Zero royalty earned

[OrchardBerry]

Can anyone figure out why I received no royalty for this sale? It was for a large poster that they added a frame to. I’m stumped

[Cat]

That's a weird one - it looks like the price for the poster was negative $45 - I have no idea what that means! 

[CrazyMermaid]

I had the exact same thing happen to me for the exact same product.

I am not a member of the promoter program. I don't remember this ever happening. 

[OrchardBerry]

I am a member of the promoter program so I don't think that has anything to do with it. And like you I don't remember this ever happening before. Maybe it's a bug?

[Laura]

Could be related to Colleen's explanation of adding a frame to the purchase of a poster: https://community.zazzle.com/t5/pro-basic-private/another-weird-math-problem-for-royalty-received/m-...

[OrchardBerry]

That certainly sounds like the same situation, which is not fair at all as everyone is getting paid but the designer 😞

[CrazyMermaid]

All I can say is, is that it doesn't happen very often. It does leave a bad taste in my mouth though. I will just look at the bottom line at the end of the month and consider this a cost of doing business on Zazzle. 

[OrchardBerry]

Not much else you can do 🤷‍♀️

[Cat]

I agree - it's totally unfair. Seems like a flaw in the way the calculations are done and it should be corrected.

[ColsCreations]

Yeah, with posters being 50% off right now, that's what happened. The customer gets 50% off the print AND the upcharge for the frame but when calculating earnings they use the full non-discounted cost of the frame that the customer didn't actually pay and when you combine a high-ticket upcharge like a frame with a big discount like 50% off, it's no bueno, a zero-sum game. These two examples do seem to show though that when the calculations result in a negative gross royalty, they stop it at zero and don't actually ding your earnings. So that's something. 😵

[ColsCreations]

I've made a free spreadsheet calculator for figuring out User Options. Info & download link here:

Earnings Calculator For Understanding 5% User Options

[Mariholly]

I have had the same problem. The answer Z was that the product had a great discount and also when adding the frame the calculation is that and that calculation was correct. Well, I also expressed that it seemed very unfair to me and that I couldn't understand what kind of calculation was done so that my royalty was zero. His response was that they were working on it... It's their company and it's their rules, I understand it and I think they'll want to fix it, if not, I don't want to sell posters or I don't want them to be sold framed. I don't want my work to go up in smoke... This will continue to happen every time there is a big discount and a poster is bought with a frame, in my case it wasn't a third-party sale, so I think that doesn't matter, simply because the value of the frame is higher than that of the poster and because of the way the discount is applied in the calculation, the final number is 0.

[KeegansCreation]

Good grief! I used to be bummed that no one ever added a frame to one of my posters but now I'm relieved. 😲

[PAZP]

Had something similar happen about a month or so ago except I made a few cents on the sale. I didn't understand Z's explanation after I emailed them but I moved on. It's disappointing and a bit discouraging. 

[LMGildersleeve]

After reading this, I may just eliminate my posters all together. It's not like we make a lot of money when posters sell without a frame. So why bother selling them now with a frame regardless of a sale or not. The whole point was to hope the customer added the frame in the first place.

That policy doesn't sit right with me.

[PAZP]

I just read @ColsCreations post and may change all my poster insitu posts to show without frames and see what happens.  https://community.zazzle.com/t5/pro-basic-private/another-weird-math-problem-for-royalty-received/m-...

[Cat]

Interesting point. I was feeling like I should have made my posters more standard sizes so the frame would be an option, but now I'm thinking I'm glad I didn't!

[CrazyMermaid]

That's actually not a bad idea.  I might steal your strategy!

[Cat]

Hahahaha! I don't know if you can call it a "strategy" when it was really just came about by me being clueless and having no idea that frames were only available for standard sizes! But sometimes I guess "mistakes" turn out for the best! 😅

[Mariholly]

@Cat I have a question about this... So your poster designs have non-standard measurements and you only allow them to be purchased with those measurements that you created? Is that? So the option of framing is not offered like this?

[Cat]

I don't restrict the sizing at all - and now that I look at it again, I'm not sure that choosing a non-standard size makes the frame option disappear - when I designed them, it seemed like the frame option was there for all sizes, and then when I looked after this issue was raised, it seemed like frames were only available for standard sizes, but now it looks like the option is back for all sizes - standard or not. So who knows - maybe the sizing thing just a red herring!

My point in designing things this way actually had nothing to do with frames - most of my posters are seating charts, so when I designed them, my aim was simply to try to fit xyz number of tables onto the thing with fonts that were big enough to read, and a layout that looked good with the artwork. A lot of them just ended up being odd sizes. 

