As stated a few times, my observation is that the views:sales ratio is all important
To improve my ratio I took the following steps
I first set my filter to 240 products
I set the ‘most views all time’ filter
I went to the LAST page (to see the least views)
I ‘HID’ (not deleted) everything with 0 views (excluding NEWLY added products)
I changed the filter to NO sales and hid those too
Hiding means you can ‘unhide’ if there is no detectable difference or to boost your product numbers at a later date.
NOTE: The results of this will vary depending on your existing sales and store performance BUT trying this is not a risk as you can simply UNHIDE if after 3 days you see no increase in zrank.
If you want to be LESS cavalier when hiding products, elect to only hide items that are very similar in design and product type or products in collections that have less value re likely sales etc.
Those products you are hiding may be in collections posted on social media. Once they are hidden your collections are gutted here on Z and the links are going elsewhere on individual products.
For those who don’t have huge stores like Leah’s may want to reconsider as @Pixelan has done not to try this experiment.
You’re absolutely correct that hiding products may affect collections (if they’re in them). I haven’t observed any benefit from collections so for me this temporary action has no cost. Re referral links … same … no cost based on the current situation re referrals. Each person has to weigh up the pros and cons for themselves.
Yes you have to weigh up what is practical and as Lynn-Marie, said it’s just an experiment, and to see if it increases zrank and then sales. If not, one can all go back to normal.
I’ve had products up for 10 years and there’s probably 0 views ever on some of them. My zRank is 5. I might just go and delete them, but it’s hard because they are my babies, but it’s a lot of volume in my store.
I had to cull all my stores down to under 100,000 but I have about 20 products fall into hidden because they haven’t been viewed in 15 months. Should I maybe just let those stay hidden when they fall off?
@CreativeLeahG 1st store. 220 public products to start. After hiding deadbeats I was left with 41 products. Original zRank 6 now the zRank is a 9.
The big test will be for sales. There are mostly birthday products in this store so no Christmas sales will come out of it. I’ll let you know after Q1 if sales picked up.
If we don’t see any significant jump in sales then we know zrank is no longer something we need to concern ourselves with.
Well wait now, that’s a non sequitur. There’s a thousand reasons you might not see any jump in sales with a higher zRank. A better measure would be to note how a few items place in some specific searches and then if your attempt to boost your zRank was successful, check the same searches. Did the products get bumped higher in the results? Are you more visible on the Creator Stores filter than you were before? And, are your Views increasing at a rate they weren’t before? If your products are getting better placement in search results and if then you are getting more views, that might result in more actual sales, but again, there’s all kinds of reasons those two things might not be converting to sales. Sales alone are not a meaningful measure of zRank’s worth.
I’m not saying that a higher zRank isn’t desirable or helpful, just that using sales alone as an indicator of its worth is a misdirect.
And the answer to many of those questions (specifically MP placement using keywords) is no thus far. That was one factor of choosing the store I did. The products were selling well (every other day or so) and also had been in the top three pages of the searches for the same keywords. The sales have dried up.
Leah’s test store went from 5 to 8 and yours from 6 to 9. You said your products already had good MP placement and were selling nearly daily, and at Platinum, we know Leah’s were already doing good, too. I think we need someone who hasn’t met such level of success yet, someone with uhm, much more sporadic sales, to try this. Like me I guess. Been at 5 for very long time, have only around 550 products, and while not really a niche store, I don’t do much in the way of the popular products (stationery, tee’s, mugs …) or trendy designs. I think I’ll try this after the big sale week is over and if the rank goes up, see if I can pinpoint any difference. But, what did you mean re hiding guts collections? That concerns me. Are you saying collections won’t show on the product page if they have hidden products in them?
Meanwhile I have seen a massive decline in sales with Editor’s picks replacing my best sellers in the ‘most popular’ filters, Zazzle removing me from their advertising channels, and the lowest price filters (re wedding invites) providing misleading results and now my affiliate links are being redirected to a landing page (not my store page) which has seen my promoter 2 referrals dry up.
Zazzle is sadly taking steps presently to curtail their most successful sellers income. I am looking elsewhere for a more reliable (and loyal) platform that recognises those who helped elevate them and for whom like me drive thousands of customers each week to Zazzle - not anymore. I can drive those thousands of customers elsewhere, where I hope they appreciate and value my efforts.
