Extreme decrease in sales, just a select few or has Zazzle seen decreases too?

[Mouse]

I have had a very significant drop in sales this year so far. February being downright scary for me. Very few sales. I also have noticed many others posting the same. Mainly in the pro silver group. I'm thinking this is not something to be posted in technical issues because it could just be a handful of us creators having a bad year. But I'd love some zazzle feedback on this if at all possible, even if it's a "no it's just you" reply.

I know there have been a lot of changes on zazzle with cover photo's etc... And I have been working on them but my question is. Is this just some random creators having a bad year with sales? The economy? getting displaced for lack of cover photos? etc... or is this a zazzle sales issue affecting everyone?   

I don't know if I should work on cover photos, designs, more products or what first!  If it's just a bad year all around for zazzle and creators, I think I could handle it better. If I am one of a select few, I best figure out a way to make more money and fast. I count on the income.

Back to work! 

[PenguinPower]

On the contrary, I feel like I’ve been doing quite well, especially for what has typically been an extremely dead time of the year. 

Notes- I’m not a full timer or a high volume poster/seller. So when I say quite good, I mean what averages out to probably a couple of sales a day, but compared to normal for just after the holidays, which was little to nothing, this year has been very good. I also don’t do much at all in the way of invitations/party/wedding/shower stuff. I tend more to durable goods - housewares, gifts, which sell in less quantity perhaps, but are often more profit per sale. 
As far as covers go, I’ve done a fair number. They probably have helped kickstart one or two items, but big picture? About 1/2 of my recent sales have been items I haven’t done cover images for, of those that do, most were already consistent sellers pre-cover. 

[idraw]

@PenguinPower 
Great post PPower. Should help lots of sellers.
To respond to another part of @Mouse post, it is extremely unlikely that Z will ever post info mentioning that their sales are decreasing/down. It's the "never let them see you sweat" principle. The other PODs would love to have info about Z's financials.
Mouse, I remember when the fiasco at CP happened, lots of shops got deeply hurt financially because they depended on that income to pay mortgages,cars, student loans,lots of big time bills. So, to depend solely on sales is a very vulnerable situation to be in, even in the best of times. A seller have no control over what changes any POD decides to make, and that lack of control can be frustrating and bring on depression/stress/hopelessness.

[Mouse]

Never thought of it that way, thanks. I actually stuck it out at CP and remember the fiasco well. I never had to depend on my sales in the past, it was fun money till recently with the economy. I can't work outside my home so I best figure something out, LOL! Thank you!

[Mouse]

Thank you! So glad it's not everyone and you are doing well! 

[Baylee]

Like @PenguinPower, I've had a good month so far with a respectable increase of about 30% over last year's MTD for February. In my case, I'm sure a large percentage of that is due to the addition of cover photos on one particular product line which has been selling consistently multiple times every day since adding them.

Retail sales depend on so many variables, it is a difficult business to depend on, so I sympathize with anyone in that circumstance. I feel fortunate that I'm retired, and don't have to depend on this to eat. 

I think that, contrary to popular opinion, it helps not having a niche market. (that's probably because I'm easily distracted by shiny objects and if I see one, it's whoo! that would look great as a 'whatever' 😄.) That has ended up being an advantage because now I have wide variety of products that are not all geared to one segment of the marketplace or any one time of year. 

[Cat]

Well, my sales (in terms of money anyhow) are almost exactly the same as they were this time last year. They seem to be picking up fairly quickly in the past week or two since I've been cranking out the covers - but it's really hard to tell if the covers have anything to do with it or not because I'm seeing sales both on items that have them and items that don't. I keep wondering if the covers can be helping even on items that don't have them - like maybe the customer initially clicked on a design with a cover and then ended up buying one that popped up in the "more designs you might like" section? Maybe that's wishful thinking, I really don't know, but I'd like to think that all of my work generating covers has been part of what's pushing the increase in sales over the past few weeks.

But honestly, I really didn't know what to expect going into this year. I do mostly weddings, but I didn't really get into that field until 2019 - good timing, right? Just before the pandemic hit! So I haven't ever really experienced a "normal" wedding year. 2020 & 2021 were pretty messy, and last year was crazy because of all the pent-up demand. Clearly there are seasonal swings in this market, and I'm sure that's some of what I'm seeing in terms of sales picking up. 

One thing I do know (at least I think I know) is that a lot of my sales last year (which was my best year so far) were driven by one product in particular that somehow achieved pretty good marketplace placement. I think Zazzle was actually featuring it somewhere because it sold over and over and over again. That gravy train has stopped now, and my sales are much more spread out over a variety of products. I have WAY more good products in the marketplace than I did a year ago - so maybe that's why things are more spread out? Who knows.

I'm wondering if there are other sellers who had a product (or a number of products) that had pretty good marketplace placement, and those handful of products were driving a big chunk of their sales. So that the changing of the search algorithm has had a disproportionate impact on sellers in that situation. 

Anyhow... those are my blathering thoughts. I'm just gonna keep on keepin' on as they say and continue to build on things that are selling because that's really the only way I know to have success.

[KeegansCreation]

I am quite similar to PenguinPower- holding steady at one or 2 sales a day where in previous years it was one or two every couple weeks if that, after Christmas. And like PenguinPower, it is a mix of products with and without covers. Of note, I just sold a golf head cover that hasn't sold for more than a year. I gave it a cover photo (grass, as is now the norm for golf uploaded cover photos). When I went into View Insights, it said this was found via google and attributed to Zazzle marketing. When I went looking for it I found it on google shopping. Would it have been there if I hadn't given it a cover photo? I don't know. But I'll keep making cover photos just in case that is the only reason it showed up in the google shopping scroll.

It's all worth noting that it didn't have its' cover photo! When I saw this I had to go back into the back end and re-edit the cover photo back to showing. According to another thread, Zazzle tech knows about this but I don't know if the products that reverted to their standard view have to be all hand edited back (grrrr). Anyhoo, keep a lookout for that annoyance. But anyway I think it's worth making cover photos since I think it was my ticket onto that google shopping scroll for that one product. Or maybe it wasn't. I'll never know. But I'll keep making cover photos just in case.

[Connie]

I've been randomly finding products that reverted back to the standard view.

[Connie]

I had a significant drop in total earnings last week, even though I had a big variety of sales of products that don't usually sell. This week seems to be fine, though. And so far overall this year I've noticed a slight increase overall. I don't know how much of an impact the cover photos have had, since most of the one-off sales actually don't have cover photos. But I have been getting more sales on products with cover photos too.

[Mouse]

Well it's looking like it may be just me LOL. Hopefully just a temporary drop in sales and I will pick up soon. 

[Barbara · Accepted solution]

@Mouse  I doubt it's just you--or me, for that matter. My sales aren't totally gone, but they sure are low. It may be highly dependent on the types of products we create, on Zazzle's markdowns hitting on those things, on what Zazzle might be currently featuring, and on something else I haven't thought of at the moment. Hang in there. Our turn will come around again.

Colorwash's Home

[Mouse]

---

"Hang in there. Our turn will come around again."
@Barbara Thank you for that, I really really needed to hear that today. 

[CarolRD]

My sales on Zazzle went from half way decent to basically nothing now for months, I too would like to know what the heck has happened! There has been no changes on my end I work it all the time , it is on Zazzle end, what is wrong, feel like I have been totally ripped off for months on months now 😞

[CarolRD]

I'm not pro silver and they have stopped my sells as well ! 

[Rosie]

No sales here since 12/14/24. Now I don't ever have a ton of sales, but November was great...for me anyway. Now nada.