Does Zazzle throttle certain vendors over others?

[Atwell76]

Hear me out. 

Let's say Zazzle has 10 storage containers at their facility that have overstocked greetings cards and they need to get rid of the stock. The T-shirt vendors are always having issues with getting out of stock shirts. Since those vendors are waiting for more t-shirts to arrive at the Zazzle facility, Zazzle turns up the throttle on Stationary vendors to help burn their overstock. Sort of a selling Algorithm that balances the stock of their storage facilities. 

Any thoughts on the topic?

[PenguinPower · Accepted solution]

As the printing is on demand and there are various vendors who produce the products... no I don't think the scenario you propose would happen.

[Atwell76]

You can't entirely say that it couldn't be a possibility either. Sales don't always rely on seasonal contributions for progress. Analytics is only useful on the things that it can track. I'm sure analytics isn't sitting in the Zazzle board meetings either. That's all I'm saying.

[CrazyMermaid]

And your point is? 

[SimplyDesigned]

There never is any overstock, just blank products awaiting to be printed on. And there is no throttling as Zazzle would just be shooting themselves in the foot. Things go in and out of stock all the time.

We heard you out but I'm not sure you know how Zazzle operates behind the scenes. Someone that wants a Tshirt that's OOS isn't going to want some paper products, Zazzle will just suggest one of the many other colors/styles that are in stock.

[Barbara]

The only thing many of us have noticed is that Zazzle is likely to headline what they sell a lot of. In Zazzle's case, stationery has always seemed to be at the top of their heap.

What goes out of stock is likely caused by suppliers, which was most apparent during the pandemic and which hit all manner of retailers.

My own sales have been affected by the general economy but not much by trends because of my type of designs and the products on which I place them. I'm affected mostly by my own efforts or lack thereof in self-promotion.

Zazzle does headlines certain types of designs and products according to what sells. If flat cards are selling better than folded, they're likely to feature flat cards. If t-shirts suddenly started selling well, they'd feature them more. If the sale of clocks has gone down, they might try discounting them a bit, but if this doesn't help, they might go on to other products.

It helps to look at it as if you were the retailer whose entire purpose for existing is to make money.

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[Atwell76]

Thank you respectfully for your wisdom and insight. I will keep that in mind in the future when creating new products.