Can I have a private store?

[KimB3384]

I've had my Zazzle store for a few years, but I don't use it the way I thought I would. I've transitioned to doing mostly custom commissioned portrait artwork that I use Zazzle to produce, but I don't sell anything through a Zazzle storefront because it doesn't make sense. 

My store name is my business name and it's possible that someday I might do a shift in my offerings and decide that selling some things would make sense, but that wouldn't happen any time soon. I don't want to close the shop and risk someone taking my name. It's unlikely, but there are similar websites to mine and I could see someone trying to grab my name to thin the herd.

Will I be penalized if I keep my shop set as private? 

[Sara_H · Accepted solution]

@KimB3384  .You may incur a "Non Contributing Account Fee" if you don't publish a "public product" after 15 months. Just make something and post for sale to stop that from happening. (also mentions or getting a "referral sale")

There's nothing stopping you from having a private store - but you'll may end up paying that fee if you do

https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019101674-Non-Contributing-Account-Fees

[KimB3384]

Good to know! Thank you so much!

All of the money from my art goes to my local shelter or other animal-related organizations and I'd been thinking of doing a campaign with merch, but the revised royalty rate made me rethink it because at 10%, it almost wouldn't be worth my time. But maybe it's what I do to keep the shop active. 

You have been very helpful!

[LakeEffects]

You don't have to set your royalty rate to 10%. You only incur a small fee if your rate is above 10%, so you can set it to 20%, 30%, whatever you want.

[KimB3384]

Thank you so much for this info! Just reading through the comments on the post about the new rate adjustment had me thinking there was some sort of penalty in addition to the fee. I'm very relieved to know that's not the case. I love Zazzle's design interface and my final products have always been great, so I was dreading having to find another source for POD deliverables.