Collection Types

[Beautiful]

Hello All!

I need Help understanding the New Collection Types. I'm a little confused about them. So any Help I could get would be Greatly Appreciated! 

I think that I have to completely overhaul all of my Collections with this New Collection Type system. But I'm not sure how to do it. Which of the following should a Collection be???

An example of a Collection should be:  example- 1) "Necklaces" OR should it be 2) "Bird Necklaces" OR should it be 3) "Cardinal Bird Necklaces." 

And do we still have to have at least 10 items in each Collection???

Thank You for Your Help!

[rebeccaheartsny]

I'll also add that I hate the idea of "mandatory" products in a collection. If I choose "cross-sell/event suite" for my party collections, it says a greeting card is mandatory. Why? I could see the logic behind a mandatory invitation, perhaps, but I have collections for things like dinner parties -- are people really giving all of their guests a greeting card? So weird.

Add to that that not everyone designs every product. I have some greeting cards but they're not something that sells well for me, so I don't spend a lot of time on them. Do I now have to go back and design a bunch of "mandatory" products just to make my collections visible?

I'd rather see more flexibility within the collection. Or, just give the "other" collection type the same status as all of the rest, for those of us whose existing collections (or products) don't fit within these specific niches.

[PenguinPower]

I don't think there's any logic behind ANY mandatory items... I have collections that I would certainly call "event suites" - like a couple of collections I have for Pride month - not something for which either a greeting card or invitation is all that likely to be purchased...  Geeze, give the designers some credit for knowing what audience they are after... 

[rebeccaheartsny]

Oh I agree, I don't think any items should be mandatory. But at least there would be some logic behind invitations in an event collection...I have no idea why they'd decide that the one mandatory item is a greeting card. Are there really that many events where people are buying a matching greeting card to coordinate with the plates and napkins? I don't think I've ever done that in my life.

[DIANA]

@rebeccaheartsny  I haven't come across anywhere that says a product is mandatory.  In the cross-sell section all of the products they show are recommendations--they are not mandatory.  You do need to have at least four of the recommended products to get the green on all three channels--they need to be four different products, for instance, if you have more than one style of invitation that counts as one product.  Are you choosing the type of party when choosing "cross sell/event"?  If you have a collection for a "dinner party" try choosing other as the type of event.  This is not the "OTHER" that excludes you from promotions.  I believe it is the "type" column on the first collections page that you don't want to say 'other'.  If you choose "other" for the type of party, the "type" column says 'cross sell/event suite' and there a no recommended products at all.  Your products just show up as the normally do  and all three channels turn green as long as you have four different products in your collection.  I have been trying to make sense out of all this stuff for the last couple of days myself.  I hope this helps.

[rebeccaheartsny]

Thanks. I've actually given up and decided not to do anything with the collections until they're more user-friendly, but at least in my end, I do have products which say "required."

[dizzydebbie]

I'm really frustrated Zazzle has come up with a new way to make our life's harder, I'd much rather be creating products than worrying about whether my collections will be seen in the MP.

[TAngelone]

Zazzle Moderators really need to read these threads and see how frustrated and aggravated designers/creators are. It squelches our creativity when more is added to our existing workloads just to be visible in the Zazzle marketplace alone. Furthermore this "OTHER - NO CLEAR INTENT" type couldn't be further from the truth. Most of what I hope to sell in my shop would be classified or labelled as other. Yet when you see my art, logos, poetry the intent and the purpose of them is quite obvious and very clear. Yet there are no categories or types listed with in the collections tool that accurately or appropriately describe my designs or the products they were intentionally designed for. Most designers are quite aware of what product suites are and the importance of them from a marketing and branding standpoint. Zazzle really needs to consider adding: Awareness, Art and Fashion *(I myself design for women's fashion and gifts),  Poetry *(I myself write original rhyming socially and politically conscious poetry that works in tandem with some of my logos and will be featured in a few product lines). There are no categories or types for any of the aforementioned with in the collections design tool. I am NOT posting this to be critical of Zazzle. However the workload for designers and creatives is heavy enough. We have to write product descriptions, compile tag lists, create mockups for products and collections, create collections banners etc. This has proven to be very daunting and time consuming when one has hundreds or even thousands of products that need to be organised into collections that are cohesive and curated. Collections are buggy and infuriating as it is. Please do read and know that what's been stated with in these threads is NOT meant to be a personal attack on Zazzle. Thanks for listening and reading our threads. Will keep my posts shorter and more succinct going forward. 

[TAngelone]

Let me just add to what I stated by suggesting that there be a feature that will encompass a wider and broader range of types or categories as it were. Someone suggested that instead of OTHER perhaps a more appropriate type might be "FOR ANYONE". Niching everything down to baby showers, weddings and the like  is just making the process of creating cohesive and curated collections next to impossible. Not all of Zazzle's designers/creators design for the same products, occasions, seasons, themes, niches what have you. You obviously get what I am saying. My store is multi niche. I myself have now been forced to halt creating collections because I DO NOT have the time or desire to try this new collections feature out. Again know your designers and what their needs are. Also please give us more detailed and less surface information about these new features. Please include step by step instructions on how to actually use these features. Collections can and will determine the success or failure of a Zazzle storefront. Thanks. 

