Hi! I’d just like to know what other designers think, just out of curiosity. When you have a repeat customer—usually a business—that regularly buys the same product, like stickers, business cards, and so on, do you think it’s fair that those sales are marked as third-party?
Okay, it’s not a self-referral, but third-party???
The customer comes back to Z for the product, but also for the design.
Maybe it doesn’t change anything, but this kind of customer should be in a different category, and the marketing fee definitely shouldn’t apply. I really can’t consider that a third-party sale.
What do you think??
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I agree, and then, I’d like for someone to explain it VERY clearly to me, because things that were referred suddenly for me are not, and I don’t have time to even begin to figure it all out; yet, the extra money makes a difference (and is uplifting).
A few years back, I designed birthday party favors for a child’s first birthday … wait for it … something like forty (or more) beach towels - nice party favors. The customer came to me as a stranger and has become a long distance friend. I put a lot of time and money into the transaction, and I got the referral money the first year.
She came back for the same for their child’s second birthday party - same request and different design. I did not get the referral initially. Zazzle graciously (out of kindness or being tired of hearing me whine) gave it to me. They had a trend going with the desire to have me do yearly birthday party favor beach towels which would have been great for me; yet, it ended … probably due to the hassle of working with me trying to keep it as a referral even though I assured them to not worry about it and leave it up to me.
In my case, I would have loved to have had a special category as you suggest.
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I am having the same issue, but Zazzle do a lot of direct emailing so I presume that is now why I no longer get the referral, they will of course be on the database and the cookies are lasting for longer now I believe. Basically we need to keep finding new customers now to get that self referral now.
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Yes, I understand that, they are not new customers, alright, it is not a referral, that seems fine to me, but I also think it should not be a third party, right? Or maybe it is, did they come back because of an offer? It is possible, but since there is no transparency, we cannot know.
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Your customer is picking up trackers because they are looking at other Zazzlers’ products or checking out sales options from Zazzle. Maybe they don’t want to tell you they are checking out your competition. I have several repeat customers, they are never self-referrals. That is the way the tracking cookies work. Customers can pick up tracking codes from off-site sources and not even be aware.
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Yes, I am fully aware of that, it was just a reflection, a comment, to emphasize how unfair it is that those sales are considered third-party. The customer is a Z customer and buys my designs and perhaps others as well, but also comes back for mine… It’s a bit convoluted, I’m not sure if I’m explaining myself well… In any case, the most important thing is that they are a Z customer and Z sets the rules, and from there, all we can do is reflect and comment 
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That is talking in circles. They are third party, because they picked up trackers and that only determines if anyone gets a referral. There is no other purpose to that “third party” designation. The fact that you have repeat customers is great in of in itself. You get a sale and the royalty. You aren’t “entitled” to any other designation. What other transparency do you want?Perhaps what you want is some sort of repeat customer bonus? Recognition that someone likes your product enought to return?
I just posted something kind of related to this, I think. Customer ordered. I received a self referral. She needed to change something about her order, so she quickly cancelled, changed the text and re-ordered. The re-order turned into a “third party” so I lost the referral simply because she needed to change her text. So it was a sort of “re-order” within the span of 20 minutes and somehow she "picked up another “tracker” (Zazzle’s, I presume). I’ve reached out to Zazzle about this hoping maybe they can put it back as a self referral, but that one really seemed unfair.
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