Found product I deleted quite a while ago, but it still exists

[Barbara]

I was cleaning up one of my Pinterest boards when I came across a pin for a product I knew for a fact I'd deleted a long time ago, but I always check such things in case of memory failure. So I followed the link to Zazzle and found this:

https://www.zazzle.com/pd/spp/pt-zazzle_postcard?dz=a8765f07-b34e-40a1-b131-707e7df06332&clone=true&...

It's not an ordinary Zazzle product page--none of the options at the top such as editing--and its title is "Postcard." I noticed in the address that it says "clone." What the heck is this thing? Some sort of strangeness from Pinterest? Normally, if you click a pin but the product no longer exists, that's the message you get and not a ghost of the dead product.

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[Barbara]

It turns out that either Zazzle or Pinterest screwed up, and I've a sense it might be Pinterest. There are any number of pins that go to that nowhere place where a "clone" of the product page is shone, not the real page. The pins all give a generic name for the product, in this case "Postcard." No title, and a make-your-own description. No customer will get anywhere with those clones, so I suggest you all look through at least your postcard pins. If the only title is "Postcard," you'll have to upload it again and delete the faulty pin.

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[Shakenbake]

I was able to add that to my cart Barbara. So if you didn't want it for sale and someone happens across it, it may still be able to be purchased?? I don't know for sure. 

[Barbara]

At times, I've wished I could either edit a post or delete it and rewrite it. It turns out that, as I described in my follow-up post, there's a problem with pins that somehow changed over time. They were fine when created, but somewhere along the way, something got screwed up and the title is missing along with a link to the original product page. It goes to a clone where a lot of the expected information is missing. However, thank you so much for checking the salability of it. I'd assumed the clone was just plain broken all the way around.

As for the linked-to product, what happened is that I couldn't find it. It was hiding amongst the various definitions for a postcard. I finally found it be looking at ALL stationery because it wasn't listed in just plain postcards.

Anyway, I'm currently going through the pins, finding the faulty ones, and replacing them with fresh pins.

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[Mark]

Hey @Barbara,

Thanks for flagging this. Can you send on a link to the Pin this product came from?

[Barbara]

@Mark 

I've been busy deleting and replacing, but when I find another one, which I'm sure I will, I'll leave it as is and post the link.

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[Barbara]

@Mark 

Found this:

The pin: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/94505292160301565/

The page it goes to: https://www.zazzle.com/pd/spp/pt-zazzle_postcard?dz=ec5ba6c1-1b60-4949-9c63-836ab89ae28a&clone=true&...

The product's real page: https://www.zazzle.com/teacher_bunny_rabbit_reads_a_book_postcard-239515232990016271

(Strange, no?)

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[Mark]

Thanks for that, @Barbara. I will reply once I have more info.

[ColsCreations]

That's the URL you get when you Pin a saved design and not a published product. The tip-off was the .../pd/spp/pt... at the beginning since that's how create-your-own blanks usually start.

I just pinned a Saved Design here - https://www.pinterest.com/pin/421719952620747567/ 

Its link back to Zazzle starts like this -

zazzle.com/pd/spp/pt-zazzle_pennant?dz=f2190446-4e93-4cb8-bffb-09f5902531f6&clone=true&pending=true

Your link starts like this -

zazzle.com/pd/spp/pt-zazzle_postcard?dz=ec5ba6c1-1b60-4949-9c63-836ab89ae28a&clone=true&pending=true

Your real product page shows it was published all the way back in 2016. I don't know how long you've been on Zazzle but is it possible that you were still learning your way around at that time and inadvertently made some pins from your saved designs instead of from the published product pages?

[Barbara]

I've been on Z since 2014, but regardless, it wouldn't dawn on me to pin a saved product. What's interesting is that all the pins I corrected were easy to spot because they had generic titles such as "Create Gift Postcards." Checking them, I found each and every link containing "clone" in the code, whereas none of the good pins had this. Those that were clones went to a page that didn't include the links we normally see at the top such as Add to Collection or Edit Details. That entire bar was missing.

Now I wish I'd taken note of the dates for those pins because, back some time ago, Pinterest was picking up little to nothing of the designers' words, even the title. I remember a lot of designers complaining about this. If all the pins I've now corrected were from that time period, it could be a mix of both Zazzle's coding and Pinterest's. Since I don't understand how the two companies handshake on this stuff, I'm just puffing on an empty pipe.

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[ColsCreations]

 What's interesting is that all the pins I corrected were easy to spot because they had generic titles such as "Create Gift Postcards." Checking them, I found each and every link containing "clone" in the code, whereas none of the good pins had this. Those that were clones went to a page that didn't include the links we normally see at the top such as Add to Collection or Edit Details. That entire bar was missing.

Right. That's exactly what you get with my test pin of a saved design. It doesn't have any of that because it's not a published design. I just used the Share option on it again but this time posted it to FB instead of Pinterest. When you click the FB post to go to it, you get the same page with same URL

zazzle.com/pd/spp/pt-zazzle_pennant?dz=######&clone=true&pending=true&.......

(the only thing different is the long string of characters after dz=.)

So it's not a Pinterest thing, it's a Zazzle thing. If you share an unpublished design-in-progress, you get a generic create-your-own style page but with the mods you made to it showing and "designed by you/creator name" at the top.

[Barbara]

I've never pinned a design that was merely saved because it's not my course of action. I've always created and posted a product for sale, and only then pinned it. I rarely have reason to look at saved designs. These were all older designs from maybe three or four years ago, and I found them often grouped together. I'm also remembering it being the period of time when we often got generic pins. Our image, not our title, and that's when we lost our descriptions, which ended up replaced by Zazzle's own general description of product type. A lot of people were complaining about it, and it's when more people began creating their own pins. So I agree. It appears to have been a Zazzle thing.

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