It’s disheartening to note that my Zazzle sales have experienced a noticeable decline compared to the previous year. Last year, the momentum was strong, and my creations seemed to resonate well with the audience, resulting in a more robust sales performance. However, the current scenario paints a different picture, Especially at the commencement of the Q4 I was Expecting a bit of a boost atleast, and the once lively marketplace appears to be less receptive. Despite maintaining the same dedication to quality and creativity, the sales figures have taken a dip, leaving me puzzled and eager to explore strategies to revive the engagement and interest in my Zazzle offerings. I Would love to have some feedback about this!
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You could try making cover photos for your former best selling products- Zazzle said in the past that they give preference in the marketplace to products with covers. Also, try doing more promotion on Pinterest or whatever social media sites you use.
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I don’t have advice for you, but wanted to let you know I’m also struggling. I struggle to get views, let alone actual sales. Countless hours get put in, and I celebrate making $0.35 off of selling a sticker hahaha. I peruse a lot of posts like yours (and consider making my own all the time) and so many responses give great advice, or say their sales are still fine, which is all great and valid and I definitely would take a lot of that advice to heart. But it also makes it seem like everyone else is just effortlessly making this work for them. So I wanted to reply to let you know that isn’t the case. We’re not all just chilling, riding the success train and watching the dollars roll in haha.
That being said, for two whole months I made no sales at all, zilch, zip, and it really hurt my morale. Then in September I made 6 sales. It’s certainly not quit-your-job money, but it’s at least a little bit validating. I thought my shop was dead and suddenly there was a breath of air. Sometimes you lose momentum for a while, and then suddenly and without explanation, it comes back. You might just be in a slump, and you might just have to wait it out.
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Thanks for your feedback, however i’m aware of the cover photos thingy, your best selling product don’t last that long, i had a winning product that’s been viewed 13k and sold out around 300+ times the last year, but this year my best selling didn’t generate the same result as previous year, because POD mechanism work that way, when your best selling is turning off you should create another best selling, and it’s not that easy with the current traffic, But yea maybe i should promote my stuff more on social media.
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Thanks for your feedback, Appreciate it, However, I’m not Struggling to make sales, nor views, I make decent amount of sales everyday, but my thing is, sales aren’t peaking as they should at the beginning of the Q4, My concerns are, is everyone’s experiences the same thing or is it just me, Because it’s important to take other creator’s takes on this, to whether improve my current working strategy or change it
Connie has good advice concerning cover photos. If you have not already, make a cover photo for that “winning product” than do so. You may be surprised by the results. Try making that best seller into different colorways. Or change the font to a more popular / fresh one. Don’t walk away from a former best seller when you can always alter something to make it a fresh design.
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In response to Maddy1 request … My sales for September were minimal compared to Sept. 2022.
Number of sales were 1/3 of last year. Amount ($) was 1/5th of last year.
However … I made 2 sales today for a total of $2.15 … Yeah!
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My September sale were dismal, too. But October is really hopping.
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I’d also been looking forwards to a Aug/Sep spike, which never eventuated.
Given the climb up to Xmas typically starts at the beginning of November, I’m not expecting much to happen in October at this point. Certainly can’t say my sales right now are hopping.
I Had some sales going on in september, but not promising however, we’re almost 15th of october and sales haven’t peaked yet, usually sales start peaks at the 1th , Wouldn’t have high hopes on october to not get disappointed.
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I also make daily sales, but there is definitely a dip in sales from this time last year. I think, in my case, there are several factors.
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The economy. Despite what news sources tell us, the middle class in America is suffering to keep up with living expenses, and I think most of my sales were generated there previously. It makes me wonder how long we can sustain this, if we don’t get an up turn soon.
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Despite making cover photos, and very strong sales in the past, some of my best selling products seem to have partially disappeared from the MP. I can find them readily in my store, and even in the MP if I search for them by their EXACT titles. They are all in collections, and I can find them that way. BUT…if I search for them with the keywords that I’ve assigned, the ones customers are most likely to search for AND are included in their titles, they do not appear, even though they should appear on page 1 of those search terms. I still market them, and that results in some sales, but far fewer than the MP used to generate. This has been reported since April, when I first noticed it, and I’ve corresponded with Zazzle regarding it…they were “looking into it”. But I haven’t received a reply to my latest inquiry, which was about 3 weeks ago. It’s extremely frustrating, and disheartening.
