I am feeling kinda frustrated right now. Again and again I am getting custom requests through the chat. Each time is it back and forth for the day, making many different graphics, nobody is ever satisfied or tells you exactly what they want from the start and it’s hours wasted and they don’t end up buying anything or they do and you make ten cents.
I wish Zazzle had a “custom art” fee. I don’t know how that would work but something that makes it worth our time. I’m trying to work on Mother’s Day cards, then got a chat message asking me to change what product a design is on. They wanted a gift tag, so i literally moved the design to all differnet gifts tags, because I know nobody is ever happy with the first attempt.
Then after that they wanted all the colors changed. So did. Then they wanted different shades of the color. I did. Then i asked them to send me exactly the shades that they wanted. They did. Then they decided the design needed to be changed again. I explained i had to hand draw all of this. It’s a hand drawn design and now they are asking for me to redo it all again back to the original design with slightly different shades. OMG.
This is what happens every single time I get a “custom request.” Does anyone else go through this?
I’m not good at saying no. How do you all deal with this but in a kind way. I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings or make Zazzle look bad, but at the same time, I don’t have time to go back and forth all day again and again.
I don’t accept custom orders for all the reasons you described. You can add a disclosure about custom orders to your About section on your Zazzle shop or in your product descriptions. Then you can respond, “as detailed in my About section, I don’t accept custom orders.”
I tend to cringe when I see the button turn red even though I’ve dealt with some beautiful people. I’d sort of like to ignore it as they ignore my comment on it that I AM AWAY. As many have I’m sure, I spent TIME TIME TIME and MONEY creating an entire line for someone once - not one single item purchased. NO MORE! Not doing it.
Also, we are too polite for this, but I always remember a comment on an international designers page - not Zazzle, but art work, that said (and I think this is funny): I do not do custom requests. Do not bother me.
Sometimes I do it, other times I do say “no”. I evaluate each case separately. Have they made a purchase from me? Is it something that I should have in my store & I can resell to someone else? Is it something that will take 5 min for me to do? Is it something I even want to make? I have been burned but on the other hand, the majority of people do come through & purchase. But every time they don’t purchase & end up ghosting me, I do feel the kick & blame myself for failing to say"no".
Ughhh that is awful and I know sooo time consuming! Sorry that happened to you too! I had a customer who wanted me to change a dog on a baby shower design I had a “photo” of. So I explained i had to hand draw a new dog, as this was all before ai which has made it a little easier now, but I hand drew out the two dogs she wanted. Took me forever as I’m not super great at drawing them, but I did and she approved it and told me all the products she wanted the design on which I did. Then… no sales. I swore I’d never do that again, but I have, again and again lol. Anyways, sorry that happened to you too!
Yea, it’s very frustrating. I just worked with this lady for a couple hours and she’s still not happy. How many shades of blue and green can there be??? Ughhh I just sent her one last design and said I had to go back to work now. I have made over ten designs for her now at this point and she just doesn’t like the shades even though I matched them to exactly the colors she sent me. Just a frustrating day I guess.
OY! I hear you! I also suck at saying “no” so dealing with this sort of thing has been a real “personal growth” challenge for me. I tend to handle it on a case by case basis depending on the situation. But I always try to keep ROI (return on investment) at the forefront of my mind.
I’ll often respond with something like: “I don’t do custom design work, but I’m happy to assist you with small tweaks to one of my existing designs.”
These are the things I consider:
Are they requesting something that I can design as a template and recoup my cost/time by putting it in the marketplace?
Are they likely to give me useful insights as to what customers are looking for which I could replicate across other products?
Are they likely to purchase multiple items, or do they want hours of work for something that will net me 25 cents?
In general, when I do agree, I NEVER leave it open ended, and I offer them a few limited options. I DON’T do custom artwork unless I can use the artwork on other products in the marketplace, but depending on the request I’ll sometimes agree to make something a different color - and when I do, I put the new color in the marketplace too. If they press the issue I explain that I only make a few pennies per card (or whatever the royalty is for a given product) so I have to sell xyz number of copies in order to break even on my time.
