Most people wait for others to take the risk of speaking up and hope someone else will fight their battles. That is people in general unfortunately. Very short term, maybe nothing will change, but even the ones remaining silent on here will talk to friends, family, colleagues. Who are also CUSTOMERS. Designers themselves are often customers. Where do you think those customers will go? Elsewhere.
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So, for those folks who prefer to remain silent and wait for others to speak up for them, I’d like to remind them that if you don’t ask for what you want, you won’t get it.
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I have noticed that on the forums here as well about not knowing why royalties decreased. I am not sure if they didn’t get the email or just didn’t really understand what those changes entailed. How many of us get a notice of change of TOS and just think “OK” and move on with our lives. I can tell you I do when it comes to sites I just casually use (Just did that with an Ebay email) or know that I need to use it anyway even if I don’t like what it says (PayPal comes to mind).
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I agree. I wasn’t saying that it was only a small amount that felt that way, just that I am sure from Z’s point of view it looks like the masses are fine with it. I would be very curious to know now that a month has passed if some people are seeing an overall benefit or no real loss in money per sale from the self referral + royalty because we are seeing that the “none” sales are few and far between.
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Can anyone explain this? So much for self referrals AND assisting a customer on top of that. Unfortunately Zazzle Customer Service couldn’t explain it either. It had to be sent through to Zazzle support and who knows how long that will take.
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I understood you and agree! I just meant it would be ill-advised for Zazzle to interpret that since only some are speaking up about it that it means the masses are fine with it.
About the self referrals - I have only seen one so far this month and usually I would have more than that - but to be fair, that is probably somewhat because I have not been promoting like I normally would due to not being clear on the new changes. But on the one I did get, I received 39% instead of 35% for the self referral portion - in total I got a few cents shy of $40 for a $75 order. So that at least would seem a benefit.
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It is like life with the US government … seems like there is no way out because they know what is good for us and we are going to like it.
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Total fallible opinion follows
If you go to the box where you set your royalties, there is a link that takes you here:
https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/220267087-What-Royalty-Rate-Do-You-Recommend-I-Use
Here is what Zazzle says about royalties:
"What Royalty Rate Do You Recommend I Use?
When determining the ideal Royalty rate for your products, it’s essential to consider both how you value your Content and what you believe Customers are willing to pay. The Standard Royalty Rates are advised to help your Products remain competitive in the marketplace while rewarding your Content. For physical Products, we recommend setting Your Royalty Rate between 5% and 10%. This range ensures that your pricing remains competitive and is in line with what Customers expect to pay for similar items. For Instant Downloads, Your Royalty Rate can be anywhere between 5%-99%.
If you opt for a higher Royalty rate, your Products may be positioned in a more premium market—similar to high-end art or exclusive designs—where Customers expect to pay a bit more for the added value of unique, high-quality items–but sales may be less frequent.
It’s important to note that if you set Your Royalty Rate above 10%, an “Excess Royalty Fee” of 5% (of your Gross Royalty) will be applied. This fee is an additional consideration that can impact your overall Earnings for the sale, but it’s up to you to decide which strategy serves your needs best. Ultimately, the best Royalty rate for your Content will depend on your Product’s uniqueness, the target audience, your pricing strategy and promotional efforts. "
Obviously, Zazzle is going both ways. They’re saying selling low might get more customers, but selling higher may place your work on a higher quality standard level. Retailers set prices by knowing what expenses including their own salary they have to çover with the sale of that item. So what do you need and want to make with your sales on Zazzle. How much is that per $100 in sales. That is where you need to set your royalty.
Our stores are atypical because while others were growing, ours were abandoned. So we are behind everybody else. However, we finally settled on 30% as being fair to us. The whole Ambassador program made us think about doubling our royalty. Instead, we took it up to 40%. Around April 5th, we sold three hoodies. The customer paid $s74 a hoodie. Hoodies start at $26 each. We got $17 each. I don’t know whether Zazzle or another Zazzler got the remaining $31 each, but our design is what sold the hoodies period. However, we are happy with $17 each. So it’s Zazzle who has to decide whether they want to set policies that make products go from $26 to $74 when it is our $17 worth that actually sold the product.
