Intro and Questions, returning member

[Alissanos]

Hey everyone

I just wanted to say hi and maybe ask a few million questions at the same time.

Im an Irish creator, trying to start again here on zazzle

I joined zazzle years ago, made a few t-shirts and a handful of sales but life/kids/jobs and all that, I didnt have the time

I dont know anyone here, I havent really got any social media accounts to speak of, none with followers anyway, kinda been hibernating minding my 6 kids for years but im finally ready to jump back in and join society again. We are also saving to buy our own house so I am looking at zazzle as a long term work from home opportunity as I have children with special needs and i want to be at home with them! I lost my job last Christmas and we have had a very difficult year, so I am determined to make this work. I know its not a quick solution but I am thinking long term.

Anyway, enough about me, sorry for the wall of text!

I have millions of questions but no specific ones right now. I have a few shops but I am concentrating on my postcard one for now. I figure if I can get one store doing something, even if its only small items, I can build up from there.

My tags are terrible, I thought I had to add "postcard" in there but I have realised now that I dont, so will be redoing them. The product descriptions are not easy either, hard to write much about a postcard, how important are the descriptions?

I chose postcards because my dad is a postcrosser so hes been a big inspiration for me, this is the store im focusing on for now Themed Postcards 

I guess im just looking for any tips or general advice from those of you who have more experience. Im having enough trouble navigating the website to be honest, so I really am just finding my feet here for now. It actually took me a bit to find where to start a thread here!

So hello from Ireland, looking forward to getting to know you all

[Deseades]

Hi! I am quite new too, so won't be of much help;) But can tell you that in time you will get a grip on the website. The forum helps a lot when it comes to finding out the basic stuff, so check it out regularly. As for descriptions, apparently, they are important, but if you look at the website and bestsellers, you would see some popular products with no descriptions or tags, so that´s quite confusing to me too;)  Hello from Spain and good luck!

[Alissanos]

Hi Deseades! 

Thanks for your reply and the encouragement! I am just looking around the forum now, theres a lot to take in and I think I will have even more questions once Ive read some more. I am going to have to find the bestsellers now, Ive only seen filter by popular so I missed that.

Nice to meet you and good luck to you too!

[Alissanos]

A few random questions, they pop into my head when Im not online and I forget them as quick so I will just throw them here instead of making lots of different threads,

Are kudos likes? Or is it some kind of voting system for a solution and do I have to choose a solution if there was no specific question?

Do customers actually transfer designs to other products often? I size my images so they will be good for printing a lot larger than on a postcard but not to the size of say a duvet cover or other very large item, what would happen if a customer puts an image on an item that it will not display on well? Or should I just make all my images as large as possible. I generally make the images for my postcards at least 4000px width or heighr and for my other stores 8000px by 8000px. I use other sites to test the max printing size and quality of my images to make sure they will not be pixelated or blurred when printed.

Also is it ok to add the same image to different products, say for instance I want to put my image on both an acrylic and canvas print or should I just leave it to the customer to choose?

Thanks

[idraw]

Hi , will try to answer some or most of your questions. Old timer, since 2008, lots of changes over the years. Kudos help z and the mods to know what shopkeepers are marking as most notable, also helps shops in the same way. As for tags and descriptions, the tags you use should also be used in your descriptions for seo ( search engine optimization). You said your Dad is a postmaster, hone in on that and do any images of old post buildings old mailboxes, mail carrier bikes,bags etc.  About images, place them on products where they make sense,be careful that the size of the image both fits and also does not have a white background. The white background will print and look not great on tshirts and dark items. Save your images as 200 or 300 dpi and png so that you have a transparent background and can then add your own background color or pattern. General advice is to make sure you add a text template so that customers can add name or text. Don’t get upset if your shop and products don’t show up immediately, it has been taking a long time lately. Use the forum search bar and enter good keywords to get relevant answers to specific questions. HTH
.☘️📬🇫🇷🇺🇲🎨

[Alissanos]

Hi idraw

Thank you so much for your detailed reply, yes zazzle seems quite different from when I joined years ago but I had no idea what I was doing then and didnt stick with it unfortunately.

I will have to pay much more attention to my tags and description which is great to know and that they should include the same phrases?

