Royalties on Glasses

Discussion Forums General Zazzle Discussion
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I know this is not the first time anyone asks this, I have searched for an older conversation, can’t find it so there it goes:

What is the deal with this fix 5% royalties when selling glasses? Someone bought some whiskey glasses yesterday for which they paid 105 $ dollars because they loved the design (they messaged me to tell me that and to thank me for that design) and I made royalties in the amount of 3 $ and some cents. So… why ?

Are there some specific products with a fix royalty set up by Zazzle? If so, which are they?

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Are whisky glasses the same thing as shot glasses? If so, I sold 20 shot glasses a couple weeks ago to one customer, and I received a 10% royalty.

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They are not.

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Are you talking about the printed glasses or etched glasses? I’m not aware of royalty restrictions on either. A look at both in the MP and prices vary so Designers are obviously setting their own different royalties on them. And I just published a test whiskey glass of each type at 25% and that’s how much they showed up as on the product page before I deleted them.

WIthout being able to see your listing and a screenshot of the line from your Royalty Report (customer info blurred out) one can only guess as to the situation. I have a suspicion but would need a link & screenshot to test it out.

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@Jadendreamer13   Nice sale! :+1:

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I was about to close for the night, be my guest :slightly_smiling_face:

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Thanks,

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Link to the listing? I can already see from the screenshot though that it confirms my suspicion.

ETA - screenshot doesn’t show if sale was referred or not?

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https://www.zazzle.com/golfer_and_personalized_name_and_year_whiskey_glass-256355574822526615

Yes, 3rd Party

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OK, got it.
Your listing is locked to only a set of 4 so I had to create a test set at your 12% royalty with the option to buy just one glass enabled to math-it-out for sure. Bottom line is as I suspected - the cost to upgrade to a set is treated as a User Option and with an expensive upgrade + deep enough discount (this customer got 30% off) that can result in a negative royalty.

So here’s how it shakes out:

According to your screenshot, the customer paid a total of $50.37. (52.90 - 2.53).
If you look at the product blank, the cost to upgrade from a single glass to a set of 4 is $52.90.
That entire 52.90 is treated as a User Option at only 5% as shown on the report. The remaining balance is what your 12% royalty is applied to but since the customer only paid a total of 50.37 thanks to 30% off total order, that leaves a negative remaining balance of (-2.53) and as shown on your report, that’s what the 12% gets applied to.

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You can look at my threadhere for a detailed explanation of how this all works (and a link to download my free spreadsheet seen here) but basically the green is how the math actually works out, the purple is what earnings would have been had the customer not added the User Option, and the gray on the right is how one would expect it to be calculated. So you made $0.88 less per order here because of the convoluted way User Options are handled.

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I’ll have to read this carefully again in the morning.. many thanks for your time!

In this mind, what does User Option actually means? is it some sort of advantage that customer have depending on a number of purchases they made or .. perhaps something else?

I see this User Option from time to time on some sales and I was wondering what that means..

Again, I appreciate your time on this!

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I think it means that if customers purchase an additional option, like a frame for a poster, designers don’t earn royalties on that. I have no idea how that can apply in your case.

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“User Options” are things that cost extra, like say an upgraded paper type or frames on a print. Usually if you see options on the product page with a +$xx in the drop-down, that’s treated as a User Option but not always. For example, accent pillows. The extra cost for the zippered version or outdoor fabric is calculated as a User Option; choosing the more expensive 20x20 size instead of the 16x16 size is not. At one time the extra pennies for an envelope or to remove the Zazzle/Designer credit were treated as User Options, don’t know if they still are or not. If you see the 5% line on your Royalty Report, you can usually figure out what the User Option was by looking at the options on the product page.

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I have two questions 

  1. Anne-Marie, where was the customer located?

  2. Is there anyway we can sell products like this to prevent the bulk of the sale only getting 5%?

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Scratch frames from the above.

https://community.zazzle.com/t5/creator-news/royalty-adjustments-framed-prints/ba-p/104430

Frames are defined as “Accessories” in our Creator License Agreement, but were accidentally characterized as “Upcharges” in our system during the refresh. Since Upcharges receive a 5% royalty, while Accessories are not eligible for royalties,.

I had forgotten about that little bit. So frames are not a User Option (Upcharge).

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:+1:

Sold another whiskey glass set last week.. same thing with those 5% royalties. I’m done for a while with this type of glasses.

I don’t understand why this 5% has to be applied to this type of glasses and it doesn’t make sense to create any other whiskey glasses (financially or time management). I always try to create designs that are elegant and that I would buy because I never expect someone to buy something that I wouldn’t buy for myself first.