I have enough sales to reach Gold…just waiting for the domestic sales tp push out the international, which evidently still don’t count toward the total. And I’ve been updating tags, descriptions, adding collections and cover photos, and TONS of new designs and products. But yes, it’s currently a battle to stave off discouragement.
Wishing you a BIG upturn in sales, soon!
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Thank you for your feedback, it’s Really Good to see someone Finally seeing things my the same aspect as mine, We Have A similar situation, I thought about the economy as well, and the world’s inflation, and yes if The american’s middle class are suffering to keep up with the current economy, we as a zazzle sellers are the one’s who’s being pushed to the top of the edge with no helmet, unfortunately, and doesn’t matter if you update your product covers or tags, keywords, title even, it won’t change the fact that customers aren’t consuming as they used to, i may self on my way to silver as you, and we both can tell that the previous years were good compared to this year, however, I’m wishing you a Upswing in sales asap aswell, Let’s hope november treat us differently!
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Experiencing the same here. And I have lost 1 point in the Z-rank in my top shops from 9 to 8.. they have been at 9 for a very long time.. been trying to clean up, removing discontinued and no sellers from years ago.. to try to reach 10 but apparently lost a point now. 
my sales this year compared to last year are horrid. I have not had this low of monthly sales in years .. my sales have dropped by considerable amounts:
I decided to go back 2 years to see the trend.. the difference between one year vs the following year .. So last year vs this year down every month .. 2022 compared to 2021 UP every month…
anyone else seeing a similar trend?
- Nov 2022/2023 down by $765
- Oct 2022/2023 down by $1065
- Sept 2022/2023 down by $800
- Aug 2022/2023 down by $984
- July 2022/2023 down by $1655
- June 2022/2023 down by $105
- May 2022/2023 down by $1137
- April 2022/2023 down by $1046
- March 2022/2023 down by $837
- Feb 2022/2023 down by $737
- Jan 2022/2023 down by $460
- Dec 2022/2021 down by $55
- Nov 2022/2021 up by $248
- Oct 2022/2021 up by $481
- Sept 2022/2021 up by $38
- Aug 2022/2021 up by $413
- July 2022/2021 up by $2195
- June 2022/2021 up by $885
- May 2022/2021 up by $891
- April 2022/2021 up by $2083
- March 2022/2021 up by $1510
- Feb 2022/2021 up by $422
- Jan 2022/2021 up by $878
- Dec 2021/2020 up by $310
- Nov 2021/2020 up by $12
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Wow, that is a significant drop! I’m very sorry to hear that, and hope your sales pick up soon. My month over month sales are up a bit from last year, but I’ve added a lot more products, as I’m still growing my store, so I don’t know if they are where they should be or not. (Nowhere near your sales, LOL!) I’ve also put a ton of time and money into cover photos, reworking collections, etc., to try to keep up with everything because I don’t do much promotion and rely on Zazzle’s built in marketing.
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Just a thought on your stats …
2020 was the first year of Covid. We saw improvement in 2021 but it was still marred by Covid, notably the Delta variant and then the Omnicron which surged around the 2021 holiday season. We saw almost two years of quarantining, lockdowns, travel restrictions, people out of work, businesses going under, shortages, people living in fear … It wasn’t until 2022 that life started to feel normal again with most of the fear & havoc behind us. So it makes sense to me that in comparing 2022 to 2021 there was a big jump in sales as 2021 sales were probably unnaturally low, and 2022 sales maybe being unnaturally high because people finally feeling more comfortable, even eager, to shop and socialize again. Then 2023, things have calmed down again because the post-Covid euphoria has subsided plus inflation has set in, the COL has gone up, and people are tightening their belts again. So 2023 vrs 2022 looks like a big dip just like 2022 vrs 2021 looks like a big jump. Maybe try comparing 2023 to 2019 to sort of eliminate most of the Covid effect and see if that looks any better?
