How to ungroup products?

[Artley]

First timer poster here!  Any help would be awesome 🙂

I posted 4 products last month using a similar photo template, but they are not related to each other in target audience/niche.  The tags and titles are different as well.  But Zazzle has grouped them together.  How do I 'unstick' them from each other?  

I've looked for this answer high and low, and I'm thinking that the only way to ungroup them might be to delete each one and re-publish each one, trying to make the title and tags more different. 

Thanks in advance!  Jaimie 

[Cat]

Zazzle only groups products that are exactly the same except for the color. Like this ("design theme" = grouped products.)

As far as I know, keeping the title and tags similar helps their grouping algorithm to recognize them, but I don't think that changing the title and tags would ungroup them. And honestly I don't know how you would ungroup them.

But anyway, if your products are thematically different (i.e. different in ways other than the color) I don't really understand how they could have gotten grouped in the first place, unless you selected them all and chose "group products". Or maybe you're referring to something else besides color grouping? Can you maybe post links to the products in question?

[Artley]

Philadelphia Gay Pride Flag Name Phrase Mug | Zazzle

Hi!  Thanks for your response, this is the product in question.  There are two pride mugs, and two other mugs using the same photo template, but with different titles/tags.  Some keywords are the same, but they def shouldn't be grouped with the pride ones.   

[jophb]

Titles and tags have no bearing on the grouping. It is solely based on the design. So even if you deleted the product and posted the same design again, it would still likely group.  You would have to change the design somewhat to keep them from grouping.

[Cat]

This. As long as the design is identical other than the color, the products will be automatically grouped. If you want the pride flag one not to group with the others, I'd suggest making a minor change to it besides the color - like change the font or position of the names slightly.

[ColsCreations]

Just looked at your link and then the four individual products in your store. The mugs have the same graphic design but using different color schemes of it. From looking in the Design Tool, you're using four different background images but the svg you're using as the mask shape is the same in each one. And then the template text is different. All well and good alone but yeah, clicking the color-swatches on the product pages is giving weird & unpredictable results for me. In a case like this, I'd want them UNgrouped, too. 

[Cat]

Yeah... it's doing something really weird for me too. Like you start out on the purple one, then if you click the black one it changes both the artwork and the text, but then if you go back to the purple it changes the text back to purple but doesn't change the artwork back to rainbow. I don't know what it means, but it's definitely wonky. 

ETA. I just now got it that the drops are a mask and the image underneath is what's changing! I still have no idea how to fix it, but I'm pretty sure that's part of the issue. Like since the picture is replaceable, the system is treating it like a placeholder image rather than part of the design. So when the user changes color themes it doesn't change the image because it thinks that it's a picture that the user placed there... or something like that?

Anyhow, if the fact that the user can change the underlying photo is part of what you're selling, you might want to use a picture that makes it more obvious that the user can change that. Something like this: https://www.zazzle.com/z/0ojfvrwo?rf=238780250923643573

If that's not part of what you're selling - like your intent is to sell an image of the drops in rainbow colors, not for the user to change that - then I would mask the rainbow flag in PhotoShop (or whatever design software you use) and upload the rainbow drops as a separate image rather than doing it as a mask within the design tool. Or at the very least, don't make that image a template because I think that's the root of your problem here.

[ColsCreations]

At one time there was a Google form you could submit to requests products be grouped or ungrouped. Now, I think the only way would be to check the box for each of the four products in the backend, then on the upper right of page, use the Actions button, select "group products" from the drop-down choices, and then in the text field for explaining, say you want them UNgrouped. 

If they are newer products that haven't sold, you could try remaking them but with different copies of the image that are each uniquely named. 

But, for the products grouped together, does the customer picking other color swatches actually effect anything for them? A long time ago I made foil gift tags for both 25th anniversary (silver) and 50th (gold).  They got grouped together with the result being, if one was viewing the 25th one (silver) and switched to the gold swatch, they'd get the gold version (50th) but the template text was still showing 25th. And vice versa. It was confusing so I ended up just deleting both.  If your four grouped products aren't creating such a confusing situation, it might not be hurting anything to just leave them?

[jophb]

I've had some random groupings too. I wasn't upset about them, just made me laugh that things that weren't actually the same items DID group, but half the time I can't get items to group that should have automatically. 😂 I've had the birthdays do that too, different colors and ages combined into one grouping. The one that surprised me most was an item with a ghost holding a different kind of cocktail on each product. Somehow it still grouped!

[Cat]

Wow! I didn't know that it would group with different images. Very interesting!