WTH with Zazzle arbitrarily "optimizing" items and then removing them if you don't choose to optimiz

[pichick712]

IT SHOULD BE MY DECISION TO REMOVE AN ITEM NOT ZAZZLE'S. I get messages about having to "optimize" items and suppose I don't think they need optimizing, I am screwed because Zazzle will take the item down. What gives them the right to do that?

[JansCabin]

I don't mind it, I check the back end quite often and it gives me a chance to update, change or delete things, I sometimes look under 'Last Viewed Date' while relaxing with a coffee but if I don't don't get round to it it's just a prompt to check on things.
As it says, it gives tips or reminders to
Improve and / or update titles, tags and descriptions.
Add a cover photo if you want to
Promote products on social media or your own website
Check the quality of the design and determine if it should be deleted or revised

Jan

[angelafuller729]

Zazzle has every right - their websites/their rules... but as frustrating as I know it can be (I have more than a dozen stores and thousands of products), I also know that Zazzle gets more views and is higher ranked than any other POD out there.  Their algorithm to hide products without views is inline with search engine algorithms.  A website needs to keep a "positive" ratio of fresh / viewed pages and links (and each product listing is unique in this way)  to be deemed relevant.  If it wasn't ranked as high when it comes to being relevant in searches, there would be very few creators that made any $ at all.  

In regards to your products specifically - I viewed several that are in your Easter store.  Every single one has title and description in ALL CAPS with the tags literally being a cut/paste from the description.  Clearly you have not read/implemented even the basics of Zazzle's guidelines for Titles/Descriptions/Tags. 

[pichick712]

soooooooooooo someone please tell me how to get more views! I post to FB, instagram, twitter, pinterest and my sales r not growing. I REFUSE to pay the clarke's 3-4 thousand dollars to find out their secret which I think is just to charge people 3-4 thousand dollars to hear nothing new. 

[angelafuller729]

I haven't paid thousands of $$ (nor would I)  BUT there is a treasure trove of free tips and info on Elke Clarke's site.

@pichick712 when you say you won't pay to "hear nothing new" that's fair... but to be optimized, you also need to implement the Zazzle basics in your descriptions and tags (and not in ALL CAPS). Then that info is being picked up when you pin and post, which does make a difference in viewability.  Pinterest is my primary share place - when I do it consistently it means 175k to 1 million views monthly.  When I don't, those numbers drop dramatically.  By the way, Zazzle has MILLIONS of Pinterest views per month, way more than any other like-type POD, which is why even though I too get frustrated at times, I still think it's the best platform for my designs.

[DBCartoons]

Have you ever figured out the percentage of profit after you deduct what you spent on getting the 175K to 1 Million views?

[pichick712]

i am making NOTHING but I am not going further into debt on something that only makes someone else richer with no guarantee I will be any better off. I just lost my job and I have to fight to keep a roof over  my head. I am NOT investing in someone else's wealth. I need to invest in MY wealth. 

[Wildart]

I am not in your position..but guess what I do to earn a little?..I do surveys..they pay a dollar or 2 every survey you complete. I find them rewarding..go check out some ..Valued Opinions is one of them...

[Barbara]

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@Wildart wrote:

I am not in your position..but guess what I do to earn a little?..I do surveys..they pay a dollar or 2 every survey you complete. I find them rewarding..go check out some ..Valued Opinions is one of them...

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I've been doing surveys for a long time with another company whose name I can't give because I'm not on my computer and can't, for the life of me, remember its name. My favorite method of being paid there is via an Amazon gift card, which is redeemable when the amount reaches $25. I've gotten any number of products I needed for free. I'll likely sign up for Valued Opinions because it seems to work the same way. Thanks for the heads up.

Colorwash's Home

[Scott]

Would you mind continuing this conversation on surveys in Zazzle Chat? Would be nice to keep this conversation focussed on Zazzle. Thanks in advance.

[angelafuller729]

Since Pinterest accounts for 90% of my social media posting it's fairly easy for me to track referrals.  

[LoraSeverson]

That's impressive! I can't get a referral to save my life sometimes! lol

[angelafuller729]

You have some beautiful designs Lora and the bulk of your items are wedding related so I'm sure you're getting sales! 

[LoraSeverson]

Thank you, you are very kind. My referrals seem so hot and cold. Sometimes I get them all the time and then they dry up. Very weird. Your's look very consistent! You're clearly doing something right!

[pichick712]

I have tried to listed to the Clarke's but they spend the 1st 15 min tell you "what they are going to tell you" but really don't tell you anything. I gave up. Say what you're gonna say and then be done. My vision is not great so I tend to do things in all caps and it's a title. That should have no bearing on sales. I ask my friends to follow me so broaden by scope but if they don't do it, then I am stuck with maybe 100 followers. I use FB and then am told the products are too expensive. I use twitter, and instagram. Since I am unemployed right now I can devote a lot of time to this but I need a bigger following. After YEARS of enduring workplace abuse and sexual harassment, I lost my job (they fired me when I would not shut up) so this is ALL I have. I HAVE TO MAKE THIS WORK. I am almost 65 and cannot live on what SSI would pay. I NEED MORE. 

