To remove or to hide unpopular designs?

[Deseades]

That is a question! 😉

I have a few products with one sale that haven´t gotten any views in months. I want to clean up my store but am quite apprehensive about deleting these designs. I read that it may bring my Zazzle score down, etc. I wonder what is your experience? Do you remove these designs or hide them? Is removing previously sold designs affecting the visibility of your shop or is that an urban legend?:)

[NHW]

I recently hid any products that haven't sold or been viewed in the past 12 months. This included a number of products that had a large number of sales, just not in the past 12 months. My zRank went up as a result.

[Sara_H]

@NHW  Why hide sellers? (unless they're OOS/discontinued.) I've had sales this week of products last sold in 2019 and last sold in 2023 - Zazzle shakes up the marketplace every so often so you never know when they'll pop up again.

[NHW]

I would be surprised if Zazzle's algorithm doesn't take the last sold date into account. While I hear what you're saying and it's possible I could sell an item that hasn't been sold or viewed for a year, my experience is it's not very likely. I'm sure that's why the zRank goes up when I hide them. I'm okay with potentially losing one or two sales on older products if it means that newer sellers get more visibility. Trends and tastes evolve, so some designs do eventually fall out of favor. That's just the way I deal with dormant products.

[ColsCreations]

The number of unique products in a store that have sold compared to total number of products in that store is definitely a factor in Zrank. Hidden items do not count towards zRank so if you hide enough it can raise your zRank.

As for not having sold or been viewed in a year, I'm on the fence. I have a product I created way back in Aug of 2020. Very low view count and never sold. Was considering deleting it as it's an odd product type, not IMO the type of thing people come to Zazzle for or that Zazzle "promotes".  But then out of the blue, it sold for the first time on Dec 13, 2024. over 4 years after creating it. And then, unbelievably, it sold again five days later. It just sold again last week, on 4-4. And if I search (in an anon browser) for what I consider to be the main keyword + product type, it comes up 2nd of 250 results and is also one of the pictures for suggested other keywords. So it only took a couple of sales after four years of nothing to float to the top of its niche.

I appreciate the ruthlessness in your approach - everything after a year goes - to keep your store manageable, but it might not hurt to include some subjectivity apart from the bare stats. Do you feel good about the design? How similar is it compared to other designs you offer? How similar is it to the competition for same keywords? If it's unique enough to stand-out from similar designs (I know, that doesn't seem to make sense) in a highly competitive market, or is in more of a 'niche', it's probably worth re-considering and maybe giving it some more time with new keywords.

[NHW]

I hide my 'dormant' products with the intention of revisiting ones I feel i can optimize, but I rarely ever get around to it. You're absolutely right though, I should take the time to revisit items with multiple sales.

[LMGildersleeve]

I guess if you are worried about your zRank that could be the answer. My experience has been many of those unviewed sellers sometimes sell after I refresh their meta data (title, tags & descriptions) I'm with Sara on this one. Why hide those sellers if you can get another sale off of them?

For what it's worth, after changing my royalties I lost zRank points. That hasn't stopped from selling the same volume of products as it had been before my changes.

[Deseades]

That can be what I will do.... I have already hidden some designs which after some Zazzle changes, became faulty. I am just to scared to rid of them all for good;)

[BKMuir]

I have an item that was created in 2013. Sold first time on April 1, sold again yesterday (same person? - stats not yet available).

The previous 3 items sold this year were created in 2013, 2010, and 2018 -- all were 1st time sales.  Why delete anything that is still current, if you are okay with the design? Even if not still available, I hide them, as once I deleted quite a few of a "discontinued" item and it came back shortly after the delete ...

[NHW]

Amazing that a product sold after so many years! I learned the hard way to only hide products instead of deleting. I have an illness that causes severe brain fog and, for reasons I will never understand, I deleted my bestselling products in one of my stores. I have no idea what convinced me that was a good idea! 

[sharonrheafords]

This reply is of no help to you; yet, I have to say that over half the time I see an old design I intend to go back and remove (out of thousands), I swear it sells the next day or week.