Please reconsider marketplace placements

[LJ]

I know it's naive to think that my post will change anything, but things have come to a point where I have too much to lose to leave it without a word. (And I've just read that some criticism here won't lead to punishment in the marketplace.)

Like many other designers, I'm experiencing a decline in sales. It would be comfortable for me too to blame it on the economy, but all my other POD accounts are acting normally (October = 3x August). Despite spending 100% of my POD time here since the mockup misery and the collections update.

Unlike others, I believe the main factor in decreasing sales is the heavy manual intervention in the marketplace placements. Definitely not the collections, maybe not the mockups or any changes announced, but things happening under the hood. It seems that Zazzle's new approach is not showing customers what they want but showing them what they want them to want. But, as results show, it doesn't work like that. Apparently, the crowd can better decide what's popular (with their money) than some Editors (with their picks).

A year ago, when I was browsing in some random product category, I was thinking if I had more money, I would buy this and that, and those too. Everything looked so nice and professional. Now I scroll through the first page of literally any category and don't like what I see enough to go to the second page. Yes, some awful mockups definitely don't help (and I say this knowing that I suck at mockups too), but prioritizing pages of designs that one employee liked at some point will drive away customers who are used to seeing beautiful and trendy things here.

I like to believe that the intent was good, but the implementation went astray. I understand that Zazzle wants to reward certain designers and influence buyers, but it could be done wiser in my opinion.

So just a suggestion: why don't you put one Editor's pick in every other row and let customers see the organically popular items too (bought with real money), as it used to be. If you placed a few EPs on the first pages, they would have the opportunity to catch up, but they would be put back into their normal places a few days later (I mean like some rotation system). This way, the category pages would have the popular and best-selling products but always show something new to keep visitors coming back.

Sorry for the length and the poor English.

[ColsCreations]

Agree with @Echo that EP's are a marketing ploy that are a turn-off because they lose all meaning with so many of them. I was searching the new poker chips last night, ended up going down the rabbit hole browsing other things and happened on a store with 396 EP's. It was seeing a lot of EP's of the same design type that caught my attention and made me start clicking to see if maybe they were from an official Zazzle store or something. Turns out it was a Diamond level account which means yes, that seller has made a LOT of money for Zazzle and thus deserves special perks, but eventually it just turns into a circle of known sellers taking over the front pages so they of course get more views and more sales and rinse & repeat. I doubt the EP designation itself results in more sales, it's that with the EP it's getting priority in search results and the nav menu over things that might also sell if they weren't being pushed back past the first few pages where people get tired of looking.
I don't do much in the way of popular/trendy products & designs, but if I did, I would be very discouraged trying to break into the game at this point in time.

[Echo]

I was talking to a relative of mine on Messenger whom has a lot of experience with POD and this is what he said:

“The problem with Editor's Picks is that a significant portion of them aren't original ideas. Zazzle tends to label designs as Editor's Picks merely because they're new to their platform, not because they bring a fresh ideas to the POD world. You can see that when they introduce a new product and immediate got flooded with Editor's Picks. To the customers, they have seen these designs hundreds of times already, and seeing them as editor's pick on Zazzle makes no sense; customers are probably sick of seeing them. Instead of giving out Editor's Picks like giving out candies, the designs should meet certain requirements. They should be unique and proven to sell, and possess the potential for continued success, then give them the Editor's Pick, not the other way around by first giving them an editor’s pick, and keep shoving them in front of the customers hoping they sell, while the designs that actually do sell get pushed away.”

[J32Design]

I cannot disagree with anything the OP @LJ has said. In many search results there are just too many editors picks. Editors picks are supposed to be special, but having 40 editors picks on page 1 of a result (e.g. "business cards") is just taking away from it. Having a few editors picks would be better and then have those rotate regularly. When all the past issued editors picks where taken away it was said that they aren't supposed to stay editors picks for too long, but are they really changing now?

As for people losing their marketplace ranks, well, that's life on Zazzle. I've been doing this since 2009 and about 8 - 10 years ago my business card designs where ranked in the very top spots on page 1. Now I don't even have one design in the first 16 pages of the main "business cards" search result. And to be fair, there is a lot more competition out there now that do fantastic work. I see a lot of really good designs. But in the end mine have fallen off the map.

The same thing is happening again and again in other product categories. You'll make it up there and then you just drop off. Most of the time it is either other designers catching up with you doing "similar" designs or simply better designs are coming along.

From my experience a moderator replying "Thanks, I'll forward it to the team" is as good as it is going to get.

[Connie]

I totally agree about the EPs. They lose all meaning for the customer when the whole first pages are filled with them. It definitely looks like just a cheap marketing ploy.