[Angelandspot]

Promote wherever you can for free.  Pinterest, twitter,facebook,instagram, ect.  I also just found this youtube channel last week packed with all kinds of great print-on-demand info for free with no paid classes to join.  https://www.youtube.com/@MeyTribe  Even if the video says it's for Society6 or Redbubble you can still take the ideas and use them for Zazzle as well.  Also I would open other free POD stores if you have the time because what I sell on Zazzle is not the same as what I sell on Society6 and Redbubble.  They all have different clients and I have different trending designs on the different platforms so if one month one store does not do well normally another store will make up for it.

[Wildart]

I have been using caps for part of my title, so I keep track of newer designs..do you think this is a no-no? 

[CrazyMermaid]

Yes Caps are a giant mistake. It sets a very bad tone with the customer. 

[igiftcenter]

and actually makes reading more difficult and busy for the eyes to take in

[Wildart]

good feedback, thanks. what does everyone else do to keep tabs on how long ago a product was made, without going into the page itself? 

[KeegansCreation]

Date Created is in the product thumbnail dropdown in the back end. If you don't see it, go to Statistics (right below where you select how many products you want to see per page) and tick the Date Created box.

[angelafuller729]

I was told years ago never use All Caps - in fact, on another site, you couldn't even publish a listing if your title was caps.  Acronyms changes it up a bit, especially with the popularity of texting, but overall, product titles and descriptions should be (1) Title Case for Title and (2) Sentence case with correct capitalization and punctuation for descriptions .   If you're using your title as a "back office" way to control your stock and assigning it a catalog or product number, you're wasting valuable landscape, especially for social media sharing.  IMHO, if that's necessary, maybe put your "catalog code"  as the very last part of your description.  That will keep title and descrip better optimized for search engines and Pinterest

[CreativeLeahG]

1, Zazzle has every 'right' to delete whatever they want, whether we like it or not is another matter. It's their business, their rules. 

2. I would like to CONFIRM optimizing works, even the tiniest of tweaks. I'm selling so many old random designs now. I'd even suggest routinely tweaking old unseen items without the prompts as it does seem effective.

[igiftcenter]

I was just going to post the exact same thing 🙂
Anyone that has an entire store of products that have no views, no sales, and have been on this site for two years.   Maybe it's time to do something differently?

Ask  yourself why you are not getting any views? Does anyone even know your store exists... get a relative or friend to at the very least go on your store page and look at some of your products to give you feedback. It could be very valuable to you AND get products some views from someone who actually may help you with your designs.

That would be my first job one if I were in that situation. I hope that helps someone

Keep your cool. Everything takes time and Rome wasn't built in one day 🙂

[pichick712]

lol, yea like go with another company that does the same thing. 

[pichick712]

I've been at zazzle for 10 YEARS. 

Just because you can, does not mean you should. 

[pichick712]

not for me. 

[Barbara]

The 15-month "expiration" used to bother me a lot because I was negligent, but now with the notifications we get, it's been easy to keep up-to-date. When it first showed up, I was all but knocked flat by the number of products in need of renewal, but I went through them a bit at a time and got caught up until it's now only a few at a time, which means I can also take the time to see what may be causing those products to get left behind. I've come to appreciate it, and that definitely includes the notifications.

Side note: Notifications for optimization are almost simultaneous with the products being hidden and so seem superfluous. If the product is hidden, it's obvious it needs to be optimized.

Colorwash's Home

[Wildart]

or, IMHO just veiwed again??

[Westerngirl2]

We've lived with the "products that need optimizing" for several years now. I have around 20,000 products in a number of stores, and up until 2 months ago, most of my stores did fairly well as I'm right on the edge of Gold status. I would check my products that needed optimizing every month, and upgraded titles, descriptions, tags before re-activating them. I deleted or re-designed many of them. It was always a chore to keep up, but I felt it was necessary housekeeping.

BUT.....since so many of my best selling products can no longer be found in the Zazzle MP by searching for their tags or keywords in their titles....even products having thousands of views and hundreds of sales....and no answer has come from Zazzle regarding the why or wherefore of this mess, I'm no longer doing that. Why should I, when similar products of mine that have few views and few or no sales show up in place of those prior best sellers? My sales, like many here, have tanked. So now I'm just bulk editing and re-activating all those products that need optimization.

Because, really, no one understands anymore what gets a product seen in the MP now. Might as well shove 'em all back in. Do I think that makes for a better e-commerce site? Heck no. But I've tried everything else to get the best sellers back, and nothing has worked, so yeah, many of us have reached a point not too far from desperation.,

[Barbara]

@Westerngirl2  : Reading through your post, I decided to see what's happened with my bestsellers. What I discovered is that they're still right up there on the first page, but are they selling? Nope. The thing I noticed, however, was their titles. They seemed crucial, more crucial than the tags. Maybe we have to make sure to use our strongest tags in the title. I'll have to do some experimenting when renewing my unpopular products. Maybe it'll help to focus on my titles. It can't hurt, right?

