Questions about collections

[CreativeLeahG]

1. Will Zazzle be choosing collections to appear as editors picks as they do currently with products?

2. For those of us who already have covers created for collections - some of those covers have disappeared. Will they 'reappear' or do we need to redo them?

This issue seems to be random presently, as some of my collections appear to have retained covers and others are absent.

3. Can we have a way that the page we are working on re collections doesn't keep defaulting back to the first page?

This is a time-consuming issue re trying to get back to the 'selections' we are working on.

4. In the case of invitations will there be a hierarchy in those collections with mixed items  (invite, seating chart, welcome signs etc) take priority over collections with 'mixed themes' of the same product type etc.

5. Will collections with products that have a great number of views and sales automatically show up higher in the marketplace as products do currently?

In essence can we can have an indication of the hierarchy of collections and how they will be favored by the 'system' to appear.

6. Currently collections with more than 24 products suffer the issue of the remaining products taking a long time to load and be visible. As such is it advisable to limit collections to 24 products?

Many thanks

[CreativeLeahG]

In addition:

Re the cross sell collections whereby you email the collection to the customer.

There is a potential issue here, one I and many others already encounter often in 'chat' in the customer will assume even more than they already do, that 'WE' and not 'Zazzle' receive their order, make and ship their order and as such are the 'reference point' for dealing with 'issues'.

Receiving an email 'from us' will solidify the belief we have indeed 'seen' their order.

Please can you add a note to the emails to confirm that the email is an automated response from Zazzle on our behalf and a reiteration that for all errors, orders and shipping queries they reach out to customer services and add a link.

[Scott]

I wouldn't be too concerned with unreleased features. Once they're unveiled you're welcome to provide feedback based on what you see.

[CreativeLeahG]

This has been released? I was testing it when I wrote this.

[CreativeLeahG]

In addition:

Currently our collection products show below our product on our product page (mostly, not always)

Will this view be removed with the 'media collection cover' update?

If the collections products view is removed, what will replace it? Other collections by other sellers that offer the 'same' product type?

Please advise.

Thank you.

[Scott]

We're testing this, so I don't know how things will look in the future.

[CreativeLeahG]

In addition:

On the collections page you can see that the 'most popular trending' collections are those created containing 'best selling' items by different sellers and those 'products' are connected to the collection creators' store. When you visit the 'curated' collections, it shows you (in some cases, not all) other 'collections' from the 'curators store'. Those 'other collections' are their own products in the main.

In the past I myself curated my own collections (with other sellers products) as an 'affiliate' so I could easily direct my readers to those products. And I often see via notifications my items added to other sellers collections. So there is not a suggestion here of any wrongdoing (if they're affiliates) this is merely an observation of how collections currently function. I don't think I have any curated collections presently nor do I plan to create any as since collections were started, there are generally enough now of each niche to not need to curate ones own (as an affiliate).

So based on the above, given the changes to how collections will shortly appear in the marketplace I am wondering if these curated collections (of best sellers items) will continue to 'dominate' ?

I think if that's the case, might it be better to remove the ability to curate collections with other seller's products that are linked to 'curators' own stores?

As affiliates may still need to curate their own collections, could 'curated collections of other sellers items' be 'without' a connected store? To ensure a level playing field when customers view those curated collections. As an affiliate there should be no need to have the 'curated collections' connected to the affiliates own store and I say this myself as an affiliate.

Reference: currently there are 384 'best seller collections'. That is just using this search phrase. There are of course many more curated collections .

[Scott]

I don't have much insight into what the plans are with that collections page you link to above. Focus has been on the Collections backend, and on product page testing. Additionally, we're probably keeping an eye on how Creators are updating their collections so that we can decide which areas we need to put attention into.

As far as adding other Creators' products into your own collection, I don't believe we're allowing this with all collection types, and I'm not too familiar with the plans moving forward. We've already made the team aware of the interest in continuing to add other Creators' products to your own collection.

[Scott]

1. I've never heard of an Editors' Pick for collections. So, not sure.
2. They should have migrated over. If they did not then please open a new discussion thread with examples.
3. What do you mean by "defaulting to the first page?"
4. I don't know what the future holds, sorry.
5. Don't know, but I'm sure that performance would be taken into consideration.
6. If there's an issue with load times can you start a new discussion thread about it? Max products is 300, and we only load small-ish chunks of products at a time. If you're seeing performance issues then we'll be happy to review that.

[CreativeLeahG]

@Scott 

Thank you Scott for your replies, I will add screenshots of the issues re 2. being encountered shortly. Though where the cover images have disappeared I can't add screenshots as I don't have the 'before' images only how they appear now minus their covers.

Re screenshots though to show that the 'tags' are all messed up. As with the issue re disappearing covers, I can't show you the 'before' screenshots?

