Moderator Question: Is Zazzle interested at all to know of shops selling all white/black products?

[MaggieA]

The answer is a simple yes or no - is Zazzle interested to know of shops selling all white/black products? (Or any other single color for that matter.)

If yes, how do we report them? The current "Report this design" function does not seem to be working, as many of us found out, because these shops are still there weeks after a report been sent (hence my original question).  Is there another way to do it so we can rely on action being taken?

I just wonder, and I know I am not the only one, if it is worth my time reporting shops with no design at all on their products. 

[NigelSutherland]

I've just been looking at a solid black shoulder bag, and the item is "trending', and the creator is "Pro Silver". 😳 Looking at the design, the black isn't just a background colour, it's a large square shape bleeding off all edges, on each side, so technically there IS artwork involved. Maybe that's how it's done... (Having said that, I do realise that the idea of a solid all-over black bag might be appealing to some ladies.) a difficult one.

[jophb]

I have seen them remove them.  So I would think the answer is YES. I'm sure it's not easy for them to keep on track of them all the time.  On the one they removed before, I reported one of the individual products and made note that the person had dozens of the same items only changing titles/tags. As it violates their terms.  They removed the entire account.

[Sea-Change]

Good question. I think this is especially egregious when the title and tags are stuffed with irrelevant phrases, like highland cow birthday mama gender reveal birthday, etc. I realize it's hard to catch all instances, but I don't understand why stores with hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of "blank" and semi-blank items have existed for so long.

Some stores sell dozens of the exact same all-black or all-white item, just with different tags, managing to earn a bronze status. These items somehow rank at times in search results or are offered to customers as designs you might like, in lieu of the many terrific designs where Zazzle creators have devoted time, energy, and expertise. Please, Zazzle, step up your efforts to address this issue. Reporting by individuals seems to yield mixed results.

[TRW]

I second this. It is NOT at all just solid color designs, there are shops full of obviously stolen designs... I copy pasted this from my comment on another post :
the problem is the thieves and fake accounts (spammers and scammers) who are either using ai or stealing designs via ai are to blame. So many adding up to 1000 designs a day, every single one of them using identical descriptions (irrelevant to the design) and a jumbled list of completely bogus spam tags
I have been reporting designs and "accounts" but so far none of them have been removed by Zazzle. THAT is something I do not understand. If an account is adding upwards of 500 designs daily, zazzle should easily be able to flag it as spam and block the accounts (no different than hiding merch from shops w low zrank etc) . Sure the offenders can just create a new acct, but it should be an automated blocking tactic that flags content at LEAST once a day instead of ...never! They allow the theft and corrupt accounts but punish real humans trying their best and not being able to meet all of the criteria for constant fresh new content, constant updates, etc

[Fantabuloustef]

I don’t know the answer, but I found this morning through searching for “Mexican fiesta mugs” that some of these stores sell a few items with normal designs on them and then all the rest of their shop is composed of totally black products. It’s maybe a technique to avoid being caught by Zazzle

[Joanna]

Hi and thank you for your question.    Please continue to use the Report feature to flag any products you believe are not in line with our Terms of Service so we can review them through the appropriate channel.

[TRW]

I have been reporting daily and never get a "thank you for reporting" which used to happen with every report...and the designs remain as do the shops
what IS the appropriate official channel where we can report entire accts and receive clarification that action is being taken? I included my comment from the other thread here again so that you ARE aware of these issues 

the problem is the thieves and fake accounts (spammers and scammers) who are either using ai or stealing designs via ai are to blame. So many adding up to 1000 designs a day, every single one of them using identical descriptions (irrelevant to the design) and a jumbled list of completely bogus spam tags
I have been reporting designs and "accounts" but so far none of them have been removed by Zazzle. THAT is something I do not understand. If an account is adding upwards of 500-1000 designs daily, zazzle should easily be able to flag it as spam and block the accounts (no different than hiding merch from shops w low zrank etc) . Sure the offenders can just create a new acct, but it should be an automated blocking tactic that flags content at LEAST once a day instead of ...never! They allow the theft and corrupt accounts but punish real humans trying their best and not being able to meet all of the criteria for constant fresh new content, constant updates, etc

[MaggieA]

@Joanna, Do you think there even would be a need to ask this question if using the report feature worked?

There are many of us who reported these shops with all white or black on all the products and nothing happens... that is why there is need of asking this question to the mods in the first place. If the procedure worked there would not be a need for asking this at all.

[CrazyMermaid]

We really don't have time to report thousands of products. Is it possible to report the shop once? I don't see that feature. Does Zazzle even review stores once a complaint like this is made or do you just review the single product?

[LauraLee]

It used to be that this kind of spam would be cause for the shop owner being removed.  Is that still not the procedure anymore? 
I only ask because I can see this as a big vulnerability and detriment to all the designers here, making it difficult to bring customers to Zazzle's marketplace with this obvious spam.  Especially when we're pretty much forced into marketing for Zazzle, under the April 1st changes in royalties.  Again, I can only smh on what Zazzle is thinking when it comes to it's branding.  This is not typical Zazzle, and customers are leaving. 

