I just did a search on calendars. Turns out 2023 calendars are trendy on Zazzle. Speechless ...   ... View more

I have been keeping a blog for a few years, but the posts were never regular. However, I decided to work earnestly at it in June of this year - and since then I have been creating a new post every day. My posts would be on a variety of subjects, all chosen because I could use products from Zazzle to illustrate each subject. Using the clever Affiliate Helper Tool I would be able to paste around 40 product images with links into each article. I would normally then spread them evenly throughout the text. Having devoted so much time on the blog I decided to look at Google Search Console to see how I was performing.   At the beginning of August I had 40 pages Not Indexed, and 30 pages that were Indexed. To my horror, yesterday I found that I had 115 pages Not Indexed, and only 7 Indexed! Therefore previous pages that HAD been indexed have now been removed from the indexing! Yesterday I ran all this information through ChatGPT. I also Showed ChatGPT the HTML of several pages, asking it to evaluate and explain the problem. It advised me that the most likely reason was that I had too many affiliate links - even though they have “No Follow” built into them. So I have now been working hard going through each article and removing the Zazzle affiliate links. Instead, I have created another blog to run alongside, with indexing turned off from search engines, and I am using this to create Gallery pages - each devoted to a subject allied to each article in my main blog.  I decorate the old blog pages with product images still, (but only 2 or 3). These images and their captions link to the new Gallery pages, each with rel:NoFollow instructions. (I ran this theory through ChatGPT first and  was advised that it was "a smart strategy".  Of course it will take time for Google to reconsider the blog pages and hopefully index them again, and to help them speed things up I am creating a “Summary page” at the end of each month that contains descriptions and links to all the posts from that month. (ChatGPT easily writes the HTML for this - I simple give it the post links from a spreadsheet I compile.) Then I submit the Summary page to Google for review, knowing that it will follow all the links contained therein. Here’s the Summary page I have done for August. It is simply text only to feed the links to Google easily.  ... View more

