Sales down ?

[Peter222]

My sales have not been on par with what is the norm. They were down over Xmas for sure. Is anyone else seeing this ?

TY much Peter 222

[MissPaperFarm]

@mrdoodle I have noticed sales picked up a bit in my first store as well. I have made a total of three sales this month so far. I hope they have been working on things and, if there was an issue, that it's resolved. 

I am continuing to work on building my 2nd store and have been learning a lot about the collections features. There is an option to send people who purchase a product from a collection a follow up email to say think you and to check out other items in the collection. I sent a test email to myself and it looks really neat! So I will be utilizing that feature for sure. I haven't promoted my 2nd store yet because I'm still adding products to it, but the products that have been selling this month are going to soon be moved to my other store 😅 I tried to do this all before sales picked up again but looks like I'm running out of time. 

[ColsCreations]

"…  but the products that have been selling this month are going to soon be moved to my other store 😅 "

Hold up! You can't move products to another store. You can recreate them in a different store but it's a new product so won't have any of the stats your existing ones that have already sold have. And since you are not supposed to have duplicate products you would have to delete the ones that already sold in order to have the new copies in the other store.

[MissPaperFarm]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing 😅. You can cross products from different stores in collections, but I'm deleting some products from one store and re-listing them in another. It's because of the branding I am doing outside of zazzle. If I was a well known seller making lots of sales off certain products, then I would not do this, but most of the products have never even sold before in my other store. 

[ColsCreations]

OK, whew.  Was concerned that you were planning on moving products that have sold to another store without knowing we can't actually do that.

[WBartworks]

Last year people were complaining about low sales but it was my best year.  This year is worse than the year when I first started. 

[Wesha]

Hello everyone, this thread has gone quiet ... in fact the Forum in general seems to be quieter these days ... I think everyone is busy creating new stuffs for Christmas holidays ...

So, how is the sale scenario in July ? Has it been better than May-June ?

For me I won't be getting any payment next month .... this dry phase is so difficult to deal with! 

[Barbara]

My sales have now gone from bad to worse. I haven't sold a single thing since July 18, which means I won't be getting paid anything in September. And yes, the forums are extremely quiet. Are people just discouraged or have they been putting their efforts elsewhere? Maybe both.

Colorwash's Home

[Sea-Change]

My sales have dropped substantively. I've had starts and stops with Z, as a result of family illness, a learning curve, and an intense 8-to-5 job, but I was finally getting multiple sales per week in the spring.

Around 3-4 weeks ago, my sales fell off the cliff, beyond a summer slump. Covers, videos, pins, posts, collections, etc. aren't helping. I'm discouraged but trying to focus on holidays and best-sellers. 

Every morning when I check my stats, I think of two cliches:
- The first is a comedian addressing a silent audience. I want to tap Zazzle and ask, "Is it on?" 
-  The second is checking a patient's health by seeing if his or her breath fogs a mirror.

I've been wondering what it's like for others these days.

[Westerngirl2]

I think people are discouraged. This newer forum format has never been as popular, or easy to use, as the old one. And now it seems that the folks from Zazzle who used to come in and make comments or answer our questions have fallen silent, too. Hello......is anyone out there?

My sales have not dwindled completely, but are to the point where I may have to start dipping into my retirement account to make ends meet. The economy sucks, people are discouraged, the world is on fire.....we need a big change. Praying for that, and for all the good folks here to see a positive change in sales in the coming months.

[Barbara]

Like you, @Westerngirl2 , I'm wondering where all the Zazzle folks went, and I'm hoping Zazzle picks up again. In the meantime, I'll be picking up where I left off in another graphic design arena where I won't sell as often but will make far more money per sale.

Colorwash's Home

[MissPaperFarm]

I made 3 sales this month, but since my last sale on July 16, it's been crickets again. I made 5 sales in April, 1 sale in May and no sales at all in June. So it's been very up and down and unpredictable. I have been working on a new store and now I have to re-organize my original one, but I am staying positive there will be a resurgence of sales in the coming months. 

