feeling defeated

[pichick712]

I have been creating merch for over 10 YEARS and getting nowhere. Don't tell me to spend thousands on those "special courses" because if I had thousands, I would not be writing this post. Anyone else feeling like this is just not working for them? I post on FB, Pinterest, and when I can, IG. I have thousands of items, season, and general and I can go weeks without any sales. I don't know how to get more exposure and to reach an audience that might buy from me. I am now 65 years old and living on a fixed income. I could really use a boost in sales so I don't lose everything. Please no bashing. 

[pichick712]

I agree. I also sell on Redbubble and TeePublic, and Fine Art America but up until recently my main focus was Zazzle. There are consistently fewer products since I started 10 years ago, and most people say the products are too expensive. It's becoming futile. Instead of making it harder for creators to sell their products, they should be focusing on making the items more affordable so people will buy them. We are making no sales, and Zazzle is making it so tedious to create products for sale with that new screen where we have to show that there are 4 different products in a collection. I've been trying for 10 YEARS to make decent sales and to date, I have only made 3,000.00. IN 10 YEARS! Pretty depressing, eh? 

[RobC]

From looking at your shop it seems that you are selling to relatively small niche and your item count is not extremely big. I know the feeling as I am selling to a specific niche as well. It's not easy when buyers have so many options these days when they want t shirts, mugs, ect. so you really have to offer something unique that stands out.

[almdrs]

Focus on what you sold. That's what everybody does. When something sells, create more products using that same design, or a variation of it (different color, size etc).

After 10 years you've probably noticed what people want to buy. We don't create designs for ourselves. We are not Michaelangelos or Picassos (I know, this hurts). We are serving the market and not the other way around.

Things are more expensive in the Zazzle Marketplace because they can be customized.

[RobC]

That's the last thing I would want to have to go through visiting someone's shop. A thousand products with the same design. I've seen some who literally have 8,000 products in their store but everything is just that. Same design but on different products. I got tired of browsing their store after awhile. Quality over quantity is best.

[pichick712]

Well this is what Zazzle is almost forcing people to do. I sort my collections by the product and then have various images on those products. I also have very specific stores based on the holidays, and animals, etc. Within those stores there are collections again based on the ITEM, not a whole collection of one or 2 images on a million different products. I have been fighting with Zazzle about this because creators collections are NOT visible unless they have 4 DIFFERENT PRODUCTS in a collection and I refuse to do that. They just don't get that. I do try to keep variety in my stores and collections as I am not doing the "invitations", "wedding stuff". I suppose when u r doing something like that you would want different products within a collection BUT for the 98% other products that sort of collection does not work. I got put in Zazzle jail and was banned from posting in the forum because I hurt their feelings by demanding they stop "optimizing" our products, and "stopping those red boxes" that force us to pur 4 different products in a collection. We work hard to create these products and when Zazzle decides they are not presented how THEY want them, that negates all our hard work. 

[CreativeLeahG]

You don't need 4 different product types if you choose any other option besides 'cross-sell'

[pichick712]

why did they even decide to add all those boxes u have to check off? they are needless and unnecessary, plus they themselves said I needed 4 different products in a collection to get rid of those stupid red boxes.