topic Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6! in Ask a Question

Z score fell from 8 to 6!

Christine — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 18:58:40 GMT

Hi there! My Z score just fell from 8 to 6. Have had pretty consistent sales and have been right on top of optimizing my products as they come up for review. I'm so dejected. Any insight on why this might have happened? Would love to have a better score by the Holiday rush. Thanks!

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

Sara_H — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 19:35:17 GMT

@Christine

Join the club

It's really soul destroying when it happens. You jump through all the hoops but at the end of the day, it's down to an algorithm that doesn't care about your feelings and only cares about sales/referrals.

If your store falls fowl of the sales v products ratio - your zRank will decrease.

It's all part of the fun of having a zazzle store (insert sarcasm emoji here)

I wouldn't worry about it, if you are still getting consistent sales, congrats! (rubs your belly for luck)

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

Barbara — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 19:38:48 GMT

Mine just went from 7 to 5, but I'm not sure how much this sort of thing affects our success. It's interesting that, when my score was originally 5, I was doing just fine and continued doing fine. When my score went up to 6 and then to 7, I saw no difference. Maybe we shouldn't give a rap what the score is.

Colorwash's Home

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

KeegansCreation — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 19:41:41 GMT

Going from 8 to 6 without spending some time at 7 is pretty harsh. I went from 7 to 6. They may have tweaked the algorithm. Weighted some things differently here and there. I have long held the theory that it's a bell curve and they weight things so that most designers are at the peak of the bell at 4, 5 and 6. This makes it easy to climb from the depths but also easy to fall from the heights. This is just my theory.

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

Jadendreamer13 — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 22:32:25 GMT

I fell from an 8 to a 7. I did just add a ton of Christmas products, so lots of new items in my shop with no views yet.

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

Mariholly — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 10:04:44 GMT

I'm honestly not sure about anything anymore when it comes to how Z works, and I think someone must be laughing a lot reading our speculations and comments, saying to themselves... Cold, cold (just kidding). Seriously, I don't know when my stores dropped to 6. I think I remember that during the pandemic, one of my stores with masks reached 8 or 9, but it didn’t have any sales (?). I have a couple of products that sold with just a few views, without a cover photo, not even part of collections, and they were also new. What works or doesn’t is increasingly a mystery to me (Now I can totally imagine the algorithm laughing at this comment hahaha!).

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

AtypicalPuzzles — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 13:24:56 GMT

If I had known about the Z score system before I joined Zazzle i probably wouldn't have even joined. Its one thing to have a system that encourages a certain "standard" but when it seems to be volatile and also penalizes people that just want to be able to focus on a simple niche then it really sucks the enthusiasm right out of me.

I'm on a Z score of 2 I doubt I'll ever get past that because my intention was never to go all-out building my store and it seems that's what's needed to get anywhere on Zazzle.

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

Jadendreamer13 — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 14:17:43 GMT

Being a Level 2 just means that you haven’t completed all of your store settings yet. Go back and make sure that you’ve filled out all the required settings.

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

shoshannahscrib — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 15:13:43 GMT

Mine dropped too. The algorithm must have changed. I recall reading that one thing that can lower the score is the number of products vs number of sales. So if you have a ton of products (I do) that score will never get over 8. At least that is my experience as well.

Personally I would rather have a ton of products as I feel that my old designs (that I hate) randomly sell and I also make multiple colorways and the ones I don't like often sell more than the ones I do like! haha. So I deal with the low rank.

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

Jadendreamer13 — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 23:20:00 GMT

….and my Z-Rank just fell again today. I’m now at 6. Bummer. Maybe due to me working exclusively on optimizing products over the last few days (and deleting products that I’ve optimized several times with no improvement in views or sales).

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

KeegansCreation — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 23:43:48 GMT

You would think that optimizing would make you hold steady. Who even knows.

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

Christine — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:30:40 GMT

I hustle hustle hustled the last day or so and something between that and my sales volume I’m back at 7. I so appreciate all of your tips and stories. One step forward, two steps back is still one step forward!

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

AtypicalPuzzles — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:33:01 GMT

@Jadendreamer13 wrote:
Being a Level 2 just means that you haven’t completed all of your store settings yet. Go back and make sure that you’ve filled out all the required settings.

