Mockup
A realistic product image showing your design on the actual item, used as the listing photo.
A mockup is a photo-realistic preview of your design applied to a product — a shirt on a model, a mug on a table — generated without physically producing the item. Because POD sellers rarely own the physical product, mockups are what buyers actually see and judge on Etsy.
Strong mockups are the single biggest lever on your click-through and conversion rate. Lifestyle mockups (the product in a real setting) usually outperform flat images, and your first mockup is the thumbnail that decides whether a shopper clicks at all.
ExampleInstead of a plain flat-lay, a seller uses a mockup of their design on a model wearing the tee outdoors, lifting clicks in Etsy search.
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