Feedback for Media Manager

[James]

Hi Creators, 

You might have seen that there is a new experience called Media Manager. Feel free to leave your feedback on this evolution, here. 

Thank you. 

[Mariholly]

I made a similar comment and as you say it must have been buried. With a mobile phone I was unable to see the caption. If I can see it from a computer. I also posted a link about a product and what I made and only used the photos I thought were appropriate to highlight a detail with the caption. I think it may be redundant in some cases. https://www.zazzle.com/elegant_overlay_gradient_grey_shades_photo_wedding_save_the_date-256237222654...

[Barbara]

@Mariholly: You've done nice work--from what I can see. I say this because I can see only about 2/3's of each image due to how enormous each image is, which is certainly not your fault. This problem is exacerbated when a person clicks on the thumbs instead of scrolling because this makes several of your in situs appear to be the same, and without captions. I'm currently on a computer with a lower resolution screen from my own, but even on my higher resolution screen I see no more than 3/4's of the image. You've gone through a lot of work that, because of huge blowups, it's somewhat negated.

Is it just me or are others encountering this?

Colorwash's Home

[Mariholly]

Thank you!! The same thing happens on my mobile phone, they are too big, that is possibly my fault. On a computer I can see perfectly. If I put my mobile phone in computer version I can also see perfectly.

 

[Barbara]

@Mariholly: That means Zazzle designed it for phones, not for computers. Mobile is important, but to the detriment of those on tablets, laptops, and desktops? I wonder why they've done this.

Colorwash's Home

[Mariholly]

The mobile version of Z is really poor for designers. You can't do much. Sometimes when I'm away from my computer I wish I could get some work done, but you can't do much of anything. My mobile phone has an option called "computer view" and I can see it like this, like on my computer, but it's really uncomfortable to work like this since it's very small and sometimes you can misplace something.

[Westerngirl2]

I'm thinking I need to hire a staff now...just to keep up with all of this. 

Actually, much of this can be good, but I know I will struggle to keep it all in perspective. There's still a life to live outside of Zazzle, and it's important to balance the time with the possibility of increased (?) earnings. I still have a problem of some of my bestsellers not showing up in the MP when searching by the keywords in their titles or tags. If customers can't find the product to begin with, it doesn't make much sense to add more cover photos.

I've noticed it is taking more than 24 hours to have the covers appear in my backend now.

[Mariholly]

I have the same feeling here. I'm not a team, just one person trying to stay afloat. My Bestsellers are also missing now...

[Sara_H]

@Westerngirl2 I'm finding it's taking way more than 24 hours for the cover photos to populate in the backend too.  Plus they don't get a view hit either. So for something that's not been viewed for a while and adding a cover photo using the new media manager, the view counter doesn't reset. Headache

What I have noticed while doing cover photos for previously sold products is that they've all gone to the bottom of my store front under popularity sort. It's not the same as popularity sort on the store backend. Check and have a look at the last pages on your store front end and I bet your previous sellers are there. 

[Westerngirl2]

Thanks, Sara_H. But it's not that I can't find them in my backend store...I can. And when I search there for popularity, or even use their keyword tags, they come up immediately.

I can't find them in the MP at all when I search the most important keywords in their title or tags. Even when they've sold dozens (and in some cases hundreds) of times and there are less than 13 pages of results given when I use those words to search for them. As far as market visibility, they have just disappeared, if a customer searched for the most likely tag words, which are also repeated in their titles. However, they do show up if I use the tag words that are less important, which I think customers are less likely to use. Is that weird or what?!!!  I market them myself, so they are still selling, but not nearly in the quantity that they did before the most recent changes.

I've reported it to Zazzle, and they said they are researching it....but it's been 2 months and now they aren't responding to me at all. Discouraging.

Didn't mean to de-rail this topic. It's just that I can't see spending so much time with more cover photo's when these types of problems that are hurting my revenue continue to go on. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program.......:)

[Mariholly]

I have the same problem. My designs with hundreds of sales are in my store in the top positions, but they are no longer on the first pages of Z. In the case of one of the designs, wedding invitation, it has a cover photo, but it does not allow downloading or will never allow it because the typography does not allow download rights, I have other similar designs with download but they do not have the popularity of that one. In another case it is a design applied to a sheet of paper for wedding on a budget and therefore cannot have the download option. It also has a cover photo. Just an example. I think the algorithm has changed and some designers have been hurt and others have benefited. If you are a designer with multiple sales and high income even if it has also hurt you it will not be as bad as for a designer who was growing every month and had income of more than $1000 a month and growing... 50% less is simply devastating for a small designer growing reasonably. And new products don't rank well either, even with good titles, descriptions, and tags. On the other hand, there is more and more competition and there is a crisis. I think that all this well mixed makes a very complicated stew for some of us.

[Donna]

So it's not all in my mind! I am experiencing the same thing. For me my sales dropped more than 50% and continue to drop even though I am adding new designs. Almost all of my best sellers are not selling anymore. I have no idea how I'm going to survive 😞

[Mariholly]

If you choose the download option, you won't be able to see any cover photos you've added. This makes sense in some respects, but perhaps not in others.

