Wedding niche here. I used to average 3-4 customer messages per day - more during the busiest season. But after Zazzle launched the ambassador program which effectively halved our royalties, I changed my policy and am no longer offering to assist customers with their designs. I post this info graphic as a cover image with all of my products (well all that I've made covers for because this obviously can't be the primary cover.)
I also changed all of the messages to customers that Zazzle allows us to customize (on chat and the ones that are shown to customers when they make a purchase) to indicate that I don't handle fulfillment and I don't do custom work.
I still get an average of around 3-4 messages per week - though it fluctuates wildly. I have a document filled with boilerplate responses tailored for different questions - all of which basically say "I can't help you, contact customer support" in different polite ways appropriate to the context. Usually the questions are about shipping or someone wanting to make a change to an existing order. It doesn't take too much time to cut and paste my responses, but it still does require checking in at least daily so that I don't leave someone hanging.
Every once in a blue moon I get someone asking for a matching product - usually on new designs where I haven't fully flushed out a suite with all of the necessary items. I'm generally happy to do those as long as I can just create a templated public product to publish in the marketplace. I no longer do one-off designs or help people with customization - I just point them to customer support. It's really not worth it when you only make a dollar or two per sale.
Please feel free to copy my little info-graphic if you think it would be helpful.
Wedding niche here. I used to average 3-4 customer messages per day - more during the busiest season. But after Zazzle launched the ambassador program which effectively halved our royalties, I changed my policy and am no longer offering to assist customers with their designs. I post this info graphic as a cover image with all of my products (well all that I've made covers for because this obviously can't be the primary cover.)
I also changed all of the messages to customers that Zazzle allows us to customize (on chat and the ones that are shown to customers when they make a purchase) to indicate that I don't handle fulfillment and I don't do custom work.
I still get an average of around 3-4 messages per week - though it fluctuates wildly. I have a document filled with boilerplate responses tailored for different questions - all of which basically say "I can't help you, contact customer support" in different polite ways appropriate to the context. Usually the questions are about shipping or someone wanting to make a change to an existing order. It doesn't take too much time to cut and paste my responses, but it still does require checking in at least daily so that I don't leave someone hanging.
Every once in a blue moon I get someone asking for a matching product - usually on new designs where I haven't fully flushed out a suite with all of the necessary items. I'm generally happy to do those as long as I can just create a templated public product to publish in the marketplace. I no longer do one-off designs or help people with customization - I just point them to customer support. It's really not worth it when you only make a dollar or two per sale.
Please feel free to copy my little info-graphic if you think it would be helpful.