That's the whole problem though, I just want to sell a simple collection of posters as my main focus. I have 7 collections, 6 for different posters and 1 for miscellaneous products. To increase my score further i need to:

Create 10 store collections (+20%)
Share 10 store collections (+10%)
Upload 10 media items (+5%)

Sure, I can do those but they are just arbitrary hurdles. And even if I was to do those I have no idea what the next set of requirements might be or when they might change.

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

Barbara — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:54:28 GMT

@AtypicalPuzzles

I went looking through Zazzle's "Help" and didn't find anything about store completion, probably because I ran out of patience, but what struck me about your list of requirements for store completion was "Share 10 store collections." When I started here back in 2014, the requirement was to share 10 products--we didn't have collections back then as best I can remember--but I'm wondering why they now want it to be collections. Anyway, I shared with family, warning them beforehand. As you continue creating, you're likely to end up with at least 10 collections, which you can then share with anyone you please--your mother, your neighbor, your dog--so that's an easy one. Uploading media items is also easy. Simply choose some images from your computer that relate to your store, and upload them.

Don't get frustrated with this stuff. Eventually, you'll have enough collections. They're the only important thing in the list. The rest of it, as far as I can tell, doesn't do much in the way of making a store successful. It's just fluff.

Colorwash's Home

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

AtypicalPuzzles — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 01:24:42 GMT

@Barbara wrote:
but what struck me about your list of requirements for store completion was "Share 10 store collections."

An example of them moving the goal posts.

Don't get frustrated with this stuff. Eventually, you'll have enough collections.

I could get 10 collections now by simply splitting of my miscellaneous into more categories, the issue I have is that its just such and arbitrary requirement. Zazzle seems to not want simple stores with just a simple niche/collection of products. I shouldn't be getting penalized if that what I want for my store.

Uploading media items is also easy. Simply choose some images from your computer that relate to your store, and upload them.

I don't feel that my store/posters necessarily need any media, it is a very simple store after all, and I shouldn't be required to add media.

It's just fluff.

Not when they say the Z score will become important. I can't remember what exactly I read or where, but I think it was something about Zazzle not promoting stores in future that have a Z score below 3 or 4 or something like that.

Clearly I'm not Zazzles target demographic when it comes to a creator.

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

Barbara — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 02:12:00 GMT

I sympathize with your feelings about this because I had them too as have many others. I'm not the sort of designer Zazzle looks for either, but if you look around, you'll find you're in good company. Lots of us don't do events, which is Zazzle's thing, and yet we sell.

Zazzle looks for a zRank of 4 and above for promotions, but you know what? Even when I had a rank of 7, they didn't promote me and probably never will because my stuff isn't truly "promotable." I've sold 398 of a particular clock, but they've never promoted it because, well, it isn't an event or gift sort of thing.

Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do so we can do the things we do want to do. At least they aren't insisting we become belly dancers. 🙂

Colorwash's Home

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

Christine — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 03:17:40 GMT

I really dig your attitude Barbara 🙂

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

AtypicalPuzzles — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 05:35:04 GMT

@Barbara wrote:
I'm not the sort of designer Zazzle looks for either,

I beg to differ. You've created over 3,000 products over 10 years and are no doubt still constantly/frequently creating products. You many not be an 'ideal' designer in Zazzles eyes but no doubt are a designer that they still look for.

Zazzle looks for a zRank of 4 and above for promotions, but you know what? Even when I had a rank of 7, they didn't promote me and probably never will because my stuff isn't truly "promotable." I've sold 398 of a particular clock, but they've never promoted it because, well, it isn't an event or gift sort of thing.

All that says to me is that I am correct in my logic that there is no point in me perusing zRank. If they haven't promoted your store after 10 years, I dare say it's a safe bet that my store which, will always be tiny, will never get promoted unless its some sort of fluke.

Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do so we can do the things we do want to do.

And sometimes we have to recognize that there is no point flogging a dead horse.

I do appreciate your encouragement though @Barbara . Thanks.

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

Barbara — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 08:50:33 GMT

It is, of course, up to you whether or not you complete your store.

Good luck.

Colorwash's Home

Re: Z score fell from 8 to 6!

Jadendreamer13 — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:15:52 GMT

You only need to create three more collections. You can share your collections on pinterest in a few minutes. Use the artwork from your existing products, or download the in-situ pics of your products that Zazzle provides and post those. The whole process will take less than an hour. It’s worth it for your future sales success. Don’t give up before you get started.