Wrong Final Amount for Sale

[HeatherMarie]

I just had a sale that was *not* referred but it still ended up with the percentage as if it had been referred by 3rd party. The final earnings were cut nearly in half as if it was 3rd party referred and not "None" like it was. Anyone else see this issue today? This was on an 80 invitation order.

[SheaPrints]

Yes, I noticed this. I received a $3.33 royalty for a $60.58 sale. (10% rate, no referral). Then it happened with two more identical $4.30 sales, each paid $0.24 (10% rate, no referral). I assumed the buyers had a special discount!

[ColsCreations]

@SheaPrints 

Zazzle's entire payment & fee structure changed on April 1st 2025. Looks like your sales in question were for products in the 45% bracket (Office & School or Sports, Toys & Games). 

[SheaPrints]

Yes, that's right, they are all in the 'Office & School' category. So I should have received $6.06 and $0.43 as they are all referrer 'None'. I thought a special buyer discount had been applied, but now I'm not sure!

[HeatherMarie]

Yes, I am aware of the change. But, this was not a 3rd party referred sale. No marketing percentage should have been taken. So, I should have gotten my full default percentage amount, which I didn't.

[Cat]

Maybe you could post a screenshot of the sale from your royalty report?

OK, hold the phone. I just went through my royalty report and found a few from the past day or two that are "none" but the royalty is cut in half. They're not transfers so I'm at a loss. Hmmmm... (and Grrrrr...)

[ColsCreations]

This is not good but I am guessing that these were all actually Referred sales, but since they are doing stuff behind the scenes to update our "reports", they are incorrectly showing as None right now? In this recent thread re the referral % no longer showing on the referral report, James said 

We’ve made a recent change to help support upcoming improvements to your Earnings experience. We understand this may be a bit disruptive in the short term, but we believe it will lead to a better experience moving forward. Thanks for bearing with us as we work towards enhancing this section.

So maybe they are re-classifying things to be more descriptive than just None, Self or 3rdP and this is just some temp confusion?

[Cat]

That would make sense, but it is a bit disconcerting. There have been a few other "nones" in the same time period that were credited correctly (ie full royalty, no marketing fee deducted) so there's clearly some sort of anomaly. Maybe someone from Z will weigh in to clarify.

[HeatherMarie]

Hopefully that's the case, and everything goes back to their policy and we didn't lose earnings. It's not an unusually high amount of Non-Referrals I'm receiving. It's the normal amount, just being calculated as 3rd Party Referrals. I've been with Zazzle for a long time now and I have never had a reason not to trust them, but since this whole re-haul of percentage caps and marketing fees, it's been tough.

[ColsCreations]

Despite the lack of transparency, the very limited info shown on our "reports", the convoluted calculations, them acting as their own affiliate etc, I too have never not trusted them for things like this. So I really do believe this must be an error where 3rdP sales are being labeled as None. Because the alternative is that actual None sales are incorrectly being charged as 3rdP ones. And if that's the case they would need to 1) admit the mistake and 2) credit the affected designers. But because we as Designers have absolutely no way to know if a sale was 3rdP or None - we just have to take their word for it - they can play this out anyway they want. 

Lots of stuff comes up in the forums as urgent, really needs fixing, really needs some official feedback ... and I brush most of it off as eh, they'll get to it when they get to it, it's not the end of the world. But this situation, this really does need an official response ASAP as it's causing mistrust and damaging their reputation.

[Fehmi]

Same here, all of my sales coming in as "none" referrals have been cut in half as if they have been calulated as "third referral"

[LJ]

Same here. All my “None” referral royalties are half of what they should be. The first one was on 6/23/2025. I don’t think they are mistakenly labeled as None. Most of my sales are referred, but suddenly all of them in the last couple of days would be highly unusual.

[HeatherMarie]

It has now happened on a downloadable order and 2 other print orders... And yes, all labeled as "None" for referred. The earnings are what a 3rd party referral earning would be for me. Quite concerning. This goes against their policies of not taking a marketing fee when there is not a 3rd party marketing involved.

[Cat]

I just got another one too. Very disconcerting.

[SBS]

Wow! You're right, all my None referrals are cut in half. No way I didn't get any None for days. Over 90% are referred nowadays, but 100? I don't think so. This might affect everybody, many of us just probably haven't noticed it yet. I've never ever checked if the % was calculated correctly.

Maybe you should transfer this topic to the Tech board to make sure they fix it ASAP.