zRank for one of my stores jumped from 6 to 8 overnight.

[WHS_Designs]

zRank for one of my primary stores jumped from 6 to 8 overnight.
(even my lowest selling store went up a point).

I have been deleting products that haven't sold, but in the past that has never affected my zRank.
wonder if it's the (regular) posting to the new Zazzle Community forums that has had a say in the matter?

[J32Design · Accepted solution]

I doubt posting here has any effect on zRank at all. If you deleted products before and did so now again, maybe your stores have reached a product to sales ratio that worked in your favor with zRank.

That would be my guess. But to be fair, your guess is as good as mine.

[J32Design · Accepted solution]

I doubt posting here has any effect on zRank at all. If you deleted products before and did so now again, maybe your stores have reached a product to sales ratio that worked in your favor with zRank.

That would be my guess. But to be fair, your guess is as good as mine.

[WHS_Designs]

I did have some nice bulk sales within the last couple of months. If they've cleared, then your guess may be correct. But as you've pointed out, we're all grasping at straws. 😉 

[Jadendreamer13]

So, my first question yielded two responses. One response included a link that said I can’t use the name, “Zazzle,” in my ad because it’s a trademark. I have two follow-up questions: Can I use a Zazzle in-situ photo of one of my products in an ad? And can I provide a link to my Zazzle store in the ad? Thanks!

[CreativeLeahG]

You might get more replies if you take the time to thank and reply to those who already took the time to reply on your other thread. One of whom was me. Meanwhile maybe email Zazzle for questions specific to their terms as they'll be able to offer the best, most uptodate advice.

[Jadendreamer13]

I thanked LynnMarie, who responded to me first. I am grateful for each response.

[CreativeLeahG · Accepted solution]

Two things I have consistently noticed will boost my zrank ... deleting, hiding, sharing all 'unseen' products and of course 'sales'.

Thus I believe the ratio of products to products viewed to be relevant as well as products sold.

Hence the importance of housekeeping, routinely sharing unseen items, hiding anything deemed surplus. You could for example hide seasonal products and unhide 3 months prior to the season starting ( in line with stores who start selling Christmas items in Sept. Easter items already in shops now etc.). This means you are not deleting, just popping your stock into storage until it is needed.

[igiftcenter]

Doesn't hiding say Christmas goods then unhiding them at whatever one deemed a good time to do it....
make that product lose it's marketplace standing / location?  I'm just trying to learn here.

[CreativeLeahG]

I don't know is the quick answer

BUT

Where are you in the marketplace? If you are number 100,000 out of 900,000 what placement are you losing? If however you in the top 5 pages .... then the question becomes relevant. 

For me, I don't need to hide my seasonal items as they have all been viewed and my zrank for the store featuring them is a zrank 9. However if it was lower (4 or 5) then I would consider the merits of hiding them out of season. Market placement wouldn't be a consideration I had.

Your market placement will fall if not viewed or sold as newer products are added daily. Those newer products may match current trends and be marketed more actively by the Creator (or Zazzle) or affiliates. On the other hand, hiding your products out of season could give them a 'boost' of freshness when you unhide them. Especially if you SHARE them all again at that time (you should do so).

[shellifitz]

For me the biggest reasons not to hide seasonal items is because you never really know when someone might be shopping early for a particular holiday... and also I can tell you from my own experience that my hidden things did lose search rankings.  Also search placement has a lot to do with what search terms are used... so just because you are not showing up on the first 5 pages for one search doesn't mean you won't show up on page one for a different  keyword search.  So for me personally I try not to hide anything I want to see sell, I will try revamping keywords and ramping up promotions instead. If that doesn't help after the 3rd try or so... then I will delete it myself. 

[CreativeLeahG]

The hiding of seasonal items was really just one example of how we can attempt to boost our zrank without deleting products we still want to sell. Rotating stock like we do in shops. But definitely, if one can keep those sales coming in without reducing stock levels, then do so. Everything is a means to an end only.

[shellifitz]

I was wondering if you had recently changed your royalty?  from my own observations the two biggest things that have bumped my zrank up or down has been sales (or the lack thereof) and royalty changes.  For instance over the holidays I raised my royalties and saw my Zrank in some of my higher ranking stores drop a point.  Then when I lowered it again I saw them go back up a point.   

[WHS_Designs]

@shellifitz, no, I haven't changed my royalty in years.  

