Ambassador Program: Hard Data on Its Impact on My Income

[Jolanda]

I decided to crunch some numbers, and here’s what the hard data says about how the new measures affect my income. I’d love to hear from other sellers—how do you see the Ambassador Program affecting your income? Feel free to share your own calculations in the comments!

[mylittleeden]

I think coming in new it would be different if you have massive following and selling your own merch directly that would be ok still. I guess it is will become more about marketing than designing sadly.

[katkat1959]

 This took a mountain of people to come up with new plan which seems to be a complete failure already. I have witnessed it and it is only April 29th with my sales. 

[Jolanda]

I have improved the table for clarity. My royalties settings remain unchanged at 14.9%. The most notable change is the reduction in net royalties for third-party referrals (from 12% to 6.7%) and for self-referrals (from 50% to 25%). Presenting this as an opportunity for designers feels, at the very least, questionable.

[bedesign]

So far this month, I’ve only had sales from 3rd party referrals. I usually get none and self sales too, especially at the beginning of the month. Is anyone else seeing the same?

[epicdesigns]

I am keeping a close eye on this as well. I have received a few NONE this month, so it is not all 3rd party. I will be doing a better analysis at the 30 day mark.

[mylittleeden]

I think at this point that is all we can do give it a while carry as normal it is early days. It could be we overall end up with more sales? but when you are seeing your royalty slashed in half we need a lot more sales to fill the short fall.

[Deseades]

the same, suddenly all is 3rd party, and my income halved... My question is: does Zazzle wants us, creators, to create new designs, or become digital marketers? I can see myself doing both and its really unfair that someone takes almost half of my income.,..

[CapriWedding]

Exactly, Deseades.

[MasterpieceCafe]

About 90% are 3rd party now. Seems unlikely that overnight I went from 55% to 90%. Not sure what else has changed to create this.

[mylittleeden]

I am seeing much more 3rd party sales in fact almost all are now. I am getting so little per sale... I am trying to work out what to do for the best? Promotion seems the most logical answer but I already push out every product I create on pinterest, I have also more recently increased my efforts and now including X posts plus fb and insta but I use them for my physical art, mixed with some of my products and don't want to spam and loose followers so thinking setting up another one just to post my cover images on which are sooo time consuming. I have to say time is the bit I am struggling with. What with covers as an extra step now too I am really reconsidering too... Some money is better than nothing but there does come a break off point. I work another job part time, to fill in the missing money to live. I have been on here struggling away for 12 + years. I was thinking finally the last couple of months I was turning the corner and could go back to Zazzle and my art full-time as was seeing things get better as I have been working my bum off on covers and sort and filling in the holes in my collections and then bam another curve ball... I have just set up a facebook page to post to as many of the group pages on facebook are no longer being managed well ie non zazzlers joined and spamming them and some have restrictions which I am finding frustrating. I looked it into ads but so expensive and of course even then with 14 days holding third party information, this reduces the chances of them hitting your link before someone else. Over Christmas my paid ads gave me no referrals so I am not so sure now about doing them? Has anyone else found them to work? 

[MissPaperFarm]

Every time I have tried paid ads, I get nothing either. Pinterest was the worse. It really discouraged me to ever try them again. I'm not backed by a hedge fund 😂 so I don't have a ton of money to throw into paid advertising. It's also not very transparent. I'm never sure if the ads are even rolling out properly. With many uncertain factors that the internet faces, like if a website has bugs that day or not, I just haven't found the benefits in online ads yet. 

[Wesha]

So far I have survived primarily on 3rd party sales. Now invitation and wedding department is taking away 50%  marketing royalty fee!

What will happen now ? I can't explain how hopeless and disappointed am feeling with all these changes 😔

Why Zazzle why ?

[Caprice]

Pardon if a stupid question — but is Zazzle itself considered a 'third party'?? Not sure I understand all this new stuff. 

[Barbara]

Zazzle positioned themselves as a third party years ago when customers asked questions or whatever. Z put a link in the email they sent the customers back to the product. That link had (and doubtless still has) Zazzle's ID in it. Some years back, Zazzle said it was part of their tracking system, an explanation a lot of people questioned.

Colorwash's Home

[Caprice]

😬 Oh....

[NigelSutherland]

Zazzle is nothing without its artists and designers, who make the site what it is. They ride roughshod over those that are responsible for the creative input at their peril.

[Westerngirl2]

For me, it's a matter of economics and common sense. I was so proud to have reached Gold Status last year, but now I find myself assessing whether or not to continue. Have to consider it for awhile, but really, early indications are saying it makes no sense to continue with the time and effort, plus the cost of subscriptions from other art sources and advertising.

I'm torn between my love for what I do, and the new economics of it. Thinking I may have to pursue a different way somewhere else. 😪

[Jolanda]

It is always good to have multiple income streams! I wish I had started that a few years earlier, since it is rapidly going downhill here.

[katkat1959]

Me too Jolanda.

[InkgoeswildAK]

I'm rethinking my Zazzle shop too with this new "Ambassador" program which sounds grand but seems to be anything but.  My own purchases, over the 11 years I've had my shop, make up the bulk of my sales.  When I first joined Zazzle I promoted the heck out of my shop, but finally realized that the hours I was putting into crafting professional looking ads and posting them on my social media accounts wasn't paying off in the long run.  I did get a few sales here and there from doing that, but overall I've stopped looking at Zazzle as a way to make any significant money.  That being said I've loved the creative outlet it has provided and, so long as I always used my associate link, when purchasing my merchandise, I made a tidy "profit" on my purchases, but now that seems to have disappeared.  I roll over what I make, from purchasing my own Zazzle merchandise, back into buying more of my merchandise, but if I'm going to hardly be making any money from now on I might as well look into opening a shop somewhere else.  Like perhaps Redbubble?  I won't close my online Zazzle shop completely, but if I'm only making a fraction of what I was making I don't think it'll be worth me continuing to build my shop.