I published this post on Aug 6 but never shared it. Below is an exact copy/paste of the blog post. What I failed to mention in the post is that this explains (I think) why there is an Excessive Royalty Fee. When you look at the numbers below you'll see it helps them claw-back a little of what they're losing as total share of the sale at higher royalty. _________________________________________________________________________________ I like to dig into the math behind our earnings on Zazzle because to me it's a puzzle-solving activity that's oddly enjoyable, and sometimes it reveals interesting/important things as it did with the User Options situation for example. For Designers who are in this as a business and dependent on their Zazzle earnings income, it is vital to understand how the math works so you can set an appropriate Royalty that works for you after it all shakes out and you are looking at your Net earnings. There are five different ways earnings on a sale of your own products can be calculated: 1) None = there was no referrer, so no one is earning a referral on it, not even Zazzle 2) Cross-Promo = you used an RF# link so earned 15% as Referrer in addition to your Royalty 3) Self-Promo = you used a "clean" link so earned a total of 35-50% of the order total 4) 3rd Party - Other = the sale was Referred but you were not the Referrer 5) 3rd Party - Zazzle = the sale was Referred but you were not the Referrer For #4 and #5, your earnings are exactly the same. In both cases the Marketing Royalty Fee for a referred sale is applied but since you weren't the Referrer, you're not earning any of it back. For Zazzle though it does make a difference as if it's Other, they have to pay out a Referral commission to someone else. Zazzle doesn't make any distinction between themself and Other on any of our earnings reports and that is a very sore point that needs to change. So while technically there are only four sale types (None, Cross, Self, or 3rd), distinguishing between Zazzle as 3rd or Other as 3rd is important when looking at the big picture. So let's look at that "big picture" ... There is a "base price" for every product which includes the minimum 5% Royalty a Designer can set. For example, if you look at the CYO blank for a 16x16 throw pillow, the list price is $33.45. If you add a design and publish and set 5% as your Royalty, it's still $33.45. I have never tried to figure out the formula Zazzle uses to determine the product price after you set your royalty % but always assumed it was, uhm, "linear". (I don't know the proper math term for this.) I just figured that whatever percent of the total sale Zazzle was making, it would stay the same as the royalty (and thus cost to end customer) increased. But I've just recently discovered this is not the case. As you increase your Royalty, Zazzle's % share of the total sale amount decreases. This is mind-boggling to me. But the math doesn't lie. I've looked at this under various circumstances and can see that an increase in Royalty can lead to a significant increase in earnings to you as the Designer while costing only slightly more to the customer and decreasing the % Zazzle makes on the sale. Now I'm going to move on to some actual examples of real-world numbers. Since wedding invites are the bread & butter of many successful designers, I looked at that first. I went to Zazzle's Best Sellers page, sorted to All-Time, and then picked the first wedding invite to show up, which happened to be a flat 5x7 at 10% royalty. 10% is also the number many set to "stay competitive" so I used 10% royalty in my comparison to a higher one. The following screenshot shows a flat 5x7 invite at the current 20% off discount, set to 10% royalty vs 23.8% royalty, with the Marketing Royalty Fee in both cases being the 50% bracket as applied to wedding stationery, and they ordered 50 invites. (Full image Here.) At 10% Royalty, the total the customer pays is $100. At 23.8% Royalty, the total the customer pays is $118. (Only $0.36 more per invite to customer) The percents I've shown under the sale types are the percent of total order cost the customer paid to Zazzle ($100 vs $118). Here it is in pie chart form where we can visualize it better: (Full image Here) Look at the None sale here, it's the most striking difference. Upping your Royalty to 23.8% earns you $16.68 more (a 166.8% increase in profits!) while Zazzle only earns $1.32 more (a measly 1.47% increase) and their percent of the total sale has decreased from 90% to 77.4% whereas yours has increased from 10% to 22.6%! If you look at all five sale types your earnings increase significantly across the board even with a 3rd Party sale where they still more than double. Your percent share of the total sale also increases across the board, except for the Self-Promo sale where it dips slightly due to the Excess Royalty Fee applied. But even with that fee you're still earning $7.60/15.2% MORE. And this increase to Royalty that significantly increases your earnings as well as shifting the % split between you and Zazzle in your favor, it only costs the customer $0.36 per invite which is peanuts in the wedding market where people who want what they want aren't going to blink at that $18 dollars in their overall wedding budget. Now lets look at another product example where the customer is only going to be ordering one instead of in bulk. Here I've used an over-sized greeting card (18x24) I have set to 22% royalty. (Full image Here) I am not providing pie charts here for visuals but you can see the same math happens as with the bulk invite sale; with the increase in Royalty %, your earnings and total percent of sale significantly increase over Zazzle's. In this case, Designer earnings on a None sale increase by $3.82 while Zazzle's only increase by $0.34. And while your share of the total sale more than doubles from 10% to 21%, Zazzle's decreases from 90% to 79%. And again, you can see this play out on all five sales types, except the Self-Promo type where our total share decreases a bit due to the Excess Royalty Fee even though our total earnings in dollars increase. This over-sized card example is for a one-off occasion where, IMO, a few cents or even a few dollars, isn't going to stop the customer from making the order. This card has sold for me multiple times at 22%, and the smaller version (8.5x11) has sold multiple times at 32.5% royalty. This is not a humble-brag. I am just trying to stress the point that a Royalty over the "suggested" 10% can make a significant difference to your earnings while having minimal impact on the customer. And it also, quite surprisingly to me, shifts the % of total sale earned. When the Ambassador Program was first announced, Zazzle used a 10% Royalty in many of their example calculations. And if you look at this page, they suggest just 5-10% as royalty which is pathetically low. I had always assumed that higher royalties would benefit both Designer and Zazzle so why wouldn't they want people to increase it? But I can see now that that is not true; the higher the royalty the more the total earnings shift in favor of the Designer instead of Zazzle. So it makes sense to me now why Zazzle recommends staying low - because despite the small increase in gross sales, it actually results in a smaller share for Zazzle where their revenue is not increasing at the same rate the Designer's is. Zazzle mentions in the above linked article being "competitive" as a reason to stay at 5-10%, and this is a concern I've seen raised by many Designers. But what's "competitive" is determined by what's in the MP. If people collectively raise their rates, than that higher rate becomes the "competitive" rate ... It's all relative, one big circle, and the change starts with you. August 6th, 2025 ~ Col's Creations ... View more

Hi Creators, We're excited to share that we've launched an updated design experience that's currently in A/B testing! This represents a significant evolution in how design works on Zazzle, moving toward a unified tool that serves both creators and customers. What's Live Now?: Our design tool experience is being tested, meaning users will see either the current experience or one of three new variants. This tool builds on the features you've been using including frames, grids, design elements, and our royalty-free content library, but is optimized to make design more accessible to customers who may not have your level of design expertise. Your existing post-for-sale flow remains accessible and we intend to improve those workflows as part of the next phase.  Here's a quick demo from Sean walking through the experience: Why This Matters for You: Since this A/B test exposes templates to a new design interface, you may notice that some existing designs work differently in this customer-focused environment.  As an example, to create a smoother customer journey, we’ve improved how “locking” works for layers. Previously , when you locked an object, customers could not unlock the object which caused usability issues when they wanted to make changes. With the new update, both you and your customers can unlock a locked layer. Note, if you originally had a a locked layer, the "disabled" setting is automatically turned on with the update. We’ve added a new toggle called “Disable All Object Interaction” which is located in the “More options” section in the right-hand panel. When enabled, it prevents users from interacting with the layer, and customers cannot change this setting.  Additionally, we’re using the locking feature to automatically hide certain layers, such as large transparent overlays, shields, or borders, that might otherwise interfere with customers trying to upload photos or edit text. After the test concludes, we'll be sharing tips and best practices to help your templates shine in this new experience to maximize customer engagement and conversion.  Looking ahead, this optimized experience is the first step toward a cohesive design tool for everyone on Zazzle, designed to add ease for customers and positively increase conversion to benefit creators. We welcome your thoughts and feedback as you see this experience in action, as your insights help us build better tools for the entire Zazzle community. The team will be reviewing this thread so please weigh in as you’d like.  Thanks for being part of this journey,  The Zazzle Team ... View more

