I don't know how to design a "winning" item

[ideelynncreatio]

Hello Creators.  I've been on Zazzle for 22 years and I still haven't gotten it still in the same place I was when I started.  The format 22 years ago was great, easy to use. Now I'm so confused and frustrated.  I do not know where to position something on a t-shirt. Used to place it automatically so it wasn't too high or too low.  Now I just guesstimate and had a few returns.

I decided to just create magnets for front doors in lieu of paper notes. These have been selling but nothing to brag about.  Pennies!  I tried my hand at Christmas shirts hoping a Church would buy bulk but sold a few.

I need to know what the trick is to create and have sales.  I love creating.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Perhaps take a look at my store and critique my designs.  Tell me what am I doing wrong.  Thank you all for reading this.

[Polenth]

You don't have many products, you don't put one design on many things (make things that match, try new product types), there are no themed collections to help people find related items, the products are mostly text but I didn't see any text templates, the picture elements you are using appear to be very small (upload them at the biggest size you have... resize them in the design tool) and the tags should relate to the design and not the product type.

Text templates are where I would start. It'll mean you can make items with names on them, which'd go with your text focus. Then start gathering them into collections.

[ideelynncreatio]

Hi thanks for replying.  I read what you said about making the clip art larger but when I do it says it will be blurred and I can't continue so it has to be small.  I see others have large clip art and question how they make it larger.  Also I know nothing about templates or what to do with them.  The tags should relate to design so I just made a baby bodysuit and inserted a round clip art where I typed GOD. So I deleted the "O" and resized the clip art of praying hands in a circle to match the size of the "G   D" but my tag should be about the praying hands?  I'm completely lost, frustrated and feel defeated. Everything you wrote I really appreciate and tomorrow  (which is today 1:43 a.m.) I will try to do a template but resizing clip art will be challenging and tags drive me nuts. That's why I just do words and magnets. May I look at your store and see what you do?  I hope to learn from you.  BTW, when I was typing my name it came out incorrectly and I can't find how to correct it.  It should read "ideelynncreations."

Goodnight.

[Barbara]

I searched Zazzle for template instructions, and this is the only thing I found: https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/226872427-Making-Your-Design-into-a-Photo-and-Text-Templat... It's a little too quick in its explanations, but maybe it will help.

I didn't watch the following videos, but there are probably good hints in them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnGtUEzwuBE

Clip art: Most clip art is small, too small to expand to fit larger surfaces such as posters, pillows, tote bags, etc. You can often get it to fit the really small things like magnets and business cards, but for larger products, you'll need larger images of, at a minimum, 1000 x 1000 pixels, but that's a minimum. Most designers use at least 3000 x 3000 pixels.

However, your very first job is to learn how to create text templates.

The only way to edit your name here on the forums is to request help from Zazzle.

Colorwash's Home

[ideelynncreatio]

Thank you so much for all this information. I guess I don't need to correct my name because it seems everyone can see my store. I will definitely watch the tutorials of creating templates. Also I think I will Google public domain clip art in the dimensions you suggested and see if that works. I must say Barbara your creations are absolutely stunning and you must be doing a booming business. I thank you so much really from the bottom of my heart. If you could please check up on my store every once in awhile and send me feedback I'd really appreciate that but I know that you are busy. Have a delicious Blessed Thanksgiving. 

[Barbara]

No, you don't need to correct your name. The forums are the only place your error will be seen.

Not only should you Google for the dimensions of clip art, but you should also do the same for Zazzle tutorials. There are loads of them, and if one doesn't explain well enough, you can watch another and another, and at some point you'll discover that you've learned a whole bunch of things.

Thanks for the compliment, though I must say that having good designs doesn't necessarily lead to lots of sales. Good titles and tags don't either. Sometimes it helps to have affiliates showing your work. Some of us have found Pinterest helps a bit. Just today, I had a self-referral from there, but it isn't a constant.

Wander through Zazzle's pages, looking at designs and at the the kinds of products people are putting out there. It's not to copy but, instead, it's to get inspired. Your goal is to create things people want to buy, so another place to look is at what's for sale in brick-and-mortar stores. What's on their mugs, their shirts, their greeting cards, and so forth?

