The Photo below shows royalty deduction percentages from two of my recent ‘3rd Party’ sales of the same product (No product transfer, No add-on item.)
On the 06-18-25 sale, Zazzle deducted 45% off my original default royalty for whatever fees they charged, and it did not stop there; apparently, Zazzle did NOT think 45% deduction was high enough. On 07-12-25, I got another sale of the exact same product (not transfered product), and Zazzle increased the fee deduction rate from 45% to 55%. It’s like a slap in my face - am I being penalized for making recurring sales? So, Dear Zazzle, here are my Simple Humble Questions and if you could give your pompot and honest replies, I will really appreciate it:
Zazzle applied two different royalty deduction rates on my sales of the same product within only a 3.5 week period, so which one was correct? 45%? 55%? Both? Neither?
Zazzle has increased the royalty deduction rate of the SAME product from 45% to 55% within 3.5 weeks. What exactly was that additional 10% for?
When I sell this product again next time, what percentage is Zazzle going to take out from my original default royalty? 45%? 55%? Or a surprise?
Are you sure this was the exact same PID# product? The June 18 sale was calculated in the 40% bracket while the July 12 sale was calculated in the 50% bracket.
You’re amazing! I was totally scratching my head on that one. Only thing I can think of that would cause the same product to be classified in different departments is if something was changed in the edit details section. Like it was a banner or something that had been originally published under the crafts & party supplies department (40% marketing fee), but the creator edited the marketplace department through “edit details” and changed it to wedding banners (50% marketing fee) or something like that. Or maybe Zazzle somehow changed the marketing department from their end?
ETA: Come to think of it, I have noticed a few products showing up in weird marketing departments, and I know I didn’t put them there. I thought it had something to do with Zazzle changing the cross sell collections or something, but maybe they’ve been re-classifying things that their algorithm thinks are in the wrong department?
@Cat After reading your post, I check mine, and guess what, I also notice some of my listings are under “Wedding” category now and I am 1,000% sure I did not put them there. For example, when creating tshirt designs, I ALWAYS have them in the “Clothing & Shoes” category becuase that’s the default option and I have no reason to change that. But now, some of the shirts are under “Wedding” category. I will change them back to “Clothing & Shoes” so I won’t get hit by 50% fees when they’re sold. However, the porblem is, how long will they stay that way before Zazzle algorithm moves them to “Wedding” again? Does that also mean we have to constantly check if the categories are the ones they supposed to be from now on? By the way, do you have the link to the page where it shows what product categories fall into 35%, 40%, 45% or 50% marketing fees. Thank you!
@ColsCreations Thanks for the reply. Both sales are for the same PID and no product transfer - I have checked on that at least 20 times before deciding to write this post.
Looks like @SJoy already posted the link. But wow, that’s really weird that your t-shirts got moved to the weddings department. Are they wedding themed? Like did you use the word “wedding” in the title or description?
Having a cartoonist background, I have used many gags from my archive as images on Zazzle items. Many of my gags are about husband/wife relationships, or funny moments in a church service. These invariable get placed in the Weddings department, even though I don’t put them there. Here’s just one example - a notebook…
Interesting. I’m sure it’s got something to do with the use of certain words in the metadata, but it’s a bit disturbing nonetheless. I mean, in the pre-ambassador program world I guess one could see Zazzle changing the department as a (perhaps misguided) attempt to make sure that things had the best chance of being seen in the marketplace, but now that the marketing department can have such a huge impact on our earnings, it seems like that should definitely be left up to the product creator. (Cute cartoon, BTW!)
@Cat For example, one of shirts is a love theme design. It’s super generic, could be for Valentines gift, anniversary gift, bridal shower gift etc. I guessed because I used “bridal shower”, it was moved to the Wedding department without me knowing, even there is no apparel in the Wedding sub-departments. It’s weird snd I might not care as much in the past. But now it makea a huge difference because as you know, anything sold under Wedding department carries the 50% royalty deduction for 3rd party sales.
Right? For me, virtually everything I make is for weddings, so it’s not that big of an issue. But if you’re setting your percentage based on the assumption that you’re in the clothing department (35% fees) and it gets re-classified as wedding (50% fees) that seems like a big problem. I suppose it could work in your favor on a self-referral, but we all know those are few and far between. Any way you slice it, it would be nice if Zazzle could provide some sort of explanation so people can make sure their stuff is in the correct department. Like was this a one time thing where they moved stuff, or is it an ongoing issue, or what?
I purposely moved products to lower % departments and they seem to have been forced back. Again, more very shady behavior from Zazzle. This is NOT cool. The department choice should be up to us not Zazzle and/or their algorithms when there IS a choice. They should NOT be overriding us. Period.
Not saying anyone is doing this but if people intentionally put things in an inappropriate category because of the fee structure, that serves to further muck up searching and browsing by dept menus & filters. Initially it seemed products were being charged according to the category the product blank is classed in but there’s been ample evidence since that it goes by the self-set category the Designer chooses. No idea what is happening now but sure sounds like Z is moving things into what it thinks is the most appropriate category based maybe on tags and product type?
Agree that you don’t want people “gaming the system” in terms of department. But there are cases where the algorithm is definitely getting it wrong. It would be helpful if Zazzle could provide some clarification here.
I am assuming that everyone is looking at the menu choice “Weddings” on the left.
I looked at my items under this section. There are two only (thankfully): A heart design for Valentine’s day and the Fireworks design for the 4th.
None of my categories, or tags have been changed, so they do appear where I want them to go. Hopefully all of you have the same experience and the “Weddings” is in addition to your choices, not replacing them.
I moved nothing to an “inappropriate” category. But when you are given a pop up choice of several relevant departments you should be able to choose without Zazzle stepping in the way and manipulating it.
This is quite interesting. I also used the tag “bridal shower” on a baby shower paper plate. The plate is just a floral pattern design with no text. All the other tags relate to baby shower and the design itself. I put bridal shower as a tag just incase someone looking for this design for that event would be able to find it. Magically it moved to the wedding category…
Years ago when Zazzle created the paper breakout, they did attach code to the same product that was placed in several different categories. This ensured that it was placed in the proper category. I believe thank you cards and postcards were examples of this. Some Zazzlers were upset because different prices were charged for different categories and tried to juggle the system. However, I found the few times when I did this by mistake, they didn’t rank as well and they weren’t included in the proper sales promotions. Because of the attached Zazzle code, you couldn’t put them back in the right category.