Zazzle does seem to skew the marketplace to get the results they want. For example, with cover photos, if they give those better placement than the ones that don't have covers, of course, customers will end up buying more of the ones with covers! But that doesn't mean customers actually prefer them- it just means that's all they get to see!

[klstock]

You expressed this perfectly and I agree with you 100%

[klstock]

@Echo 

Regarding your comment Zazzle is deciding what customers should buy by pushing their “editor’s pick” to the front pages instead of letting customers decide what they want.

That is true. And I know what you mean. And it also sucks for products that have legitimately sold very well and earned that spot on the front who happen to be an "editor's pick" because everyone (with the way things are working now)  assumes they got auto-bumped up there! For example I had 2 cards that were editor's picks - they have removed the editor's pick from one of them now, but both of these have sold several thousand apiece, and had done so before they were made editor's picks.

[HeatherM]

I am approaching my one year anniversary and so I cannot speak to a reduction in sales, but this conversation makes me wonder if the decline in sales comes from the increased interest in the POD industry. 

When I first started POD a few years back, there was a handful of YouTubers preaching how easy it is to make money with the POD business model. Today there are too many to count.

When I see that influx in YouTube influencers, I cannot help but think that there must also be a huge influx of designers/artists to all POD marketplaces, including Zazzle.

My thought is the Editor's Picks are intended to bring attention to new items in the marketplace and to keep Zazzle fresh. I personality would love to see more fresh content on Zazzle and would love it if the algorithm was dynamic and based on customers interest and not just historical sales volume.

For me, the high congestion of Etsy Pick's is Zazzle's way of finding the next big sellers. I personally would love some diversity in the search results. My mind is blown that one or two designers can dominate the top ten results in so many searches and makes me wonder how to break into a certain niche.

[TMGEE]

Just like Heather, I've been here for a bit less than a year and have made a few sales that allowed me to receive my first payment from Zazzle. Until this summer, it seemed that sales were starting to come for me. That was encouraging. When the big changes for collection management were introduced, I saw an impact. Not a sale since then. But as I haven't been here long enough, I can't tell whether it's the season, my designs, or the new collection system that impact my (non) sales, or any other reason. What worries me most about the big focus on collections rather than products is the performance tracking tool. I've published books with Amazon that sell, and when you see stats like the ones we have in the collection management tools, you need to know what they mean. How can we really know why a product or a collection has few views or no sales? Is the design the issue? The non cover photo, or maybe it is the cover photo that is not appealing to customers? Or maybe customers are as lost as we are with these major changes within a short period of time? Other reasons? And usually, when you see "CTR" (Click Through Rate) it means you monitor a paid advertisement campaign... So, I hope we won't see more major changes in the year to come, that's already a lot to deal with for designers. Zazzle, like many other POD platforms that are introducing payment plans for designers (you pay for a plan or you can't sell your products), is changing the game to make it harder for newcomers or weed out some existing stores because there's too much competition. OK. I get it. But new designers on Zazzle like me who love what they do, work hard, and do their best to accept the new challenges brought by the constant changes, feel very discouraged. We all know it's not an easy game, that it takes dedicated work and time to be able to sell on Zazzle. We have to invest in the long run. But, as mentioned previously, this system only benefit the bigger earners who will keep earning big... For me, this year with Zazzle has been a roller coaster because of all the changes. They obviously make it harder for us. But making it harder for designers doesn't mean the best will stay, it only means the bigger earners will keep earning, or those who have plenty of time to dedicate to Zazzle will. Good for them. I just hope new designers have a fair chance at this... And yes, it's time for influencers to stop claiming you can easily make money on POD platforms. Their advice was valid 10 years ago when THEY started because there was not as much competition.

[De]

For those with decreased sales, is your store mainly products or have you also made your designs available as a download.

For those who have made downloads available, how are your holiday sales going?  

[mylittleeden]

I too have seen my sales cut in half this Christmas 😭. I too have been plodding away for a good 11 years + now. I have concluded the best way forward is to keep pushing my own stuff out there in the hope of eye balls 👀 seeing it and appreciating that is always uniquely designed by me and a bit different to a lot of the stock stuff out there, that often gets pride of place in the marketplace.  I am pretty bummed I am struggling but that's life. I have a few editors picks over the years but honestly they not only don't sell that well, but more frustratingly are often not my more creative work... but you know at this point I will take whatever I can get! Yes also I sell elsewhere but interestingly very different best sellers there. Keep pushing your own stuff that is the only thing YOU can really control sadly... In answer to the question about downloads, I have about a 50/50 split, I am thinking it was more I didn't start doing cover photos until a bit late (I was covering for a woman at my normally part time work so didn't have the time when it all kicked off, unfortunately still can't make this my only job). Try to keep positive everyone. I am a firm believer if you work hard good things will come eventually 😊. Good luck for 2024 ❤️