Setting A Category

[ZAZKAT]

When setting a Category:

Confused when Events & Occasions:  Expressions or Occasions for Party Supplies?  Would a floral design be an Expression or set for an Occasion?  Let's say a "rose" pattern.  

I gather 'holidays' would be chosen if it was a specific holiday design.

Input?

[KeegansCreation]

For a floral design not tied to any specific sort of party I would go with Occasions (and just leave it at that, don't pick a sub-category). Expressions are pretty specific (thank you, congratulations etc.) while an occasion (with no subcategory) is more generic.

[ZAZKAT]

This is a super confusing one for me.  As I see Expressions as "to express yourself"  So a pretty flower would be to express happiness or joy without a specific.  When I think of Occasions I think of specific.  What happens when someone want to buy a sticker for sticker sake?  Not for a birthday or party?  I would then put it under expressions.  Confusing!!!  

[KeegansCreation]

It gets less confusing if you look at the subcategories under Expressions. It is not a category meant for expressing yourself. It is a category for things expressed to other people such as thanks, congratulations and condolences.

In any case, if a design doesn't fit any category you can always just put it under other and leave it at that. I have many that are simply Other.

[Barbara]

You aren't required to use categories at all if you find none of them suit, so relax.

Colorwash's Home

[Windy]

No one has ever been able to satisfactorily explain the use of those categories to me at all, and I have even posted asking mods to explain why or when anyone would want to add anything to the Special Days categories. I got no answer, so I assume that no one really knows the answer to that. 

I did learn the most about these categories by using the site as a shopper would......this helped me to get a glimmer of an idea of how categories actually come into play for a shopper using the site. But generally, most of it is confusing to me still, and I assume not really useful to anyone, except in very specific circumstances, for example, when you want a birthday card for a nephew or something.

[Barbara]

Zazzle has changed a huge number of things over the time I've been here, and categories is one of them They once had a long, extremely convoluted list of categories, sub-categories, sub-sub-categories, and beyond that was hellish to go through. Then they simplified it to what we see now--a generalized list focused on things a customer buys to give or send to someone else. I'm not sure what they do with it, but my own designs rarely suit anything in the list, so I depend on titles and tags. Anyone who designs business cards knows the futility of trying to find a category. For instance, I just sold cards for a smoke/cigar shop. How did the customer find them? Definitely not via a category.

Yes, it might be helpful if we were told how and when a category is used. Possibly when they run sales, finding the products to highlight that happen to be in, say, weddings or Christmas.

[KeegansCreation]

Those Special Days (under Other) can come in handy if you are designing for a dated event that isn't listed under Holidays. Examples are Mardis Gras (still not listed under Holidays!), Pi Day and (in my case) Medical Laboratory Week- an event I make many designs for. This gets very niche but it's entirely possible that customers shopping in those niches will drill down from Events/Occasions.

I do think at least some customers drill down. Typing in keywords would be faster for a customer using a conventional keyboard (laptop/desktop). But if you have to point to each letter (ipad) or punch it out with your thumbs (phone) then drilldown is probably easier.

If a design doesn't fit in any category then it doesn't fit. Categories are a suggestion, not an obligation. But they do come in handy for very targeted designs.

[Barbara]

I just now used the drill-down technique, and it proved to me that Zazzle uses categories for what they display after you've gone down a few levels. This is where those of us who do "oddball" things lose out. If, instead of doing cigar shop business cards, I did wedding planner business cards, I might be more easily found. That said, in order for Zazzle to accommodate the many mutants in the marketplace, they'd have to go back to the nightmare of categories they once had. It would appear customers shopping with mini-pads and phones are not customers of the aforementioned mutants. We have to depend on titles and tags and on customers who use desktops or laptops.

By the way, the first thing I did when I bought an iPad was to get a keyboard for it. I still hated the iPad and so I gave it to my son. 🙂