[Sea-Change]

This situation warrants a more robust strategy from Zazzle. I've looked at 12+ shops in the past few days with significant template, tag, and other spam on all black and white desgns. In many cases, these shops are promoting their blank designs as the Zazzle template, and in some cases, have misleading shop or collection names, like Create Your Own.

I have reported more than a hundred of these designs, during time in which I could have been designing, but there are likely hundeds of thousands of designs.  Designers can't possibly report them all. A couple of the 12 shops had a large collection of create-your-own designs, and the remaining 10 shops had absolutely nothing but blank designs.

Often, the spam stores have ~1,024 designs in them. This number might be a coincidence, but it's also a common number for digital storage in computer programming, which might suggest the shops were created via automation. Often, the tags are similar, sometimes leveraging popular or minimalist memes and other times repeating details about the item itself, e.g., foamboard, mug, etc. plus customizable, add your own, etc.

Many shops are still selling away, some with bronze and higher status, after reporting them. I noticed designs in one, with obvious tag spam, are gone. The thumbnails still appear in search, but the links don't open the design. Perhap this is just indexing latency, and the thumbnails will disappear as well, but the rest remain as saleable items.

These blank "design-your own" items are not OK. Sometimes, these template imposters dominate the "Other Designs You Might Like" carousel, taking up promotional space that a legitimate design should have. Obviously, customers are confused by them -- how would they know which is the valid Zazzle template? These designers then apparently get a royalty, at least for some items, based on their shop status. I suspect these designs also interfere with search returns, pushing actual designs further down. I hope Zazzle will make a clear announcement to remind designers this practice falls outside of acceptable guidelines, and then do a sweeping audit and thorough removal. Thanks! 

[tamirazdesigns]

@Joanna 

In Jan. 2025 I emailed support a long list of different store links with nothing but blank white or black items on every item available as previouslly mentioned, with all of those stores from Bangladesh area!  Every one of those spam stores links are ALL active stores still!  Why after all these months hasn't Zazzle done anything about them?  There are many more spam stores seems mostly from that same country/region, and some other countries besides that, in the Zazzle Marketplace besides what I included in that email.   

And, like others also reported some links with nothing in their spam stores but basically every item of put your logo/image here, or others stores with nothing but solid colors with no designs or templates or matching items nothing and on every item available, or the odd wallpaper type of designs covering the entire design tool area, or very tiny single images with no templates showing, and some of their design tool layers makes zero sense with 13 or so different wallpaper type images, but only the top layer shows for that design!   The put your logo/image type of stores with only that on every single item available looks confusing as though Zazzle published them, but they didn't, and some of those type stores reached Silver!  How? Customers must think those templates were published by Zazzle.

I had noted the long list of spam store links via that one Jan. 2025 email making it easy for the proper Zazzle department to click on them and see for themselves.  I'm sure there's been many other designers who have reported these same stores, plus many other spam stores like this over the years, yet how many have been taken down?  The Marketplace even the Popular view pages starting on Page one gets flooded by these spam stores unfortunately, and for every single item available to publish on, and for each new product introduced to the Marketplace you see them all blank white or black items...  It clutters all the search pages, and cheapens the Marketplace!   

It took quite a bit of time to go through and then list all those spam store links, same for all the other designers who've emailed store links to support over the years,  or who clicked via the Item page to report a single design. 

Does Zazzle actually look further than that one item reported via item page, to see their whole stores are nothing but spam Items, and to see the higher levels Bronze and Silver.... that some have reached by gaming the system?  Do any Zazzle employees actually click on all the obviously spam store links provided to them by designers via an email to support, making it easy to click on them to see the stores spam items for themselves?  I'd think there is a department of people who look for spam stores and take any necessary action.  But I'm not sure since they say they rely on designers to report such stores.  Is there a department that actively handles such spam stores on their own, without designers having to always point them out?  Why are they still active for several years selling nothing but spam items and reaching Bronze and higher levels, and after being reported over and over again by different designers over the years? 

Many talented designers who've been here many more years than those spam stores and who have very good designs, and original designs, or original photography designs, illustrations... struggle to reach Bronze still, nevermind being able to reach Silver or higher!   How is this right or fair?  Can only imagine what majority of customers think seeing every Marketplace category filled with TONS of these spam all blank, etc. items to try and sort through.   

 Very unmotivating and disheartening seeing all of that.

[Connie]

You'd think that AI would be able to flag all these designs at once, but matching up images and tags and seeing they don't match! AI doesn't get everything right, but these are so egregious that they should be easy to spot and flag. 

[TRW]

I would think they don't even need ai for this... any shop managing to upload the number of designs these copycats scrape/steal and post for sale should be easily flagged just by the numbers...we are talking upwards of a 1000 listings per day per shop! there is no way they can say it might be a legitimate artist with those numbers! not to mention that all of them I have seen doing this use identical descriptions and tags for every design...that could also be tracked
I have asked (and been ignored) multiple times. It is like they do not care.

[Connie]

Zazzle does have a small team, so AI would be a good way for them to stay on top of things. Even if it requires a human to make the final decision, AI could do the initial flagging and trigger a hold or block on the shop until it is reviewed by a real person.