Took a look to some older sales of mine with glasses. The whiskey glasses are called drinkware while the others are etcheddrinkware (wine glasses, shot glasses). For the etcheddrinkware glasses, you get the royalties you set for yourself.

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Customers were from different states (within US) as for your second question, that is one for the more experienced people than me when it comes to Zazzle (though I would like to know if there is an actually way of getting the set royalties for these glasses in the future).

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First, thank you Colleen for doing so much figuring and explaining to the rest of us.

I can’t say too much because the sale doesn’t belong to my sister or me. However, it was glasses and a straight commission on the glasses would have given the Zazzler considerably more than they got.

After reading your explanation, I went to bed thinking that maybe the customer knew to buy a single glass and convert it to a set of four to get a deep discount on the Zazzler’s royalty rate. The shipping location contributed to my conspiracy theory. :upside_down_face: However, your saying that this will happen no matter who is ordering, correct?

I just went over and created a set of four glasses to see what numbers came up as the price without royalty  $53.80 at 30% off (full price $76.85 Comp. value)

Then I looked at the royalty calculator with a royalty of 30%

Royalty Percentage:.30% (advanced calculator)

Retail price: $76.85

Royalty you will make:$9.35 includes $0.49 transaction fee

So I succeeded in confusing myself even more when the price with a 30% sale equals savings of around $23, but a 30% royalty on $76.85 is only $9.35

I also looked at the base price for blank glasses

Drinkware Style: Printed Rocks Glass, Set: Set of 4, Size: 12 oz

Glass, Set: Set of 4, Size: 12 oz

Sale Price$49.39 $70.55 Comp. value 

I am usually good at math but I am totally lost and somehow feel something is wrong with these not your numbers.

Is it only the whiskey glasses or all the glasses?

Are different size tablecloths the same?

I’m not trying to put you or anyone on the spot. I am just confused. 

I am going to look through our past sales. The information that you have provided should help. Thank you.

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  1. Is there anyway we can sell products like this to prevent the bulk of the sale only getting 5%?

If you look at the product blank which is equal to setting the minimum 5% royalty, (one’s own numbers will of course vary depending on the royalty % you chose), a customer is only saving $0.05 by choosing 1 set of 4 instead of 4 singles and the price-per-glass remains the same whether one gets 1 or 500.

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Since there is no User Option charge being applied to the singles, your chosen royalty should be applied to the total sale as normal if the customer chooses four singles, instead of having 52.90 of the total paid calculated at only 5% as a User Option if they select the set of four instead.
$52.90 x 5% is $2.65.
$52.90 x 14.9% (a commonly used rate) is $7.88
That’s a significant difference. So financially, the best option is to design for one glass and lock the listing to “this set quantity only” so that people have to buy multiples of one instead of switching to a “set” that incurs the User Option.
Designing a set of 4 is fun, obviously means you can do four different coordinated designs in one listing which the customer can see and order together, but you could publish them as singles in a Collection and hope the customer finds the ones meant to go together. So it’s personal choice really. Sets that don’t pay off much more than singles the way currently calculated but probably attractive to shoppers, or singles that would pay significantly better but would be harder to market together.

(*It’s possible that Z’s algorithm automatically applies the User Option set charge to orders of 2 or 4 singles, but I doubt that since that’s not the way it’s presented on the product page.)

I’ve been able to confirm, thanks to another designer checking their sales history, that sets (of 2 or 4) are only being treated as a User Option for the old-style printed glasses. The new etched style glasses (available only as singles or sets of 2) are being calculated normally without the 5% User Option being applied. So this is really bizarre and I honestly think it’s an oversight on Z’s end. Like maybe one time the printed sets had an optional display case and THAT was what the User Option was for. Or maybe like the frames for prints, these were mistakenly mis-classfied.

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And are these considered the "old’ ones: https://www.zazzle.com/pd/spp/pt-zazzle_drinkware?color=none&set=two&size=12oz&style=rocksglass

and these the new ones: https://www.zazzle.com/pd/spp/pt-zazzle_etcheddrinkware?set=two&style=rocksglass ?

If so, this is really unfortunate and perhaps the old drinking glasses should either be eliminated from the site all together in the future or at least their settings be modified like the new glasses when it comes to the royalties applied.

I cannot believe no one observed this royalty issue but myself until now..

Thanks,

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Bottom line.. Creators selling these old glasses cannot meet their set royalties because of this "system issue’ and like myself will be underpaid for these drinking glasses sales. It would be nice if Zazzle would step up and correct this issue and apply the royalty percent each creator has, instead of being paid this 5%. 

Sure, that is my opinion.

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