[CreativeLeahG]

That is an interesting observation Shelli. I wonder, did you raise them over 10%? 

[shellifitz]

@CreativeLeahG no I only went from 14.9 to 20, but as soon as that 20% kicked in all 11 of my stores dropped by 1 point.  Since the holidays are over now I am back to the normal 14.9 and got my lost zRank points back.  

[WBartworks]

Shellifiz - Zazzle deducts 5% from your royalty, whenever your royalty is more than 14.9%.  So you only got 0.1% more royalty at 20%.  Was that your aim?  

[shellifitz]

According to the royalty calculator on the product selling page a roll of 3" wide ribbon at 14.9 % royalty will cost the customer $19.95 and yield me $2.87.   The same product at 20% royalty will cost the customer $21.20 and yield me $3.89 after they take a 0.20 cent transaction fee.  so I have made an extra $1.02 on that sale of one roll of ribbon.  Maybe that is only 0.1% more but it was an increase in my royalties.   Math is not my strong point (in fact it gives me a headache) but it seems like that is actually more than a 0.1% increase?    The main objective I was trying to acchieve was to offset the deep discounts offered over the holidays and seeing what happened to my Zrank I am glad I didn't go higher than that.  I have seen from experience that my higher ranked stores do better in sales. 

[WBartworks]

Shellifitz, 
This was discussed several times in the old forum.  Just in case, I looked up royalties I received when I first started at Zazzle:  Here is one where I set my royalties at 20%:

Customer paid $30.24.  I set my royalty at 20% but only received $4.54 (15% of $30.24). 
Zazzle also states that in their policies which I didn't read until after I got that deduction.

[shellifitz]

If I remember right, the royalty calculator will automatically figure in the 20% 3rd party carve outs also and it doesn't account for any sale Zazzle might be running which will also affect our royalty earned. So it is a rough estimate but not that far off.  

If on the sale you are referring to there was a sale on that day and it was also a 3rd party sale that could be what caused your royalty ro go down. 

Adding:  I never have really understood Zazzle math but it is not exactly like real world math.  lol  

[WBartworks]

That's true.  However, since the policies state that Zazzle will deduct 5% from your royalty if the royalty is above 14.9%, I rater not set it at 20% anymore.

[shellifitz]

I understand.   I did see better take home pay over the holidays but after this conversation I might go higher next time and see what happens.   

[shellifitz]

@WBartworks another thing we don't think about is that there is always 15% off of things that are not included in a higher discount sale... that is everyday. So what that means is factor in at least 15% discount price when trying to calculate our paid royalties.   This is one reason why I have been asking for years for Zazzle to give us more transparent and better itemized earnings reports, so we can see exactly what discounts and carveouts were applied.  

[ColsCreations]

It was discussed in the old forum at length with some very exact math. For anything between 15% and approx. 16.5% on the safe side, the 5% transaction fee did cause one to earn a little bit less than if you had stayed at 14.9%. But beyond that 16.5% one always earned more despite the 5% Transaction Fee for going above 14.9.

Here's how your above sale & earnings break down:

Note that the $4.54 calculated above for a Third-Party sale is exactly what you said you were paid. 25% ($1.51) of your gross royalty was deducted in fees but only $0.30 of that was due to the royalty being over 14.9.

@shellifitz  @WBartworks 

[WBartworks]

ColsCreation -  You like math a whole lot more than I do.  Although from what I can tell, it looks like you might have it correctly figured out.  It's great to have someone like you figuring things out for us.  Regardless, I came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter how high or low I set my royalty, if no one wants what I have to sell at any price. 😂

[ColsCreations]

I don't like math, that's why I made a spreadsheet to do it for me. 😉

[WBartworks]

Dear Moderator,
I believe Zazzle made a mistake when calculating my royalty yesterday.  It took 5% off the subtotal and then gave me 20% off the reduced amount.  I checked my history and learned that this is not how Zazzle calculated my royalty before whenever my set royalty was above 14.9%.

Yesterday I made a sale and I was puzzled why I only received $5.88 royalty instead of $6.27. 
The original price is $39.20.
Taking 15% off the list price leaves $33.32.  So that is what the customer paid.
Since my product got referred.  Zazzle took of another 5% off of $33.32 ($33.32 times 5% = $1.67) which brings you to the subtotal of $31.36 as is shown in my royalty history. 

