Every e-commerce retailer needs a way to present and display products. Ordering and/or creating your physical product to list on your site and upload to your social media accounts is a definite must-do. Potential customers are more likely to be interested in and purchase a product when the product has an associated photo. However, taking your own lifestyle photos is not always possible.
Mockups are static designs, blank product images, used to display your brand’s designs and/or used to customize images. Creating professional-looking mockups is an important element to an ecommerce brand. It can be a model, a product, or a scene of a proposed design or product used for demonstration. It can also be used as a graphical component in an image. We also use mockups for testing prior to producing the actual design. For instance, in my ecommerce store, Lovely Things Co., I use a mixture of mockups and actual lifestyle photos. When a design idea hits, creating the design and then using a mockup to gauge interest is a cost efficient way to test your ideas. When used as a graphical component to an image, a mockup that shows your branding is a very nice element.
There are several ways to obtain mockups. You can take your own photos of your blank products (ie t-shirts, mugs, desktop, etc.) or use a mockup service provider. These providers can be both paid and free. I’m sure you have seen some of the same mockup images on several different websites. This can be a problem when the same images are used in so many places. I’ve started to recognize the “popular” images.
I ran across a new mockup source called Mockmagic. They offer device mockups that are perfect for your site or social media graphics.
Not bad, eh? No frills or thrills. Just simple. Mock Magic is free.