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

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

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

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 on the zazzle homepage that when you mouse over an image you will see a clickable backlink to view at the sellers store and I thought how cool is that. And wouldn't that be great if my media images on my sidebar of my store had that.    It makes sense to me. Customers look at my media, likes what they see but has to search through my store to find ...I would think it would be exhausting for the customer and that she would bounce to shop somewhere else. On the homepage > mouse over the Happy Haunting media images and see seller info.  there are little dots that you click. to learn more.   Anyway that's my idea ...just want to keep customer interested and get that sale . So do other creators like this idea? do you think you might get more sales?   I definitely can see the benefit...but I know if creators aren't on board with this feature that it won't happen  ... View more

  So that screenshot represents what i viewed in the marketplace.  Like I said I am not sure if its a glitch or a new type of artwork. ... View more

With the recent changes here on Zazzle and their negative effect on royalties, I would like to give some insight. I have been selling digital invitations for over 10 years. I am very familiar with Etsy and Zazzle and what works for me and what does not.  Here is a quick comparison of my sales in April 2024 and April 2025: April, 2024 on Zazzle: Average Royalty per sale was $5.17 April, 2025 on Zazzle: Average royalty per sale was $3.68 April, 2025 on Etsy: $5.91 per sale (after all fees - including marketing) If I include "self-referrals" here on Zazzle, my average does bump up to $4.57, but that is extra time I am putting in to advertise. I do not have to do this on Etsy, as Etsy does it for me, I just set my daily advertising budget and they handle it from there. Totally worth it in my opinion. Etsy does not charge me 3rd party fees, as I am already paying my chosen budget of $1.30 per day. You can adjust to whatever works for you. $1.30 per day is much more reasonable than $1.49 per order (on average), which I am now paying here on Zazzle. Etsy also offers multiple dashboards, which I find incredibly helpful. You can view your shops stats by day, week, month and year. You can see how many views your shop and each item receive, as well as revenue. They have graphs, so you can see overtime how certain items are doing. Etsy also has a section called "how shoppers found you," where you can view exactly how people found your shop or item, as well as how you brought people to your shop. This is extremely helpful for sellers, so you can see where to focus energy.  I am not saying Etsy is better than Zazzle, I am just saying these things are helpful. I am hoping Zazzle can find a way to get royalties back up for sellers, as it will not be worth it in the long term to be investing time and energy into this platform, when the same time and energy could be put elsewhere and receive more in return.  Lastly, it doesn't feel "fair" that ambassadors receive such a large portion of each 3rd party sale, as the designer is putting in much more time. I haven't delved into Etsy's ambassador program, but I do know that I am not losing money on 3rd party sales. My royalties stay the same, no matter how the customer was brought to me.  This is my two cents. Hoping for positive change going forward.  Thanks, Kim Wilhite    ... View more

Hi guys, I have been using Zazzle since the beginning of the year, and I do need help from people who have more experience. I have launched a shop called Starry Starry Sky where I sell my art (that I take weeks to make), but I don't get many views, even sharing on other social media such as Instagram and Pinterest, and no sales, which is really frustrating since i'm spending months on that, using the best of my knowledge for every detail. Last week I created another shop, but this time using my AI and design skills, i really take effort for every single print I make as well, take hours each time, but it's way faster than manually painting everything, and I'm able to post more often, got more views too (and this time, i'm only promoting on X), this time I picked a very specific niche after days studying it and I really hope it works (the shop is called Paw-sitive Crafts). Can you guys give me some tips about my shop? This time I'm focusing on shirts and sweatshirts, since selling plenty of products with the same print isn't working in the first shop. I would love to hear from you and your experience, and if I should have hope and keep going, even if I'm late to the POD thing. ... View more

Hello! Our new Creative Community group has moved to Substack and have extended last week's "Fun Friday Share" to this new platform. We'd love to invite you. You can contribute today, tomorrow, and Thursday. On Friday, we will have a new share live. 😄  I hope you'll swing by. We are still VERY much in the early stages, so you are not behind!  Here is the Orange Fun Friday Share And Here is the "Newsletter"/GROUP if You'd Like to See What We're Up to Now ... View more