I have several inquiries per week of customers wanting to download or purchase their design as a digital only option (JPG or PDF file). It might be beneficial to see if there is a way to allow customers to purchase this.
It might look like the customer designs the invitation and at the top they have the option to purchase 1 JPG file at $8 USD (and the designer gets the set royalty), or a PDF option with 2 designs per page for $10 USD (and the designer gets the set royalty). And if the customer does purchase prints of their design then they would still receive the digital file just as a discounted rate.
I hope this will be optional. I have no desire to sell digital copies of my designs that people can then transfer to other products on other sites. The budget invitations have already devalued invitation suite profits and I can only imagine what some of these people would sell digital versions for.
If this becomes an option, I’d suggest that the designer royalty be set much higher than say 10%. With physical products, 10% makes sense, because we don’t do the printing or shipping. With a digital download, the majority of the entire purchase is the creator’s design (minus advertising, hosting, and the like).
For a customer, paying $10 - $30 for a nice invite .pdf that they plan to get printed wouldn’t feel expensive. A creator getting an 80% royalty (smiles mischievously) would probably be able to deal with that.
Offering a .jpg, screen resolution only, download at a lower price would still draw in the people that just want to email something out.
Overall, with having download options, it needs to be a feature that creators can turn on & off on their own on each product. Remember, people have different graphics licenses for items in their designs. Some of those may not allow for this type of download.
It would necessarily have to be opt in, not opt out, since anybody who uses purchased graphics is not allowed to let customers access the files. It is a condition of all graphic sales companies that the POD customer can only buy a product with the graphic on it and not a file itself.
Absolutely we would have to be able to opt out! Like KeegansCreation said, those of us who purchase graphics are not allowed to share them digitally in any way. And the VAST majority of wedding invitations here are made with purchased graphics. This is just an open invitation to more lawsuits and copyright infringement notices.
There’s also the devaluation aspect, like CrazyMermaid mentioned above.
Yes, Yes, Yes,
Agraed! Everything is going DIGITAL!!!
Finding a way to protect the DESIGNER, and the DESIGN is totally DOABLE.
But, I think the issue is now, what’s in it for ZAZZLE?
Think about it. ..MOST of the work load is now upon the DESIGNER .
What would be FAIR to us, designing with the tools ZAZZLE has given?
I say 80 / 20. Designers should take 80 percent of the cut ALWAYS.
Not sure Zazzle would want to take the grand losses that will happen across the board???
But totally agree, we need to all come to a place of understanding that things are constantly evolving and changing, and with those changes, supply and demand will ALWAYS take PRECEDENCE over the NORM. I encourage the totality of Zazzle as a whole, from the top of the C.E.O. chain, all the way down to the bottom to be extremely encouraged to find the RIGHT SOLUTION to move towards smart and safe product DIGITAL DOWNLOAD options!!!
This company can be the BEST out there as far as becoming the CHAMPION NAME of print on demand services, but we have to COME UP and make some changes, but most of all, cater to the customer like nobody’s business!!!
So many good points made here in this conversation, and truthfully all of it needed to be said. I’m sure that this company can find a feasible and plausible way that will appease both the designer that wants to take this option and the designer who wishes to opt out. The main issue of this topic is that sites like Etsy are totally banging it out in the digital market. I know that Etsy offers a great package for those of you wanting that option as of current. Hopefully Zazzle will chose to step it up and at least, for those seeking this, will offer it in the very near future. Great points made here and I truly hope that Zazzle moderators pass on the info.
Once one designer offers it, then we all have to in order to compete. Just like we have to offer 30-cent invitations because a few designers started it, customers saw it and then demanded it. In many cases they did not come here looking for them. There is a big difference between competing with a different platform such as etsy and being on the same platform with digital designs.
That’s not a bad way of going about it. I, too, have questions daily about electronic versions. I had been averse to it, but then discovered a company that does only electronic invites, and gives their designers a 20% royalty, with the electronic designs being half the printed price Zazzle charges, so basically we’d receive the same royalty as if printed. I think it’s a great way for brides to save money, they can send printed cards to family members who would love and appreciate those, and e-invites to the younger crowd who wouldn’t mind it and aren’t as sentimental. But I’m still of two minds about it. I guess it just depends on who the target customer is for any given store, and for Zazzle overall.
@nyclosangeles if it is that important to you, you can use Etsy for that feature, and stick to Zazzle for printed invitations. Unless you are using all your own artwork, it is against the licenses of practically all the commercial use graphics sites to offer digital downloads. So it would be a legal quagmire for Zazzle to try to police the designs being offered digitally. Like Crazy Mermaid said, if it is offered by one designer, ALL of us would have to do it in order to compete. It would not be fair for Zazzle to put us in that position, when the designers that want to offer the option already have Etsy to go to for it.
I think the best way would be to create your own group of designs to sell as a digital product on Design cuts, Etsy, Creative Market, HungryJPeg and many others. You can still use the designs on POD sites like Zazzle (the best POD site in my opinion) because they are yours.
When someone writes to me on Zazzle, I always reply - Thank you for your message, but I never sell the digital files for my designs that are on Zazzle.
Digital files are best sold on sites that specialize in digital products.
What we offer a service like e-vite or paperless post. On those platforms the customer is given a link to share to their guests where they can then view the invitation and rsvp all in one place. No downloading the artwork required.
Hmmm..okay,
Thank You.
Sounds interesting. Could you perhaps tell me more about it by sharing some links?
Is this option available to all designers, and if so, how may I access this platform?
Thanks again kindly @origamiprints
and sighing…