Ah thank you that was one of my forgotten questions, when I publish a product but it doesnt show in my store for a long time, thats great to know its not just me!

Very much appreciate your advice, it helps a lot! Thank you

[idraw]

You said: I will have to pay much more attention to my tags and description which is great to know and that they should include the same phrases?

Actually, not the same phrases, just include the tags/keywords, from your tags, in your description.
Sounds like you are willing to put in the effort to learn and to update your shop. 👍

[KeegansCreation]

My attempt to answer:

Tags: You are allowed 10 and should always use all 10 since they are the primary way your designs are found. As you found, don't tag the product name. That gets added automatically by Zazzle. I grabbed a random example here 

  https://www.zazzle.com/waterfall_in_oils_print_triptych_postcard-256964830023214543 

This waterfall oil painting triptych only has 4 tags, "waterfall, triptych, water, oil painting postcard. It needs 6 more. You have a tag for the medium, oil painting (don't need "postcard") but you could also put in "fine art" as a medium descriptor tag. Then there's the design itself. You have "waterfall" and "water" as design descriptor tags but there is so much more going on in this painting: I suggest landscape, nature, rocky and forest. Finally you could have a mood tag. I suggest serene. If you are absolutely stuck for tags, one way to find ideas is to google the theme of your design to see if other words pop up. When I googled "waterfall oil painting" I immediately got "cascading waterfall" and "mountain waterfall", both of which fit. Do this for any design where you are having trouble getting to 10 tags.

Description: The description isn't part of Zazzle's search algorithm (which uses the title and tags) but it is part of google's. You can get wordy and descriptive. You can also add in a possible customer use. For this waterfall oil painting it could be "A triptych oil painting of a mountain waterfall cascading down rocks through a forest. Add some affordable art to your life."

Kudos: Kudos are likes. In the old forum that is no longer accessible, people would make a post that was just "+1" if they agreed with a post but had nothing else to add. This made the threads get very long. Kudos are a way to signal liking/agreement without having to make a post.

Design Transfer: Do customers use this? They sure do, a lot. I have sold many things where a customer transferred from one product to another. It's nice to have you designs somewhat larger than needed just in case. However, the design transfers I've seen of my own products where the customer transferred to something bigger, it wasn't a lot bigger. For instance, a postcard to a larger greeting card or to a jumbo mug. That's somewhat bigger but not duvet cover bigger. You will be told in your sales report if there is a transfer. If a customer attempts to transfer to something too big, they get a yellow warning that the image is too small. 

Add image to many similar products? Or just rely on design transfer?: My personal practice is to land somewhere in the middle. For art, I put it on 2 or 3 of the available art mediums but not every single one. You can use design transfer yourself for this.

[Alissanos]

Hi KeegasCreation

Thank you!! Your explination of tags is brilliant and I understand now exactly how I should be doing it, I spend so much time creating and when it comes to the tags and descriptions I rushed it because I just didnt know what to put there and ended up just being very generic, so this is fantastic because I get it now!

I did try a few more detailed descriptions but I didnt realise how important they were because they are somewhat hard to notice on the product page, I can get wordy if needs be 😂 Ive ofter been told I overexplain everything so it may be good to put that into practice now!

The reason I asked about the transfers was I made some nursery wall art and I chose a large canvas print, when I published it and saw the price I was a little shocked, so I went and addes the design to a more affordable piece, the acrylic. I was concerned about having a duplicate product, so its great to know that thats okay and also that customers use that option because I wasnt sure they would. Also I havent had any yellow warnings about size so I didnt know that happened, really great to know!

Thank you so much, Im blown away by the advice from everyone and its lovely that the community is so willing to offer advice to new members, you dont get that everywhere

[Windy]

Welcome! I am a Postcrosser too, and I have a few postcard boards over at Pinterest. I have added a few of your beautiful cards to https://www.pinterest.com/ArmchairTravelers/postcards-for-art-and-inspiration

Pinterest pins get more attention and reach more people when saved to another board, and or commented upon. 

[Alissanos]

Hi Windy

Thank you so much, and lovely to meet another postcrosser! I have a pinterest account, I opened it to share my designs and it immediately got banned?/suspended? 