Bottom line get what makes you happy for sharing your salable design with Zazzle.
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Yes, this is super unfair. And i find it vary odd that looking through my sales for years I average 35-50% of NON REFERRED sales and now starting this month only 2 of my 30 sales this month NOT 3rd party… something doesn’t smell right! how do I go from nearly half of my sales being non referred to basically just about NONE? I want someone to explain this to me! I want to to see proof these are third party sales and I am not just being lied to and my money stolen!
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Exactly!! Why have all my sales suddenly become 3rd party.. this was NEVER the case before.. so I want to know who is! where/who are my earnings going to?
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@Lea I totally agree about digital self-referrals! What’s the point of setting a 90-something percent royalty when we won’t ever get more than 50%? (technically we’d get the full percent from “none,” but Zazzle said in the updated FAQ that they are trying to avoid those as much as possible.)
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Since Zazzle takes about 50% of your royalty, you’d have to raise it to at least 20% to get 10%. Actually, I think Cols Creations or somebody figured out it was like 23% or around there, to take into account the Excess Royalty fee.
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I think the concern is that, while Zazzle are being silent, people know that they will be monitoring the forum intently, and some may worry that they will identify anyone questioning their decisions as being “troublemakers”, and evicted from the platform, I would hope such fears would be unfounded, and an open discussion is allowed.
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Dropping your rate to between 5 and 10% will only reduce your earnings considerably.
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I am not disagreeing with any of these comments, but the take away is we are left with no choice but to do our own promotion now more than ever. PLUS of course all the other requirements we have seen, collection, covers and banners, cover images etc… and yes at the end of the day we have to decide if we can still be viable to continue. I am still working that out. What I am unsure of is the 3rd parties now better off? I would like to hear their point of view, because if they are getting a bigger slice now, that could also result in more sales overall for us and that has to be a good thing. But if they are still unhappy or worse only promoting their own stuff… then we will have to face facts that we can’t continue working for next to nothing per hour… so I am still quite mixed, I have seen a slight uptick with sales, but I have also switched tacks and doing much more on socials but without a big following there is no getting away from it, it will be a very steep hill to climb to get back to the same position I was in a year or so ago… I wish everyone the best of luck, my only advice is to promote, promote and promote some more and see what happens moving forward… Wishing you all the best.
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Yes, that’s exactly what I meant.
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I’m new to Zazzle, but this new royalty and 3rd party nonsense is ridiculous.
Yesterday I had my first custom request, and was all excited. A customer asked me to modify an existing foil card considerably, and then requested 2 new products (tissue paper and balloon) based on the new design.
I sent her the link via chat and the 3 sales came in as 3rd party 
I made a whopping total of $1.40 when I should have gotten $2.40 plus referral rates for the new custom orders. I spent way too much time on the custom order and I didn’t even get my full 10%. So sad and discouraging 
I’ll have to think twice about custom orders from now on as it’s not worth my time, or perhaps next time I’ll direct them to use my email and see if that makes a difference in the rate?
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There are a number of lengthy discussions around the forums regarding doing custom work like this, and also the aspect of hoping to get a referral commission on it as the extra payment for your effort.
But here’s something to think about. Let’s say I Pin one of your design Collections. Someone sees it, visits the link to Zazzle, loves it, but then reaches out to you the Designer via chat to help them customize it etc… It’s because of me they discovered you and your product/design and want to purchase so I should retain the referral to make my 15%, it would not be fair to strip that away and give the referral to the Designer instead. Trading links via email won’t help as whatever “cookie” they came in on, whether it’s Zazzle’s or another designer/affiliate’s, that’s protected from being overwritten by another for two weeks.
There is a lot going wrong with the current system but I agree with this aspect, that an affiliate shouldn’t lose their referral commission to the designer just because the designer volunteered to do extra work after the customer was brought to them.
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That’s a fair point and I’m not arguing the contribution you make marketing products. My grievance is the fact that I don’t even get my 10% commission for the work I did. That’s what I have an issue with, as it’s not fair to designers.
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Yep. I agree. The cut to the Designer’s royalty if they are not their own referrer is staggering. And I do very little promoting, was just using that as example of why I do think that one aspect is fair. 
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