Hey everyone, we wanted to let you know about something exciting that you’ll be seeing real soon. We posted an article in the News section (link), but figured that we’d start a discussion here so that everyone was aware. When we have more information we’ll be sure to share it!
Edit July 24th: We’ve opened a new discussion forum for conversation relating to Collections Types: https://community.zazzle.com/t5/new-collection-types-information/bd-p/collections
Appetite whetted. I hope it doesn’t involve a complete renovation of our collections, that we can expand on what we already have.
Thanks for the heads-up, Scott.
Exciting! When Downloads/Media Manager broke I was hoping that it was because something large and intricate was being worked on. (Maybe they aren’t connected, but still…). I can only envision a handful of different use cases and am trying to envision how these would be presented differently to customers depending on use case.
I know you can’t get into details so I’ll just have to be in suspense. 🤔
Sounds great. There is a reason I chose Zazzle, and I’m glad, it was the right one (even with the little flaws every now and then). Now that the tools are almost perfect, I have to get rid of my artistic laziness. Can’t wait.
I’m kind of apprehensive about this! I hope it doesn’t end up making a lot more work for us, like having to make cover photos for collections, or jump through a bunch of hoops to get seen in the parketplace. I’ve still got a couple thousand covers to make for my products, and now with the Downloads being broke, I can’t even work on that!
@Fiorenzo noticed last month that the minimum size for covers for Collections had increased quite a bit (thread here) and I wondered
Why do we need to make them so large when they are only being displayed at around 300 x 300? Now I am suspicious that some big change is coming to Collections that necessitates providing such huge covers for them.
Curiouser and curiouser.
I guess, we got our answer why, huh? 
Will probably (hopefully) also solve the pricing problem.
Probably yes, but if this means that we have the opportunity to improve our showcase & shop, the ones liking the boutique style will love it. Now I’m glad, I didn’t have time (or the mood) to work on my website, so I can re-evaluate what to move there and what to handle directly on Zazzle.
There is the good old way to get your product pics, not as sharp as the official downloads but has other positive aspects: the possibility to temporarily edit content to show on your covers, something you can’t do with the downloads because the option is greyed out as soon as you change something. I’ll tell you in chat after I’m back from walk.
Got it, Thank you very much!
@Fiorenzo wrote:
…but if this means that we have the opportunity to improve our showcase & shop, the ones liking the boutique style will love it.
You appear to believe we’ll have the ability to create stores that customers might fancy visiting. I’m not sure why, but I don’t think this is their intent, but we’ll see.
Nah, I’m not going that far. A nice banner, description plus a good organization with perhaps sections and subcollections is all I expect to see. Don’t need more. Just to get things a bit more organized.
Yes, it would be nice if our stores could be fancied up a bit, but my my one true hope is that collections will gain the spotlight.
The only way I’ll ever get organized at this point is by hiring a secretary and an efficiency expert.
Looks like this is starting to roll out… One question so far regarding product recommendations, I have a can cooler in the bonus section yet it is being recommended in the recommended products section - ? Also seeing the same with envelopes.
I can’t see it yet. Can you detail a bit what is different? For example, what’s a bonus section? I know I’ll eventually see this too but I am in suspense.
Thank you for the heads-up, I was attempting to sort through and freshen up my Collections this morning and came upon it. I can’t figure out if we can still organize products within a Collection, as I see that option is gone from the page? I read through the Unveiling post in Creator News but I’m still not understanding exactly how this works. A breakdown in plain terms would be nice, if possible.
I was updating my Collections with the new tool today—but here’s a problem: why does only my Wrapping Paper Collection have “email enabled?” No other Collection does. Nor could I find any setting anywhere to choose to have every Collection enabled with an email message I can customize that will “highlight the rest of the collection.” I would definitely like to have that enabled on EVERY Collection! How can I do that?
Never mind. I can see the changes now.
I am also very confused so far with this new collection tools update and I also read every instruction&info provided.
As I went to edit a collection today, a new pop-up window came up asking me to select the collection “Occasion & Type”, which I think is a great idea and improvement overall…However, at the bottom it says “Note: this setting cannot be changed after the collection has been created” and every setting I selected has a greyed out check mark next to it. Additionally, all products are said to be classified as “Bonus products” and I don´t see any way to change this categorization or to re-order the products. So now my new products are now at the very bottom of the collection for some reason and I have no way to bring them on top to be visible first.
Does it mean that these new settings/categories cannot be used for our existing collection and we will have to re-make every collection from scratch again?
I really hope it is not the case… and I would appreciate if some more explanation would be provided on how to use this new tool(s) as the info provided so far does not match what I see on my dashboard and is very confusing.
To further clarify, for example, next to “Bonus products” the help text says:
"This section shows all the bonus products you have added to this collection that do not have a corresponding “slot” in the recommended section. This is a great place to showcase your creativity by adding products that cater to use cases in more novel or unique ways. These products will be displayed beneath any products from the recommended section above.
Tip: If there are products in this section that you would expect to show up in the “Recommended” section above, make sure that they are published into the correct department for that slot otherwise they will not be matched. You can view which departments a slot is matching against by clicking on it and viewing the department(s) listed at the top. "
But what is the “correct department” and what “slots” are meant here? We don´t have any option to choose any “department” or “slot” when we publish products, right? or maybe I am missing something here entirely?
So far I´m very confused about how to use this new feature…
Depending on the type of collection you’ve indicated, you can organize the order of the products under the products section in edit mode (unless you’ve chosen a wedding collection for example, then the recommended products can’t be organized unless you manually click the icon next to add products where you can do a custom sort) - hope this makes sense