Colorwash's Home

[Westerngirl2]

I agree, Barbara. But it seems futile to me when "Biden" is in the title, in the keywords, in the description, and there are only a few pages of that particular product even shown in the MP when searching "Biden" for that product, and mine that has sold several times with hundreds of views is not included in those few pages. I find that same situation all too often now. It's like they've just become invisible. I can find them by searching for the EXACT title....but I don't think customers know the title to the product. They just use the main keyword, which in this case is "Biden".

The product has sold lately only when the customer came in through my marketing effort. And yes, they have cover photos.

I have Trump examples, too. When last discussed in the forum, I edited the keywords, using "Donald Trump" or "Joe Biden" along with just Trump (in the title and keyword) or Biden. Nothing changed...still no shows.

[Barbara]

Another of my theories down the tubes! 😞

Colorwash's Home

[igiftcenter]

If I were in your circumstances I would try doing an Edit Details on some of those products. Sometimes I find that updating tags, descriptions more thoughtfully ends up generating a sale on that product. It's not a scientific observation just something I have noticed happened to me. 

I'm not suggesting you haven't tried this, I'm just trying to be helpful with my own experience / observation.

[Barbara]

I've found a slightly more thoughtful edit on a hidden product has resulted in a sale now and then, but it's so difficult to know for sure because a product's time might simply have come. For sure, it's the oldest products that are likely to benefit because they come from a time when we only halfway knew what we were doing. I've come across a few of those products where I decided I must have been brain-dead at the time.

Colorwash's Home

[Westerngirl2]

Thanks, igiftcenter; I do appreciate it. And yeah, I've tried that, several times. I've also added them to different collections, marketed them, edited tags, description, title, etc. Nothing seems to work. I got discouraged and didn't even look at them for the last 2 weeks or so. Today, after posting, I got a bit peeved again (I mean, one of them has over 4K views and hundreds of sales!) and posted it again to Pinterest. AND got a nice sale a few hours later, and the referral. So, if it is seen, it does sell. I guess I'll just keep marketing it, but it is a mystery to me why it will not appear in Zazzle search. I've thought about recreating it as a new product to see what happens, but I think it really unfair that I would lose the MP standing. Of course, right now it appears to have NO MP standing. Very weird.

But I guess I sort of hijacked this thread, so I'll shut up now. Oooppps!

[Wildart]

good advice. I find tho, that All I have to do is view the item again, and it is ready to go, I do wonder if is is simply a last viewed thing..too long ago and it gets shoved to optimise...(I don't recall ever having to do anything more)

[chriiisss]

"there are only a few pages of that particular product even shown in the MP when searching "Biden" for that product, and mine that has sold several times with hundreds of views is not included in those few pages. I find that same situation all too often now. It's like they've just become invisible. I can find them by searching for the EXACT title....but I don't think customers know the title to the product. They just use the main keyword, which in this case is "Biden"."

@Westerngirl2 

if the product appears when you type the full title have you tried editing the title just to "biden" nothing else and see if it appears on those few pages when searching for biden golf balls?

[Westerngirl2]

Well, actually I'm finding now that it doesn't come up even when searching the complete title. Here's the title of the product..Joe Biden Good Lie Golf Balls.

What comes up with that search is the same design on the golf ball markers and the hat clip....even though I designated golf BALL. I even tried hiding the markers and the hat clip to see if that put the golf ball into search (as one of those has sold only a few times and the other not at all) and then the design didn't appear at all.

If someone ends up in my store, the search within my store works. In fact, if they just search "golf ball" it's the 1st one that shows, as it has sold and been viewed more than any others.

I have changed the title from Biden to Joe Biden. I have asked the product to be modified by simply adding a thin circle frame to the design. For a few days it showed as being under revision in my shop; now that has disappeared with no revision made, no word from Zazzle regarding it, and no new success in searching for it in the MP.  I have a series of "Good Lie Golf Balls" in the MP, and they show up when I search by their individual key words or titles, except the one I made for Trump. I'm beginning to think the Secret Service might be involved......hahaha!

If anyone can give me any further suggestions, I'd sure like to hear them. Or...if a moderator would like to check in? I have a few other products that seem to have the exact same problem....high # of views, good sales record (recent sales, too)...because I marketed them.....and yet no visibility in the MP by searching the key words in their titles and tags.

[KeegansCreation]

Since your other Biden golf products come up in search, I would say make a collection that includes the elusive golf ball and also the products you can verify come up in search.

[Westerngirl2]

Thanks, KeegansCreation. It's actually in two collections already, and it shows up in those collections. So, from that, I think, and from my marketing efforts, it still sells....just not like it did a few months ago when it came up in Zazzle searches for "Biden golf ball".  Weird, isn't it?