I contacted them and they said it was a mistake and its back now but I am so completely lost over there, its a confusing mess to me 😂 so all I do is share from my product pages every now and then, I really need to look into it, i have no followers of course and no idea about the rules over there. Im also hesitant to put too much time into it because of the suspension, I dont know why it got flagged and I dont want to make the mistake again!

Thank you for sharing my postcards on your board, i really appreciate it and when I work out how I will go like or follow you over, whichever it is pinterest does!

[Westerngirl2]

Nice to meet you! Briefly looking at your store, you definitely are on the right track. Very nice. Looks like most of your questions so far are already answered, so I'll just add some encouragement. I think you'll do fine, although I would suggest that you branch out asap, because it really is hard to make much selling postcards, except for the nice bulk sales relating to events such as save the dates and weddings. And that's pretty hard to break into, although it can be done. But many of your images will work for a number of the variety of products Z sells, so do try to upload as large a file as possible to fit on other products.

I've been here since 2010, and it IS a long marathon, not a quick race. But it pays off in the long run, so dedication and constant work is the key. Most of us detest promoting ourselves, as we are more artistic minded, but it does help to contribute to some social media. The only one, though, that I've had success on is Pinterest, and even that is hit or miss anymore. But check into the promotional tools that Z offers, especially the Associates Program. It, too, takes a bit of time, but it does eventually pay, or at least it is in my situation. I have come to rely on the monthly income from Z (which can be a bit intimidating in itself), when all I wanted was a hobby when I started.

Best wishes for continued success; I will promote some of your cards on some Pinterest boards.

[Alissanos]

Hi Westerngirl2

Thank you! Im glad you like it, its always a little strange putting stuff online because I never know if its good enough!

Yes I think branching out will be my next focus, i just got the postcard one to 100% and I have 50 or so more designs and images ready to upload, the publishing takes me longer than I thought it would, but once they are done I will concentrate or other products. 

That also leaves me with another question, is it okay to have the same design in different stores? I now know its fine for putting on other products, but on different stores too?

You are so right about promoting, I am not good at it and would much prefer to just design but needs must and all that!

I do think i am already an associate from way back but I havent given it a lot of thought, I suppose it can bring in indirect sales or income?

Thank you for also sharing for me on pinterest, i really appreciate it, especially since I seem unable to grasp it yet myself! Instagram seems easier or at least more straightforward 

I will look you all up over there when I work it ourt it would be nice to have a creator board of some kind where we can all share, if thats a thing there? 

I really do feel like ive been living under a rock when it comes to social media, my kids most likely understand much more than I do!

Thanks again!!

[idraw]

deleted

[Alissanos]

Sorry for all the typos, im on my phone holding my youngest in the other arm

[idraw]

To add answers  to your questions,From years past posts, Z prefers you only list an image in one store, not duplicating in other Z stores.About your products/images being good enough, the only way to find out is to put the image up there and let the customer decide. The customer will surprise you with what they buy.
You can develop skillsets to promote, but if you really are not "into" promoting, just do your products, let others handle promotion. There is a section here called Promoting, and also Affiliating, you can post there for promotion.
Here is a link to the Z help files about tagging---
<https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000373127-Title-Description-Tagging-Best-Practices>

[Alissanos]

Thank you idraw! 

I think perhaps I will have to learn to promote a little at least, i have a somewhat Irish reluctance to self promotion, a "sure it was nothing special" kind of thing that I grew up with! I am quite stubborn too though and I dont like giving up!

Thanks for the link on tagging, its very helpful to know what zazzle sees as important and correct

[Barbara]

Side note: I had to look up postcrosser because I'd never heard the term. What a delightful activity!

Colorwash's Home

[Alissanos]

It really is! My father does not get to travel but he has come to know people from all over the world and communicates with them all the time! A lovely community.

I know he is hoping to one day recieve a postcard of one of my designs from somewhere, i would love to see that happen too, just so he can call me to tell me all about it, it would make him very happy, which is why I started doing postcards in the first place!

[Baylee]

Hi and welcome from Canada @Alissanos. I'm a bit of an old-timer too .. both here and in reality .. lol.