[Caprice]

Do you buy your own products to re-sell them somewhere?

[InkgoeswildAK]

Exactly, Nigel!

[InkgoeswildAK]

The only thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve tried placing three orders, in the last two days, using my associate Zazzle shop link, and canceled all three due to not getting any referral fees on them.  I purchase the bulk of my merchandise and getting those referral fees is an immense help in my ability to purchase more of my merchandise down the road.  Especially, since Zazzle isn’t offering as good of sales as they have in the past.

If this is due to now being in their Ambassador Program then I’d prefer to opt out of it, and go back to earning referral fees on my own orders.  Does unenrolling myself return me to earning my referral fees?

[BadLands]

I’m a small seller but all I see this far is selling, say, 25 invitations, has lowered my royalty by 33%.

For example, a card set at 8.7%, with 3rd party ref was $2.50 royalty.  Now it’s $1.67.

[tnestico]

Hi, I was wondering, why you have such a low royalty (8.7%)? I only had 10% at the beginning for all products, then slowly raising it for some products to 14-15% (the fee was not that much), never less, unless Zazzle would do 5% for some products like the masks. But now since all this story with all these changes started, I just set my royalty to 24% for all products (except for masks and other products that Zazzle sets at 5%), and that's how you can survive all these new fees, the only problem I am experiencing is that my Zazzle rank went down for setting a higher royalty than 14%...unfortunately...but that's ok I guess. 

[BadLands]

Hi.  I have a few varied products and the royalty percentage varies with them.  My experience this far has been for the items tend to sell better with the royalty down.  A consistent feedback I get from acquaintances is “I really like the stuff I see on Zazzle but they are higher than other sites.”

Obviously I can’t control the base so I try to keep the margin down.  I’ve had a card design move much better at 5.5% than 8.7% and so on, especially when a customer is ordering 50-100 and up.  

So for me it’s been id rather sell 25 at 5% than none at 10%

[tnestico]

Ok, I understand. Thank you!

[Barbara]

Does the change in zRank happen only when jacking up the royalty? I haven't touched my royalty, which has been 20% for a long time, and my zRank hasn't budged What happens if a person lowers their royalty? Does zRank remain the same or does it drop down? I'm wondering if the algorithm is sensitive more to change than it is to the royalty itself.

Colorwash's Home

[BadLands]

I’m no expert but I don’t think it has much to do directly with royalty.  For me it seems when my sales increase due to sale of seasonal items, the rank goes up and when my seasonal sales subside, the rank drops.

[Barbara]

I haven't touched my 20% royalty but my sales have tanked, and yet my zRank hasn't budged at all. That's why I questioned what triggers the algorithm.

Colorwash's Home

[Anne]

@Barbara In my experience it is self-referral that drives Z-rank. One of my stores went from 7 to 9. Don't hold your breath: it seems to have zero impact on visibility or sales. Only an unexpected self-referral could explain the rise in rank. And it seems to be an erratic process. I get the impression that a self-referral only rarely gets registered as such.

[Barbara]

My zRank hasn't risen past 7 for more than a year in spite of periodic self-referrals. I swear that we're all trying to capture the wind when it comes to zRank.

Colorwash's Home

[tnestico]

I agree with you, because for me it only went up when I had more sales, and then went down when I had less sales; finally as soon I raised the royalty it went down again and it's still down...but I don't think it matters...it's like you said: we are chasing the wind...

[ColsCreations]

Only an unexpected self-referral could explain the rise in rank.

It's been years since I've earned a referral and my zRank has been stuck at 5 since (it used to switch between 5 & 6 back when I was putting in more effort to get occassional referrals)  but I got a completely unexpected self-promotion referral on the 27th (grateful, just no idea how a customer ended up on a clean link to me) and just like that, my zRank moved up to 6.

[igiftcenter]

I don't have time to follow all the replies here but I can tell you from my own personal experience: lowering my prices has never, ever, ever resulted in a benefit to my sales. All it did was decrease my overall income. 
I'm not suggesting this will be how it works for you I'm just telling you I have never seen a sales boost from lowering prices on products. 

 wish you all continued success

[BadLands]

You may have misread a post.  Our royalty has decreased due to the new fees, we aren't lowering the royalty rate.

[igiftcenter]

What I was trying to say though I did not express it very well I (sorry) is that altering your royalty rate to accommodate the changes particularly keeping them low or lowering them does not increase sales volume... for me. Others may find it different

[BadLands]

I dont think anyone was suggesting that, at least on this thread

[igiftcenter]

I don't think anyone was saying that... I was jus throwing that out there for those who are at the junction of deciding things like should they drop their prices to be more competitive, leave them as they are, or raise them to accommodate for the variables that affect our overall royalties.  My own experience in trying to experiment with these choices is that each time I lowered my royalties, products that were selling on a regular basis simple saw a decrease in income, not an increase in sales volume as a result of lowering the royalties.

I was just trying to be helpful to those on the cusp of making decisions like this because I've been there.

[giskard]

I don't think is Zazzle's fault everything that is happening, and we designers losing money, don´t get me wrong, I am as frustrated as you are, but it's out of our hands. We are in a trade war, (not a political statement, just in case), everything changed and right now, everything is chaoting, stock markets are falling, and costs are raising everywhere, and companies are trying to protect themselves, and the weak links (designers, customers, etc.) are paying the price. Was it necessary to unleash that kind of chaos? The answer to that is up to you and your beliefs. 

My advice, diversify and may be focus on digital assets (illustrations, patterns, prompts, ebooks, virtual courses, etc.). Just saying