Questions for people displaying Zazzle Products on their website using RSS or other methods.

[J32Design]

Hi everyone,

I am currently working on a WordPress plugin for my website which allows me to fetch product data via Zazzle's RSS feed and then post it as a product to my website, displaying the product in categories and on product pages. I have to say that I am not a programmer by any means. I dabbled a bit here and there in the past, but for this plugin I decided to use ChatGPT to help me get what I want.

I am making great strides. I have a search function in the backend of my website to enter a search term, the plugin then displays the results and I can choose which products I want to post by clicking on a post button. The plugin is also looking at whether the product already exists on my site and updates the data, which will be helpful when the product price is changing.

So far I am displaying the product image that the feed offers me. However, it appears via the RSS feed I can only get the main product image. I would like to get and display the other product images as well. Is there a way to do this?

[MOM]

@J32Design  I would not know the answer to your question as I my self am a "user of scripts", not a programmer. I'm replying here mostly so I can follow the conversation which very much interests me. And as a "user of scripts" I'm using Mark Highton Ridley's excellent plugin (https://niftytoolz.com/) which you can see in action on my site at https://sanfrancisco.zone/yin_yang_tree_of_life_symbol_customizable_soy_wax_mini_candle_favors/ (to give you an example of a product page on my own site). Mark's plugin only displays the main product image (I believe).

However I'm also signed up with Snuggle Hamster Designs (https://snugglehamster.com/). This is not Wordpress based but Jim of SHD shows more images (see as an example at https://snugglehamster.com/a/mom/p/sleek-modern-laser-engraved-employee-of-the-month) but again Jim's site is not Wordpress based.

I wish you much success!!

[JimCarnicelli]

Thanks for the shout out @MOM. @J32Design: please do consider joining us at Snuggle Hamster Designs. It's free promotion for your products. Plus free sales reports. And we have some premium services you might want to consider subscribing for if you'd like to help support us. Cheers.

[TulsaTees]

Hi, Jim,  I chanced across this thread while looking for info on integrating Zazzle store products onto a Wordpress page at the host provider where I have my domain.  I just checked out SHD and it looks like a good place for mirroring stores, with the option of some good marketing tools.  Sorry to see the news about the price hike this month. 😟  But I am wondering: what is the difference between a "store" and an "agency"?  Your price increase notice only refers to "basic agencies" getting the increase.

[JimCarnicelli]

Thanks for the question TulsaTees. Let me first clarify that we didn't have a price increase per se. We changed the "Basic" tier of service from free indefinitely to free for 30 days and then $5 per month. The math just wasn't working out for maintenance costs.

However. We have thrown in a couple of Premium features to the Basic tier as well. For one, everyone gets to keep their referral bonuses now. We're not attaching our affiliate code to product links anymore. Second, our cutouts are now available at the Basic tier too.

To specifically answer your question, let me summarize 3 essential terms for us. There are users, which are people like you. There are agencies. Zazzle doesn't distinguish between the two. But think of an agency as being like you as a business. And some Zazzlers have one or more people working with them and sharing an account even. That's an agency to us. So is just one person's Zazzle venture. Then there are stores. Those are one-to-one the same idea as Zazzle's stores. So a user can be part of multiple agencies and an agency can have multiple stores. Does that make more sense?

From a subscription perspective, we charge fees for an agency, not a store. And not for a user. Which means if you've got two or more people working together in one agency and maybe sharing a Zazzle account, they can have their own separate user accounts but still only pay one subscription fee for only the agency, not the two users. And that subscription fee is good for all the stores owned by that agency.

Hopefully this clears up the confusion. Bottom line is we wanted to make SHD be a little more flexible to deal with different Zazzle business types. And also make it so pricing seemed maximally fair and simple to understand. Cheers.

[TulsaTees]

Jim, thank you for the thorough description.

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, if I take out a Basic tier subscription and add my TulsaTees store, I am have an agency subscription with 1 store.  If I then add my Bears in Art store, I am an agency with 2 stores.

Great news on the referral bonuses.  I didn't catch that on my SHD visit.

And, sorry: what's a cutout?

[WHS_Designs]

@TulsaTees a cutout is a clipping mask that removes the background from a product. this is especially useful when you are creating cover photos for your designs, because you can take the isolated product and plop it into the foreground of your cover photo.

[TulsaTees]

MOM, thank you for the link to your site's product page where you've got Niftytoolz in action.  Is Niftytoolz a single plugin, or are there multiple options?  I'm heading to Mark's site to take a look.

Also... Your product images note that they are "AI simulations" and not the actual Zazzle product.  Having your own product images to supplement Zazzle's standard images is always a marketing plus.  However, I've previously wasted time trying to find free stock images that resemble Zazzle products, and then wasted more time Photoshopping my design into them.  Did you actually find an AI generator that incorporates your design??  I'm subscribed to Midjourney, but it has seemed too "artsy" to make good product-type images.

[Teesed]

I used to use the Zazzle feed and another POD's feed extensively. I'm just getting back to messing with the Zazzle feed and it doesn't look like it's been updated since I first used it. I haven't found any way to pull an individual product or design's information - just what comes in from the general search that can be filtered to product type, etc.   All of that just shows the large and small thumbnail and basic information. It's missing the other thumbnails, variations, etc. that would be ideal to show an individual product page like I used to have. I've reached out to Zazzle yesterday and I'll keep looking, but I don't think it's available through a feed. As far as I can tell, you'd need to scrape the product page for that information, which is often a lot of coding that gets thrown out the window when they revise product pages. 

[J32Design]

I have been playing around with the feed probably as long as it has been on offer as well. I don't think it has every been updated.

I get individual items on the feed by using the product id as the search term. For example https://feed.zazzle.com/feed?qs=256187061141741901

I figured that I would probably have to scrape the page for additional images and other information not provided by the feed, but I hoped that there is something I am missing. Thanks for your reply! It is very much appreciated.

[Teesed]

That is super helpful and a clever way to get that. That helps me a lot as I build out this site initially. That will get me a basic product page while I build out the ability to scrape and save the data. Thank you!