Hidden products need longer timeframe

[shellifitz]

So today I was promoting my calendars at the 50% off discount for work from home day only to find out that almost all of them were hidden from sight because of the 15 month time limit... So of course I am setting them all back to public so that they have a chance to sell today.   But please, could you give them a longer time frame before you hide them?  sometimes it takes more than 15 months for a design to cook in the MP and sell.  Obviously hidden things never sell or even have a chance and since most of us have other interests in life besides working 24-7 on our Zazzle stores making sure you haven't hidden our work from public view, we don't always realize why something isn't selling.  thanks for listening... rant over. 

#frustrated ! 

[shellifitz]

deleted. 

[JenniferWhite]

I agree! I feel like I spend a lot of time un-hiding products. I think the time frame is even shorter for the products you un-hide. Seems if they don't sell within a couple months, they are back in hiding.

[Windy]

The benefit we active designers enjoy as a result of the hiding policy, is that the marketplace is less overrun with spammy, mistagged, obsolete and poorly designed products.   With this is mind, and knowing that I do have the power to unhide, I like the 15 month time frame.  I feel this favors the designers who are actively working and disfavors the drive-by designers who came by to drop a few products, or maybe a few hundred as the result of some get-rich-quick-course they found online. Maybe I will feel differently once I have a much larger array of products to manage, though.

[shellifitz]

Well Windy, I know you know I am not a drive by designer... I have worked hard for 7 years to come up with a handful of stores that have good designs that do sell and repeat sellers.  I do spend at least a few days a week promoting, creating new designs and trying to keep my stores looking good.  With that being said it is very time consuming trying to keep my newer unsold items from being hidden which takes away from the time I have to create new designs and products. It also seems like right before the holidays all of your holiday stuff will get hidden and so during that already busy time in your own real life you have to spend a ton of it trying to get your holiday items out there to be seen.  

I know from experience that sometimes a design can take years to sell.  This happened to me with the very first design I ever created here at Z, after unhiding it several times it finally sold 5 years later. Now it gets views because having sold, it stays public and it has a chance of reselling again.   

[Windy]

@shellifitz 

I hope you know I  certainly was not saying YOU are a drive-by designer!  What I was saying is that I am very happy for products to drop out when they are in fact plopped on the site by someone who is just learning and never plans to return.  Sometimes I don't even want to click on those products because I assume that starts the 15 month clock ticking once again.

Is it not a simple matter to select all the hidden products and mark them public all at one time? Maybe I am misunderstanding.....people in this thread are speaking about optimization having to be done.  If it's more complicated than that (a simple click to make public again) to take a few hundred products out of hidden status, I will be glad to rethink.

[shellifitz]

Actually it is not as easy as just "select all- make public"  They don't stay public for long if you don't view each one separately and do some kind of update like tweak the tags or description. so it is product by product if you want to reset the whole 15 months. very time consuming!  I wish it was as easy as you thought it was but that is not my experience. 

[Barbara]

@shellifitz  We don't have to tweak a product necessarily, not if it doesn't need it. This can happen in a product line such as I have with 26 key chains, each with an initial from the alphabet. 'S' and 'T' might sell well, while 'X' and 'Z' would be a rarity. The latter can easily end up being hidden even though their titles and tags are the equivalent to those that are viewed/sold. I haven't bothered to tweak them when renewing them, and they don't pop back up any sooner in hidden products. The true key is in viewing the products when turning them back to public.

[shellifitz]

I also want to ask why it is that I have some unsold public items that say they haven't been viewed in over 2 years at the same time that I have so many that get hidden as soon as 15 months have passed.  It would have been nice if my calendars would have gotten the 2  year pass today...  Why can't everything go for 2 years before getting hidden? 

[Laura]

I recall some products are exempt from the 15 month hidden time frame (don't ask me which ones yet I remember it being in favor of newly released products at that time).

[shellifitz]

Well that does make more sense to me now. thanks for sharing it! 

[Laura]

I sometimes too find it hard to keep up with what needs optimization. Much has to do with the OOS products during COVID which didn't get views during that time and some wedding suite items as well.

For example, I sold a wedding invitation yesterday for the first time, which I've optimized before (good) however I missed the optimization on the matching RSVP card by a smidge so it wasn't available to her as an option, ready and waiting to be purchased.

[Marcia]

I actually agree with the 15 month time frame. I know it's a lot to go through – in fact I, myself, have around 800+ products that need optimization – but I try to do a little at a time, redoing titles & tags on my best designs 1st. In most cases, the titles & tags absolutely need to be revisited/updated & this is a reminder for me to do so. And after that, they often get views & even sometimes sell.

[Barbara]

It's tough when a person goes through a period when they don't even have much chance to turn on the computer. For instance, we've been renovating our kitchen for, at this point, a total of three months, and by the time I can take a break, I'm too tired to stare at a screen. My situation is essentially a happy one, but others deal with more important ones only to come back here to find a lot of their products hidden.

The point made about hidden products keeping the marketplace less cluttered is an excellent one. I just wish we were granted time off now and then.

[CrazyMermaid]

I was really hoping Zazzle would be "passive income." White I can take a day or two off now and then and certainly set my own schedule. I am finding that I have to show up pretty frequently to keep the money flowing.

[Clamat]

With this conversation I have a question:
I understand that it is good to check titles and tags because there may be errors or to update the products, but I would like to know if in some cases it is enough to put back some articles not hidden ("public mode") and they become public again? Or if they ask me to optimize, do I have to change many of the tags or titles again?