The issue has arisen because we now need to add the "" around phrases for tags  (previously commas) so I think that has created the issue of removing all the phrases and leaving 'single words' instead and of course those single words may not have any relevance on their own. And there is no way for us to know which collections have been affected by this change. If that change could be reverted back so it is how it was previously with commas that separate phrases (I don't know if this is technically possible?) that will be an instant fix - assuming it is an 'undo' of that update not a 'new update' because obviously those broken tags will remain broken.

Also some ideas for 'sort' on the 'edit collections' pages.

I have 1250+ collections so knowing which ones require migrating is an issue as I can't find them - so a filter for 'needs attention (re more products requiring adding or covers etc) and needs migrating' would be super useful.

Also filters perhaps via the categories that are 'named' in the list of events and occasions Zazzle has provided for collections so we can quickly find them.

Re item 3. re the issue of the page we're on defaulting back to start'. We basically need a 'back' button that takes us back to where we were. As an example if I have done a search for 'rustic wedding sets' so I can work on those. I select one, work on it, then 'go back' to work on more and I find myself back at the start of all the collections and I have to run the search again. 

Re other designers adding our products to their collections, currently every type of product can be added to 'anyone's' curated collection. There are over 380 best-seller collections (just using that one phrase) but several thousand I suspect of other types of 'curated collection'. I believe this could be resolved by in our main profile settings (not individual stores) us having a menu item for us to be able to 'stop other accounts from adding our items to collections'.   Zazzle plans for collections may be greatly hindered if the algorithms highlight collections with best selling items 'highest' as those 'curated collections' created by designers other than the 'creators of those best sellers' will show up first in the marketplace. The creators of those 'curated collections' then have the advantage of their stores being linked to everyone elses best sellers and their own personal collections then being highlighted on the curated 'best sellers' collection pages. This could lead to abuse of the collection feature in the future, so this I feel requires attention BUT of course I am only guessing at how collections might 'rank' in the marketplace given this is an unknown presently. 

re editors picks for collections

There aren't any presently, but I am wondering if there will be when it goes live. If that's the case then as with the product editors picks, it means we won't get the exposure in the marketplace based on best sellers/sales and knowing this affects the decisions we make re our work flow. 

Re load times for collections - I will do a video re this. My laptop is a gaming laptop so it's pretty 'fast' as is my internet speed, but obviously feedback from other designers re how collections load for them would also be helpful so I will add that issue as you suggest to the 'technical' thread. based on how customers use the web for shopping, I don't think they'd hang around for the 2nd page load (beyond the first 24 or perhaps 48) but that is something Zazzle would know more about. Any insights re that would be super useful.

I'll add more to this shortly.

Thank you again for addressing these concerns. I think this will be an amazing feature.

[Scott]

Links to affected collections should be fine. Generally speaking, a link to the affected collection + a step-by-step listing of how I can reproduce the issue is more important than a screenshot.

With regards to the report about multi-word tags being separated, I don't know if the cause is due to commas vs quotes. We still allow you to form multi-word tags via quotes or commas. Engineering is aware of the issue.

Please submit ideas/suggestions separately. This forum will turn into absolute chaos if everyone is creating their own personal threads (especially if they contain bug reports AND suggestions). There's simply no way for us to keep track of whose discussion threads have been read and passed along. Please treat bug reporting and feedback submissions in the same way that you would any other feature.

[CreativeLeahG]

Thank you Scott

Re your comment:  "Please submit ideas/suggestions separately. This forum will turn into absolute chaos if everyone is creating their own personal threads ...... "

I didn't realise you already had 54 'personal threads' by other members. 😮

Perhaps let the community know that you don't wish any more 'personal threads'? 

And yes point taken re suggestions and tech reports. I appreciate you need to keep tabs on things. Thank you again for your feedback.

[CreativeLeahG]

Re

"Also some ideas for 'sort' on the 'edit collections' pages.

I have 1250+ collections so knowing which ones require migrating is an issue as I can't find them - so a filter for 'needs attention (re more products requiring adding or covers etc) and needs migrating' would be super useful.

Also filters perhaps via the categories that are 'named' in the list of
events and occasions Zazzle has provided for collections so we can quickly find them."

Super BIG giant thank you for the new filters they're amazing. Already I have been able to swiftly determine 1 inactive collection (now activated) 9 x collections that needed migrating (now migrated) and many many collections that need attention that I can now get started on!  Wonderful!!!! 👏

[Ingeinc]

The drag and drop needs to be changed back to send to front and send to back > <, right now you have to do each individual product which takes an immense time. I always have the seasonal products up front such as Christmas, Mother's Day etc. Before I could select all the Christmas / Holiday merchandise and send it to the bottom and the Valentine's products up front, very convenient. Please change the sorting back, thank you.