It looks like you've got some great advice from everyone already but I did want to clarify one thing ... it's fine to have the same design in more than one store as long it is on different products. One of my stores is for accessories, another for home decor etc. so if the same design works well on products that suit those areas I will use it in both places. 

I also wanted to emphasize that, as @idraw briefly mentions, adding text and photo templates to products is a huge draw for customers on Zazzle...that's one of the main reasons they come here. So I'd definitely work that into your future plans. All the best with your store (and minding six children at the same time....three cheers for womanhood!)   

[Alissanos]

Hi Baylee

Thank you for the warm welcome! Yes the advice has been amazing and I can't thank you all enough for the positivity and encouragement too!

About the different stores, that is a relief to know as I have so many images that I think would work well on different products! It would be a shame to not be able to reuse them in a different way

I really do have to do more work on making customizable products, personally Im an image without text person, but I can see the appeal to customize and I want to be able to offer customers that option

Thank you so much! And yes they do keep me busy, my youngest is just 2 years old so its a busy house and I wouldnt have it any other way!

[JansCabin]

Hi, loving your store, regarding your comment about adding text and customizing, I just want to add that customizing text can be a great asset, I notice some of your designs (the beautiful Ladies) have place names to correspond with their countries flag colours, if the country, for eg 'Chile' with Red White & Blue colourway had the text 'customized' it could potentially be changed to other countries with the same colours, or with a name or deleted.
One of the great pluses of customization of names is unusual names or unusual spelling. I have Irish relations and struggle to find shop bought items with the names Niamh, Siobhan or Ruaidhri. 🙂

[Alissanos]

Hi JansCabin

Thanks for your suggestion, thats a great idea, I hadnt thought of that when I made them unfortunately so I added the countries text before uploading them but thats an excellent point about the names and you are so right about some Irish names being hard to find!

Im thinking of doing some Irish themed stuff anyway so will def make those customizable

[Alissanos]

Oh, I just had a quick look at your stores, had to close it quick before my daughter started choosing skateboards!

Fab stores, i love your designs!

[Baylee]

a "sure it was nothing special" thanks 🙂

[Alissanos]

Laughed so hard I spilled my tea 😂😂😂😂😂

[Baylee]

I did the same when I read that comment in your original post.😃  My grandparents were from England and that self-effacing upbringing trickled down nicely through the generations, along with a dry, straight-faced humor and a love of tea..lol.

[Alissanos]

Ah passing on the good old traditions 😂 my husband is from England and we have never to this day agreed on which brand of tea is better 🙄

[Westerngirl2]

Regarding Pinterest, there are quite a few group boards that you can apply to, and then post your products. Most of these exist as a kind of cooperative, so that members can help promote other designers' products, along with their own. Below I've listed links to some that I'm a member of. They usually have instructions on the page to advise how you can apply, to.

All Things Zazzle 

Zazzle Friends 

All Aboard for Zazzle 

Some boards have product or subject categories, some are more free standing. Just follow the directions of the "owner' of the board. Since you have mostly post cards right now, you might do a board search for that topic, and see if there are any group boards out there looking for members, and then follow their instructions to apply.

Maybe this will get you "kick started" on Pinterest. Good luck!

[Alissanos]

Oh thank you! 

I have spent the best part of today trying to figure out pinterest 🙄 is it just me or is it the most difficult social network to navigate? Needless to say I failed, i have a personal account that is about 9 years out of date and a business one for my zazzle stuff, but it used to be I could just create a pin, add a few hashtags and be done, when I share from zazzle there isnt even anywhere to type anything! So off to google to find out where the hashtags have gone only to find that they use topics instead. Of course I couldnt find out how to choose a topic either!

I will get it eventually hopefully, thank you for the links, they may be just what I need!

[CreativeLeahG]

Have a read of this

https://community.zazzle.com/t5/share-your-tips-tricks/how-to-sell-on-zazzle-create-products-consume...

[Alissanos]

CreativeDesign, thank you for the link, thats some reallt great advice, i do have a target in mind for my postcards but I havent spent enough time looking at if it is a good niche to start with, which I should have done. It all started really because my dad liked my designs and as he is a postcrosser he thought they would look good on postcards, so here I am!

