🤣 It will take me Two years FT to optimize my Collections - Please Share Your Workflow Tips Here!

[CreativeLeahG]

A 'bit of work' from our end was a comment I noted when the collections feature was announced.🤣

The Collections feature that I LOVE by the way! Hence I am up for the challenge. 

I have just calculated how much of a 'bit' this task will take for me to do all that is required for 1300 collections.

It takes me 4hrs+ per collection (sometimes more) to create 10 media images, rewrite the tags (as they're now defaulted to single words) optimize the descriptions, edit the email that goes to customers, reorder the products and add a banner, then promote across my various platforms. So yes a little bit longer due to adding in the marketing side of things.

As such I have calculated will take no less than TWO YEARS working 8hrs a day, 7 days a week to complete this 'bit of work'.

Presently I'm only getting through 2 collections a day (over 8hrs plus) so not getting collections done daily at the moment. So at this rate we could be looking at 'retirement' before I get them all done!! 🤣😭

I think I'll have to just be happy optimizing a few!! 🤣 Where to start though?

• Best sellers
• Seasonal items 
• New Products

Seems like a good starting point.

I have created a Google spreadsheet to help me organize this workload and stay on top of it as I feel going through it all 'systematically' step by step is the best way given all the different steps we need to take. If anyone wants a copy of it I'll see if I can create one for sharing. I've never shared a Google spreadsheet before but I assume it's straightforward.

If anyone has more tips on how to manage this workflow, drop them here!

💃

Zazzle Suggestions to aid with this ginormous task

*Please can we have the email message that goes to customers so we create 'one' email that is added by default to ALL our collections and we can 'edit' it if we need to for individual collections.

*Please can we have a generic 'profile banner' option that adds to all collections unless we choose to edit in a collection specific one.

* Please can you remove the thing that stops us from changing the store or adding products (in some cases this happens) to collections meaning we need to start over with a new collection.

Many thanks! 

[KeegansCreation]

1) I don't know how collection covers affect MP placement. But what I have observed is that the greatest visual impact of collection covers is when the collection has required products. Collections with required products have the collection cover in a very large size directly below the product image on the product page. It really stands out. So if you are looking for where the collection covers make the most difference, look for your collections which have required products.

2)I don't see evidence that products without covers are being pushed out and they definitely aren't mandatory. There are Editor's Picks without covers. When covers were first introduced it absolutely gave a boost in MP placement to have them. But now it's not so clear. If you look at category landing pages you will absolutely see many (but not all) products on the first page have covers. But is this because having covers elevated those products or is it because designers prioritized putting covers on their hottest products? Unknown.

When it comes to Google, "unique content" seems to be what that algorithm prioritizes. That may be why Zazzle pushed so hard on making covers. It makes the Zazzle website read as having more unique content than it previously had. Of course the wide variety of designs are themselves unique but having them be in the exact same mockups (or 3 or 4 mockups per product) may have been seen as too samey-same by Google. Algorithms are trade secrets so it's hard to know for sure.

I've sold products with cover photos and without cover photos and from collections with and without cover photos so I have no personal proof. For proof, you need A/B testing. I haven't done that but I assume Zazzle has. They wouldn't push so incredibly hard for covers unless they had data to show it helped sales. Covers take an enormous amount of work on our end but completely re-doing collections also took a lot of work on their end so I am having faith that this was data driven.

I see no reason to think paid placement will happen on Zazzle. That would tilt the MP in a way that would not necessarily be in Zazzle's favor (except for the placement $$, that would be in their favor). Yes, Editor's Picks are chosen by a metric we don't know about. But whatever the metric, there is clearly intentionality behind it that is meant to promote an aesthetic on each landing page. You throw all that away if you make placement paid. You also make the landing pages static instead of algorithmically shifted around to keep customer interest. Editor's Picks aren't forever placement. They come and go. I've had products that were picked for a while and then they weren't. But if front page placement turns into more or less a subscription, Zazzle's aesthetic control disappears. So I highly doubt that will happen.

I also put paid placement in a be-careful-what-you-wish-for category. You say that paid placement would give you a fighting chance but what if it actually took away whatever chance you had? You are gambling that you are more willing/able to spend money on that but you could easily find that you are effortlessly outspent by other designers (some of whom are large companies like Disney and Marvel) and now have no chance at all.

[cutencomfy]

Wow thanks Keegans for that amazing response!

Great point about the collections with required products having the larger image. Someone had also mentioned that when the collection has a cover image, that cover image may be securing an additional spot in the marketplace (but I have not seen this myself).

Unfortunately when the covers rolled out, creating them was not on the top of my life list so maybe I just “missed the boat” there. 

I’d love to be a fly on the wall in a zazzle meeting to know anything going on there. Is any of this working financially? I’d imagine the favored creators (and those who work directly for zazzle- if there are any), must be making 5-figures a month, while zazzle veterans are dropping out and heading back to full time jobs. Maybe it was planned that way…? I’m just not a fan of the “supercharge your income” talk if that’s literally untested and near impossible. Our time is valuable.

I totally agree on paid placement and I hate how Etsy & Amazon do it, but I also feel sometimes we don’t have a fighting chance competing against the editors & creators who are included in the zazzle “feed”.

[TShirtfort]

Ok so i'm ready to add more designs to one collection. I  choose gift theme because iot's a bunch of fun eclectic designs on a theme per usual and click the migrate button. Then I go to add stuff and I can't find it. So i guess I will have to make a new one to clutter stuff up further. Can we just have a process streamlined for once? Zazzle shop keepers, we are creative people. We want to be designing. We are not influencers, we don't have a studio setup and access to physical versions of all our designs, we don't do video, we don't do programming if we did that would be our job. We want to be creating and not so burned out from hoops we can't think of new ideas. Adding stuff to an already created collection should be easy. We are technical yes but the programs we know are photoshop, illustrator, affinity not Java. That's what you drink. Also half the shirts in the collection didn't even have the art on them?