Posting similar products vs transferring — good or bad idea?

[JoyfulJen]

What do you recommend? — Is it better to create lots of products with the same design or to trust that users know how to use the “transfer this design” feature? I have a vague memory from a webinar a few years ago that Zazzle will penalize you for “cluttering up” the marketplace with repetitive or nearly repetitive products, but other common advice says to create many products to maximize your chances of being found. What has your experience been?

For example, is it better to create one t-shirt and trust that people can transfer from there, or to create a white t-shirt, black t-shirt, tank top, long-sleeve, v-neck, sweatshirt, etc., all separately? Likewise with all the various sizes of greeting cards, models of phone cases, types of wall art, etc. Do you know which way is better or worse in terms of Zazzle rankings and SEO in general? What’s worked best for you?

Thank you!

[LisaMG]

Don't have an answer but great question! Hope someone answers it. 😊

[chefcateringbiz]

I have a fairy limited range of products I sell, and they're pretty much all different shapes - a square, a skinny and a fat rectangle, a circle, so I make sure those shapes are designed properly and displayed, so I'm at least covered on my end.

[JoyfulJen]

That makes sense, especially when the shapes are different enough to need that fine-tuning. Thank you for your input!

[Connie · Accepted solution]

Personally, I don't like my store cluttered up with a lot of similar products, so I make, say, one t-shirt, and let customers transfer to different styles. With phone cases I try to have a couple different versions. But neither of those products sell that much for me, so it's not worth the time to make a lot of them. If they are your primary products, it might be worth it for you to have a variety of styles for your customers to choose from, so they don't have to transfer.

As far as Zazzle not liking the marketplace flooded with repetitive products, that is true. But you can change up the titles and tags to make them different, and add different cover photos for variety, and I don't think they will penalize you.

[JoyfulJen]

That all definitely makes sense. I agree with you on not cluttering up the storefront visually, especially if it's not your top-selling product type. I appreciate your input on the way Zazzle's marketplace sees different postings too — it helps to have that confirmed by another voice.

It sounds like what I've been doing is on track with the advice I've gotten here, so I think I'll keep that up and not worry about pre-making every configuration of phone case and shirt type for every design. That takes a lot of pressure off. Thank you so much for your reply!