I just came back after about a year and a half...

[wanderlust]

Everything's been pretty crazy, from moving across the country, getting and losing a job due to health issues, to other personal stuff, which didn't allow me any time for Zazzle.
But oh boy did things really change here in that time.
I know there was something big with Collections I couldn't pay attention to back then that was going on, so a bit lost on those.
I see people talking about videos being a major thing now? I'm confused on the whole concept with that. Do you edit images Zazzle provides of your products, with effects offsite to make a video? What program(s) are used for that? I thought the point of providing video marketing was to show a product in use, to see how it'd look if you owned and used it, but unless you buy all your products you can't really do that, so it seems like a lot of work for a moving image effect, essentially. But it sounds like Zazzle's really focused on and encouraging them now.
I've also come back to see one of my stores is no longer at Rank 5 and dropped down a rank. I saw someone talk about how a lot of their stuff was removed from view in their store by Zazzle, so I'm assuming that's what happened here and so it knocked me down a rank?
I usually sell a couple of things a month in my main store unless I'm lucky here and there, so I'm not noticing any drastic changes but I've also seen people talking about a big decline in sales who are very involved and successful here.

I want to get back into things, but with all this stuff going on I'm honestly not sure where to start or what I should focus on: new designs or working on my existing stores and products to update things with these new changes. Any information about these changes would be very much appreciated so I can get up to speed and back into the swing of things again!

[KeegansCreation · Accepted solution]

Zazzle is pushing videos pretty hard right now but they do require an outside program or website such as Canva, Adobe Express or Adobe Premier Pro. Only in very rare cases are people buying a product and filming themselves using it (or rotating it to show all sides). The main video thing Zazzle is pushing is videos for collections where people are making montages of product photos which you can download from the product page of a product. But I wouldn't worry about that now.

If you used Quick Create, that is discontinued now. Also, products made with Quick Create that have never sold are being hidden. I never used Quick Create so I don't know if unhiding them is enough or if they need to be transferred to a new product. There is a new filter in the back end that identifies Quick Create products so you can transfer them if unhiding them isn't enough (they probably need to be transferred).
The changes to collections are too big to get into in a post. I think your best bet is to go to the News and Information portion of the forum and go back to the beginning and read each post on collections in sequence. They have picture examples and thorough directions on the new way it's done.

In the news section interspersed with how to now make collections are small tweaks to the design tool that are also good to note and you'll see many new products. But the biggest change is collections so it's most worth your time reading those News posts from the first ones to the most current ones and then making collections according to the new directions.

[wanderlust]

Thank you so much for the suggestions and help, I'll certainly be looking into Collections and working on that first!

[chuamishael]

I don't bother with videos, I don't think people will buy more of that product because of videos.  but collection yes, collection is a strategic way to let your customers look at your other similar or combo products, like combo meals.

[Caprice]

Regarding videos, I don't think I've seen ANY in the marketplace - just paging thru and looking at products? 

Does anyone have links to some video stuff? Either I don't know where to look, or there isn't much out there?

[Caprice]

Scratch that .  Just found here

 https://community.zazzle.com/t5/show-me/show-your-product-videos/m-p/102613