Wrong Final Amount for Sale

HeatherMarie
New Contributor III

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.

108 REPLIES 108

Lea
Contributor III

Here's my latest. My commission - after the excess royalty fee is deducted - should be $10.19. And instead it's $5.06.

royalty error.png

Lea
Contributor III

And now this morning it's no longer "none" - it's a 3rd party sale. 😡
royalty error 2.png

Fehmi
New Contributor III

All of my "none" referrals that were incorrect have now been changed to "third party" too. No explanation from Zazzle, I am losing trust in them more and more these days!

WHERE ARE YOU ZAZZLE?

kristenj
New Contributor III

I had a feeling this would be the "fix." I've saved screenshots and reports of all the Nones where the royalty was incorrect. Keeping those in my back pocket. This has really eroded my trust in Zazzle.

kcbypatricia
New Contributor III

Thanks for your post. I was so surprised today. It has happened to me too. I didn’t have a none sale in quite a few days but I just got one and the royalty is almost half of what it should be for a none sale. It’s very discouraging and frustrating not to know what the problem is. Hopefully it will get fixed soon.  

Marcia
Valued Contributor III

Here's another one for me today. Would have been a very decent royalty for a single sale had it not been cut. (I sincerely hope we'll either have transparency explaining the "why" for reduced royalty or be reimbursed the difference to make up the correct amount.)

Screen Shot 2025-06-29 at 3.56.28 PM.png

HeatherMarie
New Contributor III

UPDATE: Zazzle said they were referring me to talk to someone else but I still haven't heard back. I'm guessing in the morning I might get an update. But *sigh* as of today, it is still giving me the wrong royalty earnings for the Non-Referrals. I've lost quite a bit of money over this issue that I would have gotten if it was corrected.

Cat
Honored Contributor III

I'm still getting half royalties on nones too. Grumble, grumble....

____________________
Cat @ ZB Designs

Laura-LiseWong
Contributor III

Happening on mine as well.

SBS
Contributor

I used to have 82% 3rd party sales (since April). Now they made it 96%. I guess I'll have to raise my royalties again to adapt to the new reality.
This raises trust issues again. I think I fell out of love with Z, for good. So sad. I moved to other places recently, but I don't like their interfaces. Anyways, I'll have to get used to them.

DancingPelican
Valued Contributor

I am still getting half royalties for sales labeled "none" in the Referrals column.

VivianD117
Contributor III

I think we just saw the answer this morning.  It appears that what was labeled as “none” from June 24th on — and paid as though it was “3rd party” - - has now been just changed to “3rd party”.   Am i seeing this correctly?

Where is the answer posted? I haven't been able to find it yet?

Check your Earnings Summary, that's how I saw the change.

OK, thanks. Just checked my earnings summary. Some changed and some stayed as "none".

Maybe they are still updating the sales figures. All of my Nones are now 3rd party. My self-referrals are still Self. 

I am keeping a watch on my "nones". Oddly, I have not had a referral in a week now, and I typically get them almost daily or at least every other day or two.

Strangely enough, even after they "fixed" their mistake, I have more self-referrals since the change than I have had in the past year. I have no idea why.

I am totally confused now. A "None" sale just popped up for today. It is for the right amount, so I guess some are valid. It would be nice if Zazzle would explain what they are doing instead of letting us all act like we are NSA analysts. 

This whole affair is causing distrust to brew within our Creator Community. Zazzle has said that they are working on having a more accurate system of accountability of referral tracking. The more troubling outcome of this now strange phenomenon, is if a product is sold as "none" it should mean there was no tracking code attached to the sale. Somehow, Zazzle has is determining while we watch, that the sale is now referred. 

This does not sit well with me. 

 

There’s been no communication or follow up. I looked this morning at the example I shared here on my report and saw it had changed. I’m going to guess we won’t get any further explanation and they just hope this blows over. 

jophb
Valued Contributor

yes, it appears that most of my 'none' from the last few days are now 3rd party too

but, perhaps good news, I just also noticed that one from yesterday evening was a "none" that got paid as a "none".

Anne-Marie
Contributor

My only 'None' sale from the 24th changed to 3rd Party also.

SandyMDesigns
Contributor III

An easy fix for Zazzle and the "None" for everyone is to change it all to the "3rd Party". Whether it is true or not, I did not get any email to say so.

Marcia
Valued Contributor III

Looking at my sales log this morning, all the "none" sales that were paid out as "third party" now say "third party". And the (VERY) few "none" over the past few days that were paid out correctly in the first place have remained a true "none" payment.

I'm really rather disgusted & discouraged by all this. At the bare minimum, we deserve transparency & some sort of a response.

Lea
Contributor III

I'm really taken aback and discouraged by the silence. This is a massive issue that directly impacts our money and it's been discussed for days on multiple threads. There were comments on another one from Zazzle that it was being looked into, and overnight a change is made that benefits Zazzle and we are just left to wonder and naturally assume the worst.

Heather
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Creators,

We’re currently making major updates to our Earnings reporting to deliver more transparent and detailed insights on how Earnings calculate. As part of this work, a recent temporary display issue occurred affecting how some sales were shown in your reporting this month.

Specifically, some transactions were incorrectly labeled as “None” in the “Referred By” column, when they should have appeared as “3rd Party”. This was strictly a display error and all Royalty calculations were accurately calculated. The issue has now been resolved, and your reports should reflect the proper Referral source for sales. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we continue to work on improving your Earnings reporting experience.

The Zazzle Team 

ColsCreations
Honored Contributor II

When you have a sale you get an email (if you've opted for such).
Those emails show you the TC (tracking code) if one was used.
Those TC's can confirm it was a 3rdP referred sale.
They are not always there but they are there often enough to recognize those long strings of random characters as a TC from Zazzle/paid ad or even a real 3rdP affiliate.

So, for your sales that were labeled as NONE but were being charged as 3rdP, and have now converted to being labeled as 3rdP sales  - Look at those emails. 

Not every 3rdP sale is going to have a TC on it, but many do. So do some cross-checking. If you can find some sales formerly labeled as NONE in your earnings report but that have a TC in the sales email, then you know it was indeed actually a 3rdP sale that was mislabeled. 

This was def a major flub on Z's end but you can maybe re-assure yourself that all is still on the up&up by cross-checking earnings reports to those sales emails. 

* I don't take credit for thinking of this cross-check using the TC in the sales emails. That came from another Designer but it was so sensible I wanted to share it. The lack of a TC in the sales email doesn't mean it was a None sale, but if one is present then it was def 3rdP even if it ended up being labeled as None. 

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