I think some of my images will work well as wall art so I will expand those to my other shop over time too. 

Thanks again!

[Alissanos]

And I'm back with another question for all you lovely zazzlers, its not at all urgent as I am nowhere near worrying about it but I am curious!

What are pro and silver/bronze sellers etc, I guess its to do with sales, is it a membership thing like an upgrade or simply an achievement for x amount of sales and is it permanent or on a monthly basis?

[Barbara]

The pro badges are based solely on sales you make in the U.S. They've changed things so I'm not sure how it is now, but originally, once you made $100 in royalties, you became Basic Pro. Once you reached $1000 U.S., it was Bronze. They've combined those two levels at this point, so I don't know how it's done. To reach Silver, there's a monumental leap to $25,000. I can't remember what it is for Gold, but Platinum is $100,000. Mostly, it's about personal achievement, though there are private forums dedicated to each level, but don't worry you may be missing anything since truly important threads always show up in the general forum.

Colorwash's Home

[Alissanos]

Barbara and Windy

Thank you for the explanation and link, oh wow those are some big figures! Its almost hard to believe that anyone could earn that much in royalties!! Even over lifetime earning that is still amazing

Just knowing that its possible is very encouraging and at the same time it feels very much impossible 🙄 but wow, I have my work cut out for me 😂 

I am really loving creating here at zazzle, I wish I had kept it up years ago, i have so much to learn to even hope for my first few sales, but it doesnt feel like work to me, for me its an opportunity to change my familys situation foing something I enjoy and I hope that if I learn and persist I will one day see some success. Im still waiting to hear about my resubmitted w8ben so fingers crossed that happens soon!

Best of luck to you all and again thank you all so much for all your help and advice

[Windy]

The benefits and levels are spelled out here. https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002536588-How-the-Pro-Program-Works

[TheDesignerVib1]

Hi Alissanos!

I have had a same experience with leaving Zazzle for a while and then coming back, the best thing you can do to boost traffic and sales is to promote your products, i use Pinterest and learned that you must post everyday to get sales, currently I started posting daily a month ago and i went from 600 monthly views to almost 3000 currently, and I have found an effective way to easily post pins from Straight from Zazzle. The share button that is on top of your products picture if you click it Pinterest is one of the options for sharing, and the best thing is that you don't need to create it from scratch, the link is in the pin so anyone who clicks it will be directed to your product, so if you do this a few times(posting) a day it will boost your Pinterest traffic. Your Tile, description and tags should have some for the same words for it to rank the search because Zazzle has lots of products in each type of product which is why it's hard for people to see your products.

Also if you want I can invite you to some Pinterest group boards for Zazzle and Small businesses buyers and sellers group

Pinterest 

Main Store 

Wish everyone Happy Sales!

[Alissanos]

Thank you for the pinterest tips and wow, 3000 is awesome, I have been sharing most of my products but I dont get views, I assume its because I have no followers 😂 and I am so clueless about pinterest I dont know how to go about getting any! 

Yes please, that would be brilliant, thank you, just so Im clear, if I have joined someone elses board I can then share to that board? Is that how it works?

Also, since I really dont get pinterest and I would actually like to be part of a community on there, im interested in following anyone here who will have me 😂? Not looking for follows in return or anything like that, I really just need to get a feel for the whole thing and maybe meet a few likeminded people instead of searching aimlessly on there for something or someone to follow, but again, I have no idea how to find any of you there! Ill check out your link as soon as I stop typing!

My social media experience is really lacking, having always been a private person, I never bothered with it much

Thanks again!

[TheDesignerVib1]

I invited you to the group boards that are open to join, some are for just Zazzle, and others for promoting your pins! I don't have much social media experience either even though I'm 18, I started using Pinterest to promote my products and grow an audience because Zazzle has thousands of shops, even when they release a new product it becomes saturated. On Pinterest it is hard to get followers but that is because your pins aren't in front of the right audience. But eventually if you don't give up you will be able to reach them 🙂

[Windy]

You can pick up a few Pinterest followers by posting on this Zazzle board. https://community.zazzle.com/t5/promoting/what-s-your-pinterest/m-p/605#M7