How often is a Z-rank evaluated/updated?

[designme]

Does anyone know how often the Z-rank is re-evaluated?

[MadjackGG]

It's pretty much immediate, based on my experience. Or at least for some changes you might make. The sales component of your ranking would take longer I expect.

I say this as after bumping up my royalty rate to 14.5% (to compensate for the VAT and third party referral fees), and I immediately lost a rank on my main store.

[designme]

Thank you for the response MadjackGG.  That's an interesting observation.  When reading the Z-ranking information Zazzle provides, they don't mention anything about royalty fees impacting the ranking.  Since Z-ranking impacts a shops placement/standing on the site, do you recommend staying at the 5% until sales increase?  If you don't mind me asking, at what point in your journey did you increase your royalty rate and did it impact your sales? 

[Windy]

Z-Rank is updated occasionally and on no known schedule (not known to shopkeepers, I mean). People report that they changed this or dropped that, or altered this and then Z-Rank dropped or rose right away. I tend to think that is complete coincidence. It happens when it happens.

As for Z-Rate and Royalty, I see very highly ranking stores which sell products most of their products with a 25 percent royalty. 

[designme]

Very helpful!  Thank you Windy.

[WBartworks]

In case you don't already know this, Zazzle automatically deducts 5% of royalty set above 14.9%.

[designme]

I did not pick up on that and was not aware.  I went ahead and changed my royalty settings.  Thank you WBartworks!  

[MadjackGG · Accepted solution]

I don't think the price seen by the customer is going to be affected much by increasing your royalty rate. It also doesn't seem to be a major component of the z rank, although upping your rate will likely see you lose a point. Instead, I found having a well stocked and well organized shop that focuses on easy browsing for the customer and doesn't have products that need refreshing/deletion, had the biggest impact on Z rank and sales.   

But to answer your question, I upped my default royalty rate when I saw that many of my sales weren't returning 12% royalties. Instead I was getting 8-9% because of Zazzle's flat VAT rate and third party referral fees. I didn't notice a drop-off in sales after raising my default royalty rate.

[designme]

Thanks again MadjackGG!  Appreciate your responses.