[Sara_H]

@Mariholly Yes - the 'download' option is just for downloading artwork or product shots. The Media Manager is where you view and organize all your uploaded cover images.

[Mariholly]

I may have explained myself wrong. I mean, if a customer chooses the buy digital download option, they don't see any of our cover photos created by us, they only see Z's images.

 

[Sara_H]

@Mariholly sorry - I didn't understand 😂 But once you've got the sale - the cover photo has done it's job so maybe that's why you don't see it anymore?

[Donna]

Maybe because the cover photo only shows the printed versions. Just guessing.

[SwissVillage]

I love the cover photos - But, please, please give us downloadable transparent product photos!  I know it's been said above, but it bears repeating.  Mugs, for example, even with Photoshop's sophisticated masking and delete background tools, are very, very hard to separate from their backgrounds!

[Wildart]

I can only give the method for Inkscape users to do this, Outline the mug outside edge using the Beier tool. Then outline the "hole Space" of the hande. Select both these paths, and select "Path >  Difference" action, to take the hole space white shape away from the mug shape, now you can use this to clip (object>clip> set clip) from the complete image  to obtain your cup with transparent handle gap. I just learned this recently. I hope this helps other Inkscape users

[Cat]

I mostly use GIMP, and my technique is to select the object (whatever it is) using the lasso tool - sometimes I have to blow it up to 800% in order to get small enough steps to get all of the ins and outs. Then once I've got it selected I save the selection as a path. Then save the xcf file. At that point all you have to do is download the Zazzle mockup and paste it as a new layer - then go to the paths and do a path to selection, and you can easily copy just the item without the background and paste it into your scene or whatever. It's a pain to get the selection done, but fortunately you only have to do it once for each type of product. 

It would still be better if Zazzle would give us the option to download a mockup with a transparent background to save all of those steps, but until that happens, that's my method!

[Cat]

OK, one new whine. It seems to take a REALLY long time for the download popup to "populate" so we can download mockups. I click on the "download your artwork or product photos" and I get this:

It usually takes around 2 minutes for it to populate so I can download mockups. At first I thought it was because it was a newly created product, but I tried with some older products and I get the same problem. It's not impossible, but it just makes it that much more difficult to make covers.

[Barbara]

It must have something to do with where you are, assuming your computer is otherwise fast, because, for me, it's nearly instant.

Colorwash's Home

[Cat]

Very strange. I have a gigabit connection, and a super fast gaming computer using Windows 11, so I don't think the problem is on my end. Hmmmm....

[Barbara]

If it's just that specific screen, I agree. Hmmmm... is right.

Colorwash's Home

[Deseades]

Hi James, 

I already flagged that issue and I was told that the technical team works on it but as of today, I still am unable to download the artwork with clear background. Basically what downloads is a mockup. Hope it could be fixed soon!

[Deseades]

P.S. I know it´s off-topic, but without the proper artwork download option I am unable to create proper cover photos for my products....

[Sea-Change]

Thanks for asking, and kudos to the dev team for delivering this feature. I've found the performance to be typically good, especially considering all the tabs I often juggle at once 😁. I like the ability to provide multiple views, as some products lend themselves nicely to being shown in context.

I do have to manage my time carefully, so that I can still devote time to social media promotion and squeeze in new designs once-in-a-while. I also balance full-time work outside Zazzle, though, so my time is limited. When assessing how much time to spend per product, I evaluate the value of showing it in multiple contexts, as well as the probability and amount of the potential sale. It's easy to burn a lot of time, especially to get high-value images that accurately display the product.

It would be great to finally get  downloadable files with backgrounds already removed! My tools work well with most files, but a few are more difficult. I haven't used the caption feature often, as I'm usually ready to move on once I've uploaded cover images. I'm curious, though, if the captions enhance SEO by adding unique text.

I sometimes encounter issues when working with color groupings.  These seem to take longer to index or whatever it takes to display the new covers as default for each color selection.  Overall, though, this is a nice evolution.

[Connie]

My biggest concern is that Zazzle will start prioritizing the products that have multiple images, as opposed to just one. I just do not have the time to do more than one image for each product, and in fact I still have about 2000 products that don't have any cover photos. And my eyes are bothering me as well when I spend too much time on the computer. It would be awfully disheartening to have put in hundreds of hours making ONE cover photo for each product, only to have all that time be for nothing because I didn't make MORE than one!

[AirTwin]

And to your point, what do Google, shopping tab, Amazon, affiliate sites, and search engines prioritize?

Do they no longer prefer clean and white background images to rank higher in search?

Also Esty just had a mock-up problem register as spam, so that could happen here too.

[ameliacarrie]

James, I like the new media manager, and, I realize the importance of trying to make all the products look more "interesting" with mockups.  So far I've done 20 really cool ones I think. LOL, only 20,000 more to go.  I have a suggestion.  This would only apply to products where no mockups have been uploaded yet. Can the programmers create an AI app to work with one of the image processors.  The app could create cool backgrounds or mockups built upon the customer's interests.  If they are looking for sports, maybe our mockups would feature sports..  If another customer is looking for something like ballet.  The mockups would feature ballet colors or images???  Or, create backgrounds or mockups based upon the items tags and title. Just a thought.  In the meantime, I'll keep adding some as I get the time.  Have a nice day.