[Wesha]

Hi @MissPaperFarm  and @Barbara ... I don't even know when will I get paid again, this 50$ seems so far to reach! And the worse is my Z rank too came down by 1point yesterday.... 

Am just living on this hope that things will get better again for everyone ... but sometimes have scary thoughts when am tired of watching the bell icon sleeping, it only wakes up for likes or announcements!

[MadjackGG]

My Z-rank on my main store dropped by one as well. I keep the store updated with no out-of-date or discontinued products, so I have to wonder if this year's unusually quiet June/July months have meant a reduced sales to product ratio in the store's Z-rank calculation, triggering the point drop.

If so, it's a bit discouraging when you're not doing as well as you might have been in the first place.

[ColsCreations]

I made 3 sales this month, but since my last sale on July 16, it's been crickets again. I made 5 sales in April, 1 sale in May and no sales at all in June. So it's been very up and down and unpredictable

I'm not a big seller so it's always unpredictable for me, LOL. I'm always thrilled with every sale I get and am still coming off the high of someone buying two duffel bags and then coming back about 10 days later and ordering a third. I didn't realize until looking just now that that was actually in June and it's now July and .. holy smokes, haven't had a single sale in July. So I scrolled through my royalty report ... If I don't get an order today or tomorrow, this will be the first month since March 2017  I haven't gotten at least one sale. Your post prompted me to look at my earnings report more closely.

Jan - 8 sales
Feb - 7 sales
March - 1 sale
April - 3 sales
May - 3 sales
June - 5 sales
July - 0 sales (but some time left to be hopeful!)

For some that's less than you'd get in day but for me, eh, I'm not a wedding designer (or any kind of stationery really) and do very little if any promoting so as long as I continue to get a handful of random sales I'm OK with that. Some of these sales were things that have never sold before like gift tags from my alternate store that weirdly sold twice on 4/26 and 5/21, and/or took me by surprise like an old bandana that went to someone in Great Britain in June. But to go a whole month without even a single sale of address labels or tissue paper, that's weird even for me.

[Barbara]

I had 24 sales last July and only 4 so far. Down to 17% of last year. Given that tomorrow is the last day of the month, I've little hope. It's global phooey.

Colorwash's Home

[ColsCreations]

If I don't get an order today or tomorrow, this will be the first month since March 2017  I haven't gotten at least one sale.

OMG! Went out to run some errands after posting and come back to find an order for tissue paper! So July 2024 will NOT be a zero month. 😀

[Barbara]

@ColsCreations  Existence verified! 😅

Colorwash's Home

[MissPaperFarm]

You know what's funny, I find when I openly complain about no sales, I end up making a sale 😂 The universe is ironic like that. 

[Barbara]

---

@MissPaperFarm wrote:

You know what's funny, I find when I openly complain about no sales, I end up making a sale 😂 The universe is ironic like that. 

---

It seems you've gotten in touch with the wonderful Whine Fairy from the old forum.

Colorwash's Home

[MissPaperFarm]

🤣Yes, me and the Whine Fairy are becoming good friends. 

[ColsCreations]

Had a single postcard sell yesterday. Made $0.16.  The plus though is it was referrer=none and the first time it's sold since I published it 3 & 1/2 years ago.  They didn't customize the template text on the back for addressing though so guessing they just bought it for the picture on the front. But that made me realize, yikes, it's the only sale I've had in August. So that $0.16 cents postcard saved August 2024 from being a zero month.  But today, with only a few more to go, someone bought 50 poker chips. Made $13 after the 3rd party referral carve-out. Nice! But not going to get rich doing this as a hobby, LOL. As slow as things are now even by my standards, my goal is to just not have a zero month.

[Silvara]

I had 3 sales last month, nothing so far this month. I only had 1 sale in June, so at least it's going up even if only by 2 sales. I'm getting views according to my dashboard, but when I look at insights to see where they came from, no views show up.

[mrdoodle]

It's a Zazzle thing. All other PODs are doing fine - just going through the regular summer slump. Could be Zazzle chose the summer to do whatever they're doing. I've never know Zazzle to drop off the cliff like it has now. But even as I say that, I realize how blessed I am. When I say "drop off the cliff", I'm talking about still making an average of 4-6 sales a day. But again, just to be clear, I've been plugging on with Zazzle for well over 10++ years.