I assumed Zazzle would multiply $31.36 by 25% (my set royalty) as it did before, and then take the 5% out off the resulting royalty amount, because I set my royalty over 14.9%.  But no, Zazzle took off 5% of the subtotal which lowers the subtotal amount to $29.79.  Zazzle then multiplies $29.79 by 20% and that's how I wind up with only getting $5.88. 

However, had Zazzle multiplied the subtotal of $31.36 by 25% ($31.36 times 25% equals $7.84) and then took the 5% out of $7.84, I would have received $6.27 royalty.

BTW:  Since $5.88 equals only 18.75% off the subtotal amount of $31.36, Zazzle actually deducted 6.25% from my 25% royalty and not just 5%.

[CreativeLeahG]

14.9% is the magical figure, so going over that was the trigger it seems based on your findings. I thought maybe it was going over 10% as that appears to be their desired upper % figure. 

[shellifitz]

@CreativeLeahG I did experiment around with 10% vs 14.9% before and honestly from my limited testing I really didn't see any difference in Zranks or sales but now go over 14.9 and zrank drops. Which I think you probably have also noticed that higher ranked stores seem to do better sales wise.  At least that is what I have noticed.   🙂 

[CreativeLeahG]

I think zrank is beneficial for sales BUT I presently mainly focus on creating designs for new stores which are at 4/5 so I don't rely on zrank. I do wonder if I am making a mistake in that regard, but I don't like to have too many products in a single store.

[shellifitz]

Same here. That was one of the side effects when I broke out my main store into smaller ones I did notice higher zranks even though that wasn't really on my radar at the time. But I have one store that has a pretty high rank and I try not to mess with it too much.  I will usually only add new things after something sells trying to keep the balancing act.  LOL   Zrank is still such a mystery so I don't really worry about it that much, but I am always trying to learn more about it just by observation of my own stores.   pretty limited test group though .. haha

[CreativeLeahG]

yes, I am designed to notice patterns and enjoy observing them so also keep a keen eye. I think adding to high rank store the odd product that represents the bulk of others in lower rank stores is probably a good idea and one can of course combine the items from multiple stores into a single collection and add to all those stores, so there remains cohesion.

As a side note, I once used to fill my time bringing up google search results so I could then enter all the high ranking sites to try and observe their common 'patterns' for success in organic ranking. But Google loves to switch things up .... not so easy to figure them out either 😅

[randysgrandma]

My Z rank went from 5 to 7 for no reason that I can figure out. I don't need to figure it out. Just enjoying it. 

[kashmier]

My rank went up and went back down just as quick. 😞  

[Store_owner]

Created a store 2 months ago with some great personal art. Can't seems to get past Z rank 3, when I have another store at 8. I read somewhere that if your rank is under 4 that your products will not be found in marketplace search results. So the only way to improve the rank on my store is to post and share outside of zazzle?

[WBartworks]

Yes, you do have great art.

Your store will reach rank 4 when you have fulfilled all of Zazzle's requirements, such as sharing 10 of your products, displaying 10 media items, etc.  

[JB]

This isnt totally true. I have some spin off small stores that have 6-7 and not all the requirements are done and haven't been for ages, and then I have some that are stuck at a 3 that have everything done and make fairly regular sales. lol. Its'a  great mystery!

[Store_owner]

Wow, my small spin off stores don't get ANY views. No matter what I try, and it's not like they are badly designed either.  Good Job!

[JB]

I think my biggest piece of advice is Zazzle customers shop less for the "stores" and more for specific products. There are probably many customers who never even visit our storefronts once they find what they are looking for. Most customers have an idea in mind (at least for gifts and events/invitations) when they come here, so they will be looking for something with a specific theme or color scheme etc. If they search results they are going to click on the item(s) that draw them in first. From there, they MAY find collections or visit our shops to see what else we have but many just do not.

So I always try to think in terms of what styles, themes, items, sayings, etc etc are either evergreen  and try to make something that stands apart or would be pleasing or I think on or research what is trendy for the moment or season and then design with that in mind. It's a plus when they like our shops and stay or return for something else, but more often than not I try to think of the one-off customer who has a specific event or plan in mind and already knows what they are sort of looking for and they just need to find it!...

I don't know if that makes sense, but if it does, I hope it helps some! LOL

[Store_owner]

Aloha WBartworks!

Mahalo for the compliment. Yes, I have done those tasks weeks ago. I remain at 3. Will try some other things and report my findings.