[savanamm]

I don't even know how to create a new collection.... can somebody help? 🙂

[SpiralGiftsPlus]

Are you on laptop/desktop or a phone? Are you having trouble finding the Create Collection button or where are you getting stuck? 

[Margielyn]

I am in the same situation, Is am just looking in community so far! Hope we get this all figured out! Good luck! 

[TShirtfort]

I just looked at one of my existing collections. It's all about hobbies and that would seem to be a strong theme IMO, but zazzle just wants to sort it into a generic other category because it's not specifically about 1 specific holiday or weddings. Nothing against anyone who does wedding stuff but's it's an oversaturated market IMO and designing for them just doesn't excite me. It's frustrating that Zazzle now values those type of designers so much more than everyone else. So how do you optimize those collections that are around themes like cats, paintings, travel, or funny t-shirts? 

[Barbara]

I know it feels as if those of us who don't do weddings are being shunted aside, but I'm not so sure that's what it is. I imagine the wedding category is a great seller for them and so it's natural for them to focus on it first. What they said concerning the Other category was, unfortunately, insulting, but I can't imagine they meant to tell us to go to hell. This is a big project, and I truly believe that everyone's feedback, including the fact so many of us are stunned with Other, will bring their attention to the huge variety that sits in their coffers. In a few posts after getting over severe disgruntlement, I said I'm going to wait it out, relax a bit while doing other things.

It'll turn out all right.

Colorwash's Home

[SpiralGiftsPlus]

I'm working on a few collections. I list a lot of LGBTQ Pride items. I had already split into type of flag (rainbow, progress pride, etc.) plus some others like "Faith and Pride", Ally, Old-School. But several different types of products: buttons, magnets, stickers, tees, garden and big flags. 

So far I am using "Similar Style/Themes" and put one design in "xxx - Buttons and Smaller Items". Another for "xxx - Tees and Such".

I have no idea if this will work. Also whether to keep the plain flag and the "ally" flag in one collection. 

[DIANA]

O.K.--it's the middle of the night, I'm tired and I need to go to bed but I think I just had an epiphany.  I've been trying to unravel this collections thing for a few days now.  I believe the "other" that will exclude you from promotions is the "other" under the "type" heading on our first collections page.  If you choose "other" as the type of event/occasion then choose cross-sell all your products are there as usual with no recommendations.  As long as you have four different products all three channels are green and you are good to go.  Now I can put my recipe organizer/apron collection under cross-sell legitimately.  The "type" on my first page says "cross-sell"  not "other".  So couldn't any collection that had different products with the same design be done the same way?  If someone really liked my phone case design maybe they also want a matching notebook or iPad cover, etc.  Does this make sense or do I need to get some sleep?

[Anette_K]

Something that's bothering me is that you have to chose an age category for birthdays, but not all birthday designs/collections are created for a specific age category in mind and fits all!

[Barbara]

I've been musing over all this collection business, wondering what Zazzle is up to, and then a thought hit me, so I went to Zazzle's home page to take a look. It's mostly about general events and gifts. Some days more so, some days a little less, but it seems their main focus. Thus, those of us who do specific businesses, hobbies, etc. along with common folk events like backyard BBQs, craft affairs, class/family reunions, and so on are perhaps not easy for them to feature. Therefore, we fall into the Other category that contains all those collections they'd never have on their front pages regardless of the contortions we might go through. That's fine, it's the theme Zazzle runs on. They want those designers who work within the favored arenas to create snazzy collections they can then use for their displays.

All the above said, the rest of us create in areas that buyers nevertheless want. I hope Zazzle sees this and doesn't destroy our collections. I also hope the rest of us don't tie ourselves in knots that could contribute to making a mess of our collections.

Colorwash's Home

[Scott]

A few thoughts on the comments appearing above:

Having spent a lot of time working on this feature myself, I understand that there's a lot to take in. Please stick with us on this one. The basics are all there, and with some time I am confident that you’ll get the hang of things. But this is a major refresh and it’s probably going to take a bit more time to really understand. It’s always difficult to understand “the why” when all you have is the backend and a bunch of new settings. This will change very soon.

As for changes, I’d look at it this way: we’re providing you with some additional structure and guidance so that you can create more successful collections. This is why Weddings is built out as it is. We'll be doing this in other areas, too. We started with Weddings because you have to start somewhere. Now, this doesn’t mean you should immediately delete your collections which focus on one design being added to many product types. We’ll have more guidance for those soon. 

Tomorrow is August 1^st. There’s just a few months until the holidays hit. We’re rolling this new feature out now so that you can start to get the hang of things. As we start to test the customer-facing features you’ll gain a greater understanding for the ins and outs of this new system.

We have received some bug reports about multi word tags all becoming separated. We’re researching.

Hope this helps.