When you create print on demand products in your platform of choice, they typically generate a mockup of the product on a white background because of Amazon.
As a result, many sellers on marketplaces that don't impose this restriction on their sellers like Etsy simply post the standard white background product thumbnails.
While there's nothing wrong with this & I've had plenty of success doing this, it is my personal belief after studying some of the most successful Etsy shops that using background images is the optimal approach.
In this article I'll share some of the ways I generate non-standard thumbnails for my Etsy listings.
Automatically Generated Mockups
My three print on demand fulfillment platforms of choice (in preferential order) for my Etsy products include:
Printful
When creating products in Printful, depending on the product, you'll have a mockup tab that will generate non-standard images for you.
* Reminder: by "non-standard image", I'm referring to images that don't simply display the product on a white background.
When you click the mockup tab during the product creation process, give it a few seconds to generate the images.
Hats are lacking mockup images at the moment outside of making your upload file looks embroidered in the mockup.
Coffee mugs look particularly great in the mockups & I use them all the time when listings mugs on Etsy.
Printful offers a massive catalog of print on demand products, so be sure to check the mockup tab regularly to see what new mockup capabilities are being added.
Gearbubble
Gearbubble will let you access additional mockups for most products after you create them.
Find your product campaign and click the "Ad Photos" button:
Then click the "Choose new image" button and select 1200 px by 1200px (square is always ideal).
You can now see thumbnails of the various product mockups available & can select as many as you want.
Allow it a few seconds to work its magic and generate the mockup. When it finished, click "Download" to save it.
Printify
I'm still learning the ropes with Printify... I've had an order or two per week since I started using them about 3 weeks ago (as of writing this).
I did notice that at least one of the product types I'm using them to fulfill has decent mockups: Stickers.
I'm actually a big fan of the sticker mockups on Printify, you can select which size sticker to display and it will displays the 2x2", 3x3", 4x4" stickers on a laptop & the 6x6" on a clipboard for a nice size comparison.
Manually Generated Mockups
For all products I sell other than coffee mugs I will typically generate my own primary image (I only do it for the thumbnail... the rest I leave as defaults on white backgrounds).
Here's my simple process for creating Etsy thumbnails that "pop" in the SERP:
- Create the product in your platform of choice. For me, that's usually Printful.
- After the product is created & sync'd with Etsy, click the thumbnail image in Printful
- Open the image up in Photoshop and remove the white background with the magic wand tool
- Navigate over to Pexels.com where you can find FREE stock images, and search for "wood"
- Find a wood image you like & copy it into photoshop. Resize it to 1200 x 1200 px (image size = 1200px on smallest side, followed by canvas size = 1200px to crop the longer side)
- Change the product image canvas dimensions to 1200 x 1200 px (so there is a bit more margin between the product & the canvas edge to show off the background a bit more)
- Paste the wood background in behind the product
- It should look great - you can add a dropshadow to the product, or consider adding your shop's watermark in the corner!
- Go back to Printful & click "Edit in Etsy"
- Click add photo and upload your newly generated mockup. Then move it into the featured thumbnail spot
BOOM! That's it - now your product will shine in the SERP amongst a sea of white-background, standard thumbnails.
You can download my Photoshop template for creating high-quality Etsy thumbnails that convert here, FREE!
Using it, you can crank out thumbnails like the one you see below in about ~60 seconds. All background images are free to use, from Pexels.com.
* click to expand
p.s. If you're wondering, the reason I only do this for the first image and not all the variations is two-fold:
- To save time & be more efficient
- You control which variant is shown in the SERP, & getting that initial click is (in my opinion) harder than converting someone who's already looking at your listing into a paid customer.
Print on demand is becoming more and more competitive due to the nature of it... More sellers post more and more products for sale over time
Internet real estate is cheap! So occupy as much of it as you can, and stick out amongst the crowd whenever possible.
