Apologies, but I feel the need for a bit of a whine.
My default royalty rate is set at 14.5%. This is at the upper end of royalties recommended by Zazzle.
If you go over 15%, Zazzle will penalize you in the form of a transaction fee of 5% on earnings and it can/will drop your shop's Z-ranking.
I recently sold a car mat in Australia, sale price $49.32AUD. Not bad, you may think.
However Australia has a VAT tax of 10% and Zazzle charges a flat rate of 20% off the sale price to cover VAT. So right there, Zazzle is enjoying a bonus.
On top of that, the sale was listed as referred by a 3rd party, which as I understand it, is usually Zazzle advertising. That incurs a further 20% off the sale price after VAT. This is Zazzle paying themselves again out of artist revenue, over and above whatever mark-up Zazzle has already built into the base price of the product.
But wait, there's more; being from New Zealand (and having lodged a W8BEN form, which is a whole other story), a further 5% is deducted on payout, as tax.
What this all means is that out of the original ~$50 sale, I get $4.35 - a royalty rate of less than 9%.
<edit> and now the customer's cancelled the sale anyway 😐