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Some numbers about the economy.
Amazon Sales Set Company Record In Q3
“Amazon sales in Q3 grew 13% over $127.1 billion in 2022. In North America, Amazon sales increased 11% year over year to $87.9 billion. And internationally, Amazon sales grew 16% year over year to $32.1 billion. Sales from AWS, or Amazon Web Services, increased 12% year over year to $23.1 billion.”
…
Walmart
“Year over year net sales of Walmart U.S. grew by seven percent in fiscal year 2023 when compared to the previous period.”
…
Retail Sales Rose 0.7% In September, Much Stronger Than Estimate
Consumers showed surprising strength in September, boosting retail sales well above expectations despite high interest rates and worries over a weakening economy.
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Zazzle has made a number of changes which have seen many of us experience our best sellers dropping out of the MP which is contrary to how everything worked up until these changes. It was always the case that the more you sold .. the more you sold! The only way was up and sales doubled or tripled year on year. That’s nolonger the case.
My strategy to compensate is to introduce new niches to Zazzle that have low to no competition. This means cover photos, editors picks are irrelevant to your growth due to the lack of competition.
The niches however need to be profitable and so you need to create items that despite not already being available on Zazzle are in demand.
This is how to grow your store in a way that you are not dependant upon trying to be seen in an ocean of samey samey products.
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What you have said makes sense. Dismissing best sellers before they have run the normal course of diminishing returns, however (which is what seems to have happened to a number of us) seems contrary to good business sense, but, like it’s been said before, it’s Z’s business and individual designer’s contributions to it are fairly insignificant, in the long run.
It’s pretty irksome, though, to see that ocean of samey samey when a huge number of products brought up by search in some categories are blatant tag spamming by folks who know darn well what they are doing. So previous best sellers are sometimes nowhere to be found, but I can find an “awesome gamer” or “proud parent of a graduate”, or “killing (name your profession” in a huge number of tag word searches that have absolutely nothing to do with too many of the designs brought forward.
Best thing to do is shrug and move on as best we can, I suppose.
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Amazon is such a mega-beast I wouldn’t use its numbers as a barometer for anything as nothing can compare. In addition to the insanely popular e-shopping site for physical goods they are best known for, they sell digital content (streaming music & TV) and own dozens of other companies including, much to my surprise, Zappos shoes, Ring door cams, Goodreads and IMDB. And of course Whole Foods with over 500 brick & mortar stores.
Wal-mart’s kind of the opposite in that they are best known for their brick & mortar stores but have been expanding their online presence to try to compete with Amazon. And they too own a surprising number of other companies, including art.com and shoes.com.
What these giants have in common is that while they sell almost anything you can think of, they still sell all the necessities. Everything from food & groceries to underwear and automotive supplies. Things that people NEED regardless of how tight things might be for them.
Zazzle, there’s not a single thing on this site that people NEED. It’s all wants, things that would be fun/cool if you have the discretionary income for it. I think a fairer picture of how Zazzle is doing in this economy would be painted by comparing it to luxury retailers and other companies that deal just in wants.
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Hi Maddy, just wanted to share my feedback about this too. I’ve noticed sales dip on all of the places I sell print on demand, and not just Zazzle. I think a large part of it can be attributed to the general economic downturn we’re seeing globally. But also, in the past year a lot of PODs have been making background changes to combat the flood of low quality AI artwork spamming their marketplaces - I’ve seen changes to how and when my artwork will show in search. I think both of these combined are definitely taking their toll.
It’s hard to say what to do about it - as far as PODs changing up their search and marketplace, we have little control. What I’m doing personally is doubling down on my self promotion efforts, and have decided to focus on 2 social media sites as to not get burnt out (this has always been my side hustle; I still have a full time job). On Zazzle specifically I’m going through my best sellers and adding cover photos to try and help my marketplace placement, as well as going through some of my popular selling designs to see if there are any other products I could add them on.
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