CHAT I Wish We could Opt to Put CHAT on Vacation Now and Then

[sharonrheafords]

I am living in overwhelming hurricane and flood, etc. messes still; yet, I have always designed on Zazzle at least a few hours daily - all day and night prior to disasters. I am hesistant to even have that joy right now due to CHAT which I feel guilty if I ignore; however, if I am away and can't get to respond, it seems I have ignored some good people. Nobody seems to see the little message we are allowed to  post: I am away for a few weeks .....

With all on  my shoulders most could not handle, I still plow on daily, so the down side of chat is for example: Twice recently, I have spent several days I desperately need in my life .... and quite a bit of money helping 2 customers who never purchased after asking for help, changes, more product, etc. .... The last loved an invitation and asked if I could change the skin color. I worked on it 2 days and did not  like the result, so I purchased 2 more beautiful dark skin images @ $50.00 each (losing time and money - no profit to me), but I want the customers to be happy. I created the products requested and was told she loved it all, asked for more, and never purchased a thing. This has happened twice, so ...

I wish we could put CHAT on vacation for periods of time when we really need to focus on home as well as creating on Zazzle.

[Jadendreamer13]

Freelance artists often negotiate a “kill fee” before accepting custom job requests. A kill fee is an agreed-on amount that is paid to the artist even if the finished work is not ultimately purchased—essentially to pay you for some of the work that you did at the customer’s request. This fee is collected before the work begins, so if the customer doesn’t buy the finished work, they can’t walk away without paying you the agreed-upon kill fee. This can be done via Paypal if you have a Paypal account.

After years of working as a corporate and freelance artist, I no longer accept custom jobs. The items I offer in my store are all that I offer. It’s also why I don’t create products in the wedding niche.  It makes for a much simpler, peaceful life.

Sorry that this happened to you.

[WHS_Designs]

@Jadendreamer13 interesting! I never knew that that was the actual term (kill fee). in my admittedly few experiences doing custom design work, the average person balks at paying up front; only the very serious and committed (usually organizations) would (and have) done that, so that is a good way to weed out parties who won't commit and/or don't think our time is worth all that much!

@sharonrheafords as a workaround, on your member profile, go to Settings > Edit Profile, and in the Last Name Field, add (OFFLINE). I also do add (OFFLINE) to the little blurb we get, but not everyone reads that.

[Marcia]

I've made it a habit to only make new products for potential customers, for free, as long as it benefits me somehow. If this is a version that I feel will sell again or a new product of one of my designs, I will make it. Otherwise, I give them a price & they can pay me via PayPal. Usually that'll scare them away because they don't want to pay extra, which is fine by me. I've only collected once or twice.

But on the whole, making new (requested) products that will also benefit my store have generally panned out. I ended up with a very good seller because of this & it is something I never would have thought of on my own. Occasionally, they don't buy what I've made for them but I've also sold some of those products later on. What I would never do, though, is purchase anything for that requested product for more than a few bucks. My 2¢, anyways!