[Mariholly]

Thanks @Cat!! Of course, the problem did not exist or was not visible when you made your designs! Well then we can't fix anything like that and we can only keep praying that they don't buy our posters framed and at a deep discount so we can keep our royalty

[Cat]

Yeah, I guess hoping and praying is our best option - which sorta sucks. I guess I'm in a better position than most folks because people rarely want to fork over the money to have their seating charts framed - plus they're usually in a hurry and don't have time for that option anyway. However, seating charts are the product that seems to require the most customer hand-holding, so I think I'd be really annoyed if I spent an hour or two helping someone with their design and then got totally stiffed on the royalty. Really hoping Zazzle will fix this or find some way to make it right for the designers that have had this happen to them.

[Mariholly]

It happened again. This time it is a third-party sale.

 

[PAZP]

It is too bad Z doesn't show the math (in an email to us) so we can better understand what the heck is happening.

[CarlaRolfe]

This exact same thing happened to me just yesterday.  Customer purchased a framed poster that netted a ZERO royalty for me.

Prodesigner support explained the math shakes out when a customer adds options then uses a "high level discount".   I'm not sure what math they're using that turns a $200+ sale into $0.00 royalty for the designer of the product. 

[Mariholly]

Hahaha, I think those were exactly what I was saying when I got the reply Z... How can something like this happen...

[SimplyDesigned]

@Scott would you or another mod be able to chime in on why folks aren't getting a royalty when someone purchases a poster and a frame for it? It just doesn't seem like correct math or that it's fair. I don't sell many posters but we all know how funky Zazzle math can be. Help us make it make sense mods ♥️

[john]

Same thing just happened to me. Two big sales and I get NOTHING! This is so wrong. I should have earned $45.95.

Here is one where I did earn a royalty. The one I did not earn anything on had Parentheses. Did the customer have a credit on something they purchased from me before and returned?

[ColsCreations]

@john 

Wow, that's probably the most extreme one we've seen.  I would really like to work this one out but to do that I need to be able to go to the product page. If you don't want to share it publicly you could private-message me the link via the chat box. Also need to know if it was a referred sale or referrer=None.

[john]

https://www.zazzle.com/deadly_dangerous_plants_print_in_french-228521038618876289?mounting=frame&med...

[ColsCreations]

@john 

Thanks. If that is the link you clicked through to from your Royalty History, it shows they bought a 20" x 28" print on the standard matte paper, with a  'Black Modern Wood Frame 7/8" wide' which was an upgrade/User-Option of +$158 and the numbers shown in your screenshot are an exact match for them somehow getting 75% off the order. I wasn't keeping up with all the Christmas in July sales but don't recall seeing anything higher than 50% off so maybe this customer had a special promo code from Z for 75% off, I couldn't know. Anyways, I'll post a break-down tomorrow night.

[Mariholly]

@ColsCreations 75% discount!!?? That seems a bit exorbitant... I have never seen such a high discount and from what I have seen, it is not allowed to accumulate discounts. Hopefully you can figure out what math was used, but even if it's explained and the math is correct it still seems unfair to the designer. I'm curious how the math was applied in the case of a referral... I'd be curious if the designer's royalty was 0 and the promoter's was not...

[john]

The sale was not referred. The only people making money off the sale was zazzle.

[Mariholly]

Oh yes @john , I already read it. She was only thinking about general referral sales. One of my cases did get referred and I'm curious if that person received a royalty or not

[ColsCreations]

@Mariholly  @john 

I just posted a break-down here.

I have no way of knowing what happened with this sale or what promo code the customer used or how/why they got it to use, all I know is the cold hard math aligns with them having received a 75% discount.

As for what the referrer (if there is one) receives, there is nothing here (section 4) or here that mentions anything about User-Options reducing your pay-out, both just state a flat 15% of the purchase price. Combined with the fact that I have never seen anyone post questioning how much they earned on a referral, I am working on the assumption that referrers get 15% of the total purchase price regardless, that they are not affected by weird User-Option calculations. So in John's case, if the sale had been referred, they would have earned $7.35 as opposed to John's $0.00.

[john]

@ColsCreations Thank you so much for your time and help. I've been going through your other posts. A real education on zazzle.

[Mariholly]

@ColsCreations Thank you very much for your interest and dedication! It's really frustrating and unfair. At the moment, I am not going to design posters again. I have an In Loving Memory collection for deceased people and sometimes they are bought with the frame, I will not continue with it. I also usually do the version on a photographic plate and I will continue there. I can't stop him from being transferred, of course, but at least I won't continue working directly on something that goes against me.

[john]

It was not referred. 

[john]

I started selling on zazzle 10 years ago. I understand they nickle and dime us with the 20% 3rd party referrel fee and the 5% "transaction fee" for royalties I set over 15%. I started a new digital downloads store on zazzle last month. And for some reason zazzle ignored my royalty rate and set all the products at 94.135%. I wanted to promote the store as low cost downloads, but they cost more than my prints. I shut the store down, why waste my time! I am adding digital products to my existing shopify store. $0.00 on what should have been a $40.00 royalty has really soured me on zazzle. All these fees have added up to $1,000's over the years. Makes me reconsider if I want to continue to add more products?