Keep plugging on guys.

[MadjackGG]

According to web traffic sites, Zazzle traffic is down for June from May. July data is not available (and every site seems to give different % for the drop), but if July was down on June as well, then for whatever reason (perhaps a reduction in advertising?), Zazzle traffic could be significantly down compared to June/July last year.

[mrdoodle]

Every month end, I have 2 ways to look at it :
Glass Half Full - Yay!!! My Redbubble sales are the same as Zazzle!
Glass Half Empty - Oh Cr*p... My Zazzle sales have dropped 60% to Redbubble's.
; P

[Barbara]

My own sales on RB are fairly normal, though I've always been a sticker seller there, which means it takes about 3 or 4 stickers to make just a single dollar. Still, though, it's nice to see those sales while, here, my pending sales are about to be a grand total of zero.

Colorwash's Home

[chuamishael]

Its been 2 weeks now that I have no sales is this something to do with US having a Summer Vacation trip?

[MOM]

@chuamishael I wouln't know about that one but we had a heath wave (two transformers nearby exploded a couple of days ago and my Internet was often down - very likely also due to the heat possibly. And mind you - I'm in the Bay Area - not in some rural area in the middle of nowhere). On top of it lots of people where watching the Olympic Games I think (at least my neighbors do). I made a sale yesterday though - it made me happy.

[chuamishael]

Yikes, I also heard about forest fire in california happened a few days ago. 

[MOM]

Yes, very true. We even have fires where there is no forest, sigh. I lost my home in ‘22 to fire (total loss) and the year before I have seen the fire eating up a hill without trees (the trees had all been cut after the big San Francisco earthquake to rebuild the city). This year I have not seen a fire yet in person with my own eyes (knocking wood now) but California turns almost every year into a tinder box. 

[CrazyMermaid]

The olympics is probably contributing to it. 

[chuamishael]

I hope so 😯 after all this is done, I hope sales comebacks again. I'm currently procrastinating. no mood to design... 

[MissPaperFarm]

I never thought much about it, but the stock market in the US is down. I don't know exactly what that means for all businesses, including Zazzle, but I do notice that the stock market unfortunately seems to affect all businesses in the US when it goes up and down. When it's down, companies tend to not spend and practically freeze until it starts going up again.

[MissPaperFarm]

Pinterest was always a website that led a lot of traffic to my store. I went to Pinterest recently to begin tagging products on some pins. I hadn't been to Pinterest in a few months and I happen to notice how unorganized the website is now. I discovered a number of bugs when tagging pins with products. Some I could tag and some I could not with no explanation. It's also frustrating that when a Zazzle product is taken down, that there isn't even a link back to a seller's store. So, any Pin I had tagged with products that have since been removed or re-designed just led back to no where on the Zazzle website. I understand that Zazzle doesn't really want products being taken down, but often times I update designs which then creates a new product page. Therefore the old product page leads to nowhere. There are just many avenues in which these websites ultimately work against us 😓 

[MadjackGG]

Just seen five days without a sale. Last time that happened was May of last year. Definite pothole in the sales road.

[Boki]

Yes,... No sales for days. I don't know what affects it, but I hope it will be over soon. I don't like stagnation at all,... 😞

[Barbara]

I'm showing up to recommend The Whine Fairy who, most recently, helped out @MissPaperFarm . I just now sold a batch of postcards, my first sale since July 18.

Make it a heart-wrenching whine.

Colorwash's Home

[Wesha]

Is this a co incidence ? I too sold business cards on 1st Aug, after so long .... thank you Whine Fairy from the bottom of my ♥ 

[chuamishael]

Who is The Whine Fairy?

[Barbara]

@chuamishael 

I don't know who originated the idea, but it was an amusement on the forum previous to the current one. Whenever our sales slowed way down, we'd plead with The Whine Fairy to help out, giving us a bit of hope by sending a sale or two our way, and it often seemed to work. Maybe it was just plain patience, but we believed in the fairy to be on the safe side.

Colorwash's Home