Hi there, If I start a Home decor collection for spring time, which categorie is it? Expression - getting togehter or others -everyday events. Thanks for helping Holmer     ... View more

Do you have sales these days or is your store "frozen"? 🤔 ... View more

Hi Creators, Here's a dedicated thread to leave us feedback about the new feature we just launched, frames! Check out our recent article to learn all about it: https://community.zazzle.com/t5/creator-news/new-feature-alert-frames/ba-p/206434 Thank you! Team Creator  ... View more

I ordered for a friend of mine, she does not purchase online but this was a special gift.  This is the only thing that has shown up on my earnings page. From the first order that I then canceled to double check something.   2 throw pillows (however not the additional lumbar pillow)   this was about 24 hours ago.  The second order has not shown up in my earnings.  Thankfully the order shows on the orders page.  I do not understand the price difference either.   ... View more

I don't know abt everyone else, but tbh, after 18 years on Zazzle, attaining Pro Silver, etc... I am at a point where the constant changes, not least the most recent royalty rate and affiliate changes, and the number and frequency of major glitches, has driven me to the verge of leaving the site permanently in the near future unless by some miracle things return to "normal" REALLY soon. I have not made a NON-3rd party sale from any of my shops since the royalty rate changes. I absolutely cannot stay on a site that offers me pennies for a product they sell for large profit. I have jumped through so many hoops for Zazzle in the past decade! I never fully recovered from the search changes in 2012. I used to make a few hundred a month, over 1k during holidays. Now I struggle to make $100 in ANY month, and in fact have had a few months with no payout the past 1-2 years.  I add new listings regularly, have no hidden designs to update, I delete all non-sellers older than 2 yrs as instructed, and have updated every listing on every product with views but no sales... and still coming up empty handed. Now my understanding is that because I refuse to list at 10% royalty and accept earnings that wouldn't even support me in Mexico or India (and I have lived in both, so I would know), that my shops and designs are hidden from the MP?!?!  What does it take, Zazzle?  What can Zazzle do to make it worth my staying? (and I am NOT by far the only one pondering this). Because if this does NOT change, I will have no choice but to look elsewhere. And I really do not want to have to do that after nearly two decades here! ... View more

I noticed that the Enhance Image option is available only for some product types. On others, like doormats for example, it doesn't appear when the image is blurred. If I resize the image in my computer  and then I try to upload it into the design, I receive a "server error". And this is an issue I've noticed in the past few days. Is there an option to click or to find somewhere in the tools the option to enhance the image? ... View more

It would be really great if you put a button on the design tool that said, "Duplicate this design on the back." That way you don't have to go through pasting everything one by one....Depending on your design sometimes it gets very tedious and time consuming. This would make it really great. ... View more

I am SO SO FRUSTRATED right now!  Don’t bother working 7 days a week promoting your designs on your blog or social media, or wasting time creating polished mock-up images. Don’t even bother putting in the extra effort customizing for clients and then sending them direct links with your own Ambassador ID. No matter what you do, you’ll still see unexplained third-party sales — even when the product is private and shared only through your link. And now, with royalties capped at just 10%, it’s hardly worth the effort. Try asking why your expected referrals don’t appear in your earnings, and the answer will always be the same: Zazzle claims it’s “beyond their control” how customers navigate and interact with the site. So why even create an Ambassador Program to boost earnings if creators aren’t protected in the slightest? ... View more

The holiday season is always exciting, and a little overwhelming, for Zazzle designers. For newer creators, it can feel like there’s so much to learn at once: design trends, upload strategies, marketing, pricing, and just keeping up with demand. For those of you who’ve been through a few Q4s already: What’s something you wish you had known during your very first holiday season? It could be anything, a workflow trick, a reminder about deadlines, how to handle promotions, or even just words of encouragement. I think this could be a great thread to share wisdom with newer designers and maybe even remind ourselves of how far we’ve all come. For me, I wish I had taken more time to focus on creating solid, quality designs instead of chasing quantity. In the long run, the “more is more” approach just created extra work. Now I put my energy into strategically planning themes for my collections, and it’s made such a difference. Victoria | Do Tell A Belle ... View more