in this thread, they don't have the time or money to be spending on software programs. Adding our own mock-ups would be nice, if we desired to go that route, but I believe that there should be default mock-ups that Zazzle provides. This would prevent any partiality to those who aren't able to do their own mock-ups for one reason or the other. It just doesn't seem fair that those with great looking mock-ups should have priority in the marketplace over those who don't have their own mock-ups. Some of us don't have the skills or may have disabilities to be doing all this work. And some of us have thousands of products that would need new insitus. So impractical! Zazzle...please provide all your products with a default insitu and let storekeepers decide if they want to add more of their own. Thank you!

[isabelalfarrobi]

I  THINK THE SAME AS YOU , WE SHOULD ALL BE TREATED IN THE SAME WAY.

[Wildart]

although zazz want us to use unique cover images(mockups) THEY have not done so for years and years!!It sure feels like UNPAID work to me, OUT OF PROPORTION to the time spend/money earned...

[Caprice]

Regarding product placement position...I ran a couple of tests.  One product with a cover photo did not change its position in the MP search at all; the other did indeed improve its position from 40 product on the page to 20th.  So...inconclusive for me without more testing.

That said - I have a relatively small store compared to veterans, and there's NO WAY I could go back and do cover photos for all products.  Too time consuming. 😞

[CreativeLeahG]

Having a small store compared to veterans means their issues regarding adding covers to all products is much greater 😉

I have 60,000 so it's no for me to cover them all , so just focusing on those products I think might benefit.

Zazzle has not only prioritized covers but the pages are all editor's picks until editor's picks run out so covers won't be the deciding factor either, the hand of Zazzle God will be.

[Caprice]

Right - this was the point I was trying to make, LeahG.  I couldn't possibly go back and do cover photos for everything, so I can't imagine what veterans are going to do!  60k products that need revision?  No thanks!  

[Deb]

My question ( besides the afore mentioned ones). Is why are we not allowed to place a small indiscreet logo?  If I’m going through the time  and effort to create a cover pic.. I’m using it on my website and social media too.. with a logo.. why make 2.. making one is already time consuming. 

[Harmony]

Hi Scott

FYI my response may cover several topics but I am trying to provide also a context/summary in order to answer your questions here.  Summary: Approach has had to change as mockups are now required for potential success. They used to be a fun option but now seem to be mandatory. If you don't add mockups, your design will be less visible which then impacts sales. Thus instead of creating new content, my focus is now ensuring products have a mockup and thus workflow is also impacted as a result. I am having to spend much more time on mockups than in the past. More time spent, many steps to create one mockup. Additional context below.

There are a few threads about cover photo, but since you asked the question here, I would say that based on the way the explanation of Zazzle prioritizing cover photos was presented, it feels that we have no choice now but to use our own cover photos if we want to have a chance to stay visible and make sales. So the stance of the site requires us to change our approach. Cover photos were a fun option to play around with and create in the beginning, and now they seem mandatory. Thus I am spending a lot more time than before creating mockups as opposed to new designs or products and have to prioritize this work now as a result in order to stay relevant in marketplace. For sites that have free mockups, things can take a bit less time, but some product mockup options are limited. For example placeit has only 5 options for shower curtains, all of which do not show the full product and cut off part of the mockup when resized to zazzle's requirements. When you are using a site that has free mockups or mockups where you add an image, very few are exactly square 1480 x 1480 pixels so when uploading to the site, you lose alot of the mockup background design because of the requirement for the design to be square and it doesn't look as good. It also may impact search and POD visibility elsewhere as for example Pinterest prefers a different size orientation, so in some cases one has to create a mockup with multiple different sizes which adds extra time. Also, it may be helpful for the team to know that if you "download artwork" of a product that has a white background, that background shows up as an off white gray on PlaceIt rather than actual white which affects the quality of the mockup. Perhaps something can be adjusted on this end. So in addition to the rest of the work, the designer often has to adjust the color as well. All of the adds extra time and extra work.

I personally feel that sales/popularity should have more weight in search ranking. Some of the most popular items in terms of sales are now buried in search due to simply not having a cover photo. In terms of workflow I am now having to do extra work to make sure as many products as possible have a cover photo. There have been other comments about this suggesting that it seems like we are doing free marketing for Zazzle as we do not receive any additional compensation for the extra work, time spent, or for the design software often needed to create mockups. But if we don't do this, then our items won't get seen and we won't make sales. Not everyone has the time to design full time, or has the ability to buy extra software so it feels like these designers are being viewed as less important, like you have to spend extra money to make money in a way. Other designers have suggested that the "download product mockup" option should have a transparent background so that extra steps to remove the background can be avoided. This will help save editing time immensely. Another option suggested in other threads would be for Zazzle to offer mockups on existing products. The newer products often have several options for display, but older items (such as those that show up only as a square with the design on it) could benefit from this. I would like to be able to add a cover photo to some non-flat products, but it is a lot more time consuming, and there aren't any free or easily located product options that match Zazzle's product. Also when the background is nearly the same color as the product, it becomes more time consuming to adjust. 

Thank you for your consideration,

[Scott]

Hi Harmony, thanks for the response. Your comment was caught in the Spam filter for some strange reason. I have a meeting with our software provider to discuss various Spam-related topics next week. Sorry for this.

I've decided to move your post from the Tips & Tricks thread over to this conversation since it's more of a comment/concern for Zazzle. The other discussion is almost entirely filled with Creators wanting to share information with each other, and we're hoping to continue that trend. We're reading both and passing on information from each.

[Cat]

Lots to digest there, but one thing I would definitely echo is that having the ability to download a product mockup with a transparent background would be super helpful.