Thanksgiving. Anything and everything but turkey. I hate turkey.

Colorwash's Home

[BKMuir]

"Thanksgiving. Anything and everything but turkey. I hate turkey."  ... My niece is cooking TG turkey and I got a special e-mail saying they would also have ham. (I guess my preferences have been noted.)

Here is MY ThanksGiving Turkey - His name is Kevin:

(First time I've used the Inser PHOTO icon on forum ... interesting.)

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

[Barbara]

Now that's a turkey I can approve of.

Same sentiment to all U.S.ers: Happy Thanksgiving.

(May turkeys live long and prosper.)

Colorwash's Home

[Carthage_Kitten]

I think this thread is a bit old now but in case anyone else is reading it and want to know about resizing images and keeping the resolution I thought I'd reply. There is an image editing program called GIMP that is free to download. You can scale images to size and adjust the DPI. I Scale all my images to 9000 pixels (longest dimension) by whatever the ratio length is for the second dimension. I also make it 300 DPI, although suspect it doesn't matter as the printer will set this, most likely. I then resize my image to fit the product. 

[KeegansCreation]

All of your Christian themed designs should have Christian, Christianity and religious as tags.

[ideelynncreatio]

Thank you so much for your suggestion. I will certainly try that maybe it will work for me. Everybody is so nice I really appreciate it and also I stopped pulling out my hair 😂🤣

[Windy]

Is 22 years a typo? Zazzle was created 17 years ago, the way I reckon it. 

[Barbara]

Not a typo. More likely a miscalculation.

[LMGildersleeve]

I would suggest doing a deep dive and reading everything in Zazzle's Help pages which is found at the bottom of any Zazzle page.

Elke Clarke also has free tutorials found on YouTube.

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[WHS_Designs]

if you're a Windows user, Microsoft's A Sharper Scaling is a freeware app that lets you upscale images. It can't enlarge a postage stamp sized image to a billboard sized one, but it can still do some pretty amazing things.

see this thread for the link:
https://community.zazzle.com/t5/general-zazzle-discussion/image-resizers-recommendation/m-p/30082#M4...

[Zoopi]

Hello!! I do not know much about making sales.. but I can give you a couple of suggestions on how to design the store. Not an expert, just someone who is trying to improve (to maybe make more sales)!

So, I've been reading and browsing and comparing and browsing again and watching some yt videos about zazzle stores.., most of the stores that catch my attention are well organized in terms of collections and categories. 

Some stores organize the collections by type of product (hats or front door magnets) and others organize by theme (blue flowers or cherry christmas - my latest design!). Get some paper and pencil and do some planning before jumping into organizing it. It helps. 

For each category, select your best product and use it as the store front. So, your best door magnet is the front face of your Magnets Everything category. Example only. If things are organized, people tend to feel more comfortable in looking for things... and then when people "enter" your store with the link that you share with friends or social media, they know how to find stuff.

I liked very much what @Polenth said earlier about templates. So, if you have to tackle two things, I would start with (1) organizing what you have and (2) expand what you have with templates. If you have sales in the Magnets Everything, create a couple with text templates and see how it goes. (You can add a "Baby (customizable name) is Sleeping. Don't wake her/him up" quote to your set ;-)).

Happy sales!!!!

[Angel]

@ ideelynncreatio 

Zazzle didn't exist 22 years ago. They started in 2005.

[chefcateringbiz]

No idea how long you've been at Zazzle, but if it's anywhere close to 20 years, I'm just gonna say it - you're not trying hard enough. I was shocked to see how few products/designs you've posted for that many years. Imagine going into a store that's been open for 20 years and half the shelves are empty. I personally suck at technology and I suck at marketing, but being afraid to hit buttons in the design area - these tools just have to be figured out, plain and simple. Just take a couple of dummy designs and click-click-click the heck out of things to find out what happens when you do; you don't have to keep anything, and you can delete all your mistakes, but you will LEARN. Also, more decorative design elements in your designs could be helpful. People are used to elaborate text designs now, and just a statement on a blank white surface just won't cut it anymore. For myself, I'm going to open up a mostly-text niche store soon, and I have to learn how to do the same thing because I've just never been trendy. Just google "word art" or "text posters" and start looking at some more possibilities.