Newbee Question

[ZAZKAT]

If a creator has several designs and a purchaser uses a design to make a product that the creator has not yet made, who does the royalty go to?  I gather some people get handy and learn how to manipulate and grab and create a design on the products that they want.

I am not talking about stealing creators designs.  I am just talking about a purchase created from another creator.

Simply - Does the creator of the design always get the royalty no matter if they created the finished product or not?

[PenguinPower]

If I’m getting your question…. If you allow design transfer, a customer can find a design of yours that they like and put it on nearly any product Zazzle offers,  - you get a royalty regardless of whether you have already put that particular product in your store - it’s your design after all. If you have disabled transfers there should not be a way for anyone to do this and you shouldn’t be seeing it happening. 

[idraw]

If I understand your question--
Are you saying that a customer/creator saw your design on say, a mug, and transferred it to a product you don't yet offer, say for example a ten foot giant troll doll made from wormwood trees (being silly), you should still get your royalty, the design is in your image folder, and on your other products.I hope that that is a good example and a correct answer for you. I don't know if that comes close to answering what you are asking. If not let us all know, so that we can better target our answers.

[ZAZKAT · Accepted solution]

Exactly. If it is my original design will i always get royalty payments. 
You answered yes. Thank you

[RodneyK]

Hi Zazkat,

When you click on a product thumbnail and the “product page” opens up. Scroll part way down the page and you will see Transfer Design to a Product. From there the customer can put your design on any product. If they buy it, you get your royalty. It is a good practice to make that same product for sale yourself, since if one person bought it others might also. There might be other ways to use a creator’s design on another product that I haven’t used them.

You can also use that procedure yourself to make a new different product for sale. You have to check Edit first to make sure the design fits the product.

Hope that helps, or maybe you already knew about that feature.

rodneyk

[ZAZKAT]

I think I need some clarification.

[ZAZKAT]

I understand Transfer Design to a Product.  "It is a good practice to make that same product for sale yourself, since if one person bought it others might also". - Not sure what that means.  I would gather the royalty keeps coming back to me?  "There might be other ways to use a creator's design on another product that I haven't used them." - Not sure what that means?

And "you can also use that procedure yourself to make a new different product for sale."  Not sure what you are trying to say?  We can create our own product from another design?

Any clarification would be appreciated.  Thanks.

[KeegansCreation]

An example may help: Let's say you have a mug with a design. A customer likes that design but they would rather have it on a teapot. So they use the Transfer This Design feature to move the design to a teapot. You get the royalty just as though you had put it on the teapot yourself.

You see this transaction in your sales reports (the sales report will tell you both the original product and what it was transferred to). You think to yourself, "hmm, I never realized this design would be desirable on a teapot but this customer has shown me that it is. I will use the design transfer to put this on a teapot and put that in the marketplace just in case other customers would like that."

• Customers can't mix and match designs. If your concern is that a customer is making their own design by transferring bits and pieces from multiple creators such that no one creator is getting full royalty, that isn't possible.
• Creators can't sell anybody else's design, even if they add their own elements, if that was your concern. The Sell It button is only available to the person who actually uploaded the design.

[Windy]

I am trying to find an example for you but I got hung up when I looked at your green fern hat. https://www.zazzle.com/spring_green_fern_photo_womens_athletic_hat-256425297094717375

You have tagged this fern hat with "fun womens socks fern design". Usually we don't apply a socks tag to a hat because we don't want to get reported for indiscriminate tagging, which can be considered tag spam. Tag spam is discouraged by Zazzle and each tag should match the product.

However, if a customer were to look at that green fern hat,  and transfer the green fern design to say, a lamp, then you would want to make and list a green fern lamp. Reason: someone thought your green fern design looks good on a lamp, and maybe another shopper will too. 

[ZAZKAT]

Thanks for pointing out the tag.  It's just an error transferring design to another products and creating new tags it is easy to leave an old one in there.  It is not not ever intended as a spam.  I didn't know you could look up my products.  My store is private.

Anyway, I do understand by the number of responses to this question is that the royalty always goes back to me because I am the designer, whether or not I created that specific product or not.

I am looking for anything outside of that. Because it is very difficult to create every product on zazzle.  :0)

[KeegansCreation]

Indeed it would be very difficult to create every product on Zazzle and Zazzle doesn't even want you to try. Per moderator postings when design transfer was created, the whole point of it is so designers would stop feeling compelled to put their design on everything. It lets customers decide where they want a design so the designer doesn't have to put it on everything just in case.

Sometimes when a customer uses design transfer on one of my designs, I decide to put that design on the product they chose and publish it myself. Sometimes not.

A customer transferred one of my pillow designs to a coaster. That seemed like something that would sell to others so I published it on a coaster myself.

Another customer transferred one of my business card designs to a photo print. I decided not to also publish a photo print with that business card design because I thought it unlikely anybody else would want that. But I'm glad design transfer was there so that I was able to sell it on a photo print despite never having put it on a photo print myself.

[RodneyK]

Hi Zazkat,

My reply wasn't clear enough. KeegansCreation's explanation was excellent.

Using Transfer Design to a Product you can transfer your own design to another product and sell it.

I also mentioned that there may be other ways that a customer can put the creator's design on a different product, but I don't know if there is or not.

Hope that clears it up.

rodneyk