For simple requests, I generally just give them a simple response with a link to a new template - but I make sure that the link is either to a public product in the marketplace, OR to a share link for one of my existing products and NOT to a private product. That way if they do buy it, it counts as a sale on a product that’s in the marketplace, rather than a one-off purchase on a private product which won’t help me in terms of future purchases.
It’s a work in progress, but I’m getting better at setting limits and trying to use the system to my advantage rather than letting it take advantage of me!
Excellent advice. Thank you Cat! That was very helpful.
Thank you everyone who answered. I ended up just telling her I had to get back to work, offered her one more design and she ended up buying one of the original designs that I already had on Zazzle. But at least it was something.
But then followed up with the question, “I used a filter on it, so can you go in and look and see if it’s blue enough.” lol.. Oh boy, I explained again, that we don’t manufacture or ship products so we can’t see what she designed or what it will look like.
I know people just don’t understand how print on demand works, but I wish they did! lol
Right? I try to remember that they don’t have a clue, and they probably assume that I’m making a nice salary from Zazzle or something.
But, if I’ve agreed to work with someone, I find it really helpful to use “share links” so I can actually see what they’re working on.
I usually say something like this:
Thanks so much for your interest in my design! I’d be delighted to help you, but this system does not let me see your work unless you send me a special link to give me access.
To find the link click on the arrow symbol in the upper corner of the preview image (it might look different on different devices, but on a PC it’s just to the left of the price.) When the dialog box opens, choose “copy link” and paste it into a message here. That will allow me to access your work and make the changes for you. See attached screen shots for further explanation.
There are a few drawbacks - like people don’t understand that the link is just a snapshot - and that I can’t see changes that they make to their existing design - so I often have to explain more, but in general it works well, and it does tend to weed out people who can’t be bothered to read a few sentences and/or follow the instructions!
My biggest order ever was a custom order – and I’ve done several others and not ever been burned. since we know their names on the email or chat, I try doing a little homework to see if I can figure out who they are – that gives me a better sense of confidence.
Am I correct in assuming most of the problems come from wedding suite products? If so, I’m so glad I’m not at all good at designing them, recognized this, and wiped out the few I had. But again, if it’s the suites that cause the most headaches, it’s likely the bride-from-hell syndrome. They’re notorious and come in many flavors. I would think that, because there are so many products involved in a suite, the first alteration might be free but every additional one would involve a fee, which of course, Zazzle would have to institute somehow.
At one point, I had someone request a custom design for a specific clock. She gave me just enough information that I was able to design an entirely new clock, she loved it, she bought it, and I’ve sold that particular clock repeatedly ever since. Which goes to what @Cat tries to do in placing the alteration as a new, separate product in the marketplace.
Short of all the above, I think @Flobaby has the prime solution!
I recently went around and around communicating with a mother who was planning a baby shower for her daughter. She requested custom designs for about a dozen different party products. I learned early in our communication that she was not being specific enough about what she wanted and I needed to give her guidance in how to ask for what she wanted (colors, style, fonts, etc.) I ended up giving her instructions on how to go into the “edit using design template” so she could go into the designs and move things around and make changes herself! I would do the more difficult changes and leave her to handle the easy ones. This went on for about 2 weeks, but she did order everything I created for her, once she settled in on what she wanted. So it’s not just weddings where this type of issue occurs, although weddings is probably where one would experience this routinely.
Long ago and far away, the internet didn’t exist. When getting married, we went to a printer who showed various templates from which we chose one. The stationery was printed and that was that. Simpler times.
I notice that is a big part of the problem too. (The customer not being specific enough.) They wait til you make the design to say, oh and i need this and that. I guess I gotta figure out a way to ask them specifically what they want ahead of time.
My biggest order was also a custom request through the messaging, from the Tic Tac company. And that took about a year of going back and forth but was definitely worth it in the end. But it’s one thing if it’s a really big sale, and another if you are working for hours or days to make twenty cents on something. And sometimes you just don’t know until they do the actual order.
