Zipz shoes: Confusing mirror/size sold-out/discontinued messages and Merchandising Options

[ColsCreations]

Zipz are available in 17 sizes, 14 of which are currently sold-out for the high-top style and 7 are sold-out for the low-top style (according to the product page size options box).

for my 9 pairs of high-tops:
4 show a "discontinued product option" alert in the back-end and show as sold-out on the product page.
5 have no alert in the back-end but show as sold-out on the product page.

for my 4 pairs of low-tops:
1 has no alert in back-end and does not show as sold-out on the product page.
3 have no alert in the back-end but show as sold-out on the product page.

So first issue is a known one: there's a mismatch between what we see in the back-end and what we see on the product pages. Of my 13 total pairs of Zipz, 12 show as sold-out on the product page but the back-end only has a warning notice on 4 of them, and the notice isn't even correct since it says they are discontinued rather than just sold-out.

Issue #2 is that when you first go to these pairs, the default product page message says "this Mirror is temporarily sold-out, please select another size."

Huh? Mirror is just a design option (and un-checking it doesn't make the warning go away), and there is no size selected by default. But if you go ahead and select another size anyway, the message then changes to say "this Size is temp sold-out".

If you go browse Zipz in the MP, you'll find a mix of "this Mirror is temporarily sold-out..." or no sold-out message at all.

Now, I could be totally off base here but I think what's causing much of this mayhem is that when we publish a pair of Zips we have to choose a size and you can change that later via Edit Details - Product Merchandising.

I'm pretty sure that the pairs that don't show a sold-out warning on the product page are pairs where the designer happened to choose a size that is not currently sold out. This is where issue #3 comes in. There's no way to tell what size you initially selected and the product page view defaults to having no size selected anyway. But if you go into Edit and select a merchandising options size that is not sold-out, it should result in the messages on the product page and back-end going away. So I changed the size to a not-sold-out size on two of my pairs. One pair was showing no warning in the back-end but as sold-out on the product page. Hours later and there is no difference. The second pair was showing the "discontinued" warning in the back-end and as sold-out on the product page. I just changed it maybe half an hour ago to a not-sold-out size and now the sold-out warning is gone from the product page but the "discontinued" warning is still there on the back-end.

It's all so inconsistent and confusing and I think much of this mess could be avoided if we didn't have to choose a specific size for them. As is, every time a different size goes temp sold-out, we have to first realize that (difficult since the back-end warnings are not reliable) and then change the marketing size option and hope it "sticks". All of which doesn't matter since the product page defaults to no size being selected anyway. Having to select a size isn't doing anything but complicating things behind-the-scenes.

Summary of issues:

• mismatch between back-end warnings and product page warnings
• back-end warnings inaccurately flag item as discontinued instead of just sold-out
• product page warning confusingly says "mirror"
• having to choose a size behind-the-scenes for no apparent reason
• changes to merchandising options not "sticking"

[Pádraig]

Hi @ColsCreations,

Thanks for flagging these issues with us and I'm sorry to see that you experienced a number of difficulties here. Some of these have been reported previously and are actively being worked on. However, I cannot replicate the "Mirror" text issue. Can you provide a link to the product in question? Is this showing when you are logged in to your account or out?

Thanks for your patience with these.

Pádraig 🙂

[ColsCreations]

https://www.zazzle.com/irish_pride_shamrock_flag_sneakers-256124700726129716

I believe that I was signed in when I was checking, and I was seeing the mirror wording on results in the marketplace too not just my own pairss. Will try while signed out after work tonight.

[TShirtfort]

I have that this mirror issue on all my high tops as well. 

[ColsCreations]

The pair I posted above no longer shows as Discontinued in my back end and no longer shows a sold-out warning on the product page so the change I made yesterday to the merchandising option for size must have "stuck" today.  But 10 of the 13 total pairs of Zipz in my store show the "mirror sold out" warning on the product page. Here is one of them: high_top_sneakers-256038572651806939 

If you use Zazzle's navigation menu to go to the main shoe category and then use the style filter to narrow it down to just "high tops" you end up here:  zazzle.com/c/shoes?f_ss=162312358468390086  with 12,392 results. Most of the ones I clicked on show the "mirror sold out" warning but some don't. I imagine the ones that don't are the pairs where the Designer Creator happened to choose a merchandising size that is not currently sold-out.

Now here's where it gets interesting again. If you instead use the search bar to search for "zipz" you end up here: zazzle.com/s/zipz with 2,983 results. (No option here to filter by style so these include both low and high tops.) I couldn't find a single result here that had the sold-out warning on it.  So it appears that when manually searching, all of the pairs flagged as sold-out on the product page are eliminated from the results even though they are still available in certain sizes. . But if you use the navigation menu to get to high-top shoes, you get them all, mirror-sold-out warning or not.

All of the above is the same regardless of whether I am signed-in or using a virgin browser not signed-in.

If this is not complicated enough, hold on ...

If I go to my "For Your Feet"  category using a virgin browser not signed-in, I can see 10 of my 13 total Zipz,  including the 7 that show the sold-out warning on the product page. The only ones I  can't see are the 3 that are flagged as Discontinued in my back-end. Applying this to the above 12,392 pairs found by navigating to shoes, it's logical to conclude that all of those pairs showing the sold-out warning on the product page are not also flagged as discontinued in the designer's back-end.

My conclusion: It seems that if navigating to a category (site-wide or store-specific) , a visitor will see all pairs, even those showing as sold-out on the product page, except for those actually flagged as Discontinued in the back-end. On the other hand, if one is manually searching, one sees only the pairs that are neither flagged in the back-end nor displaying the sold-out warning on the product page.

In my personal case, I am gong to edit the merchandising size option on all my pairs tonight to select a size that is not currently sold out, give it a day or two to "stick", and then hope that gets them in the elite category of Zipz that  are neither flagged in the back-end nor displaying the sold-out warning on the product page.

Over-all though, you can see how extremely tangled this all is. . The warning system not being able to recognize the difference between if

• a product line has been discontinued
• a product line is temp sold out
• a specific product option has been discontinued
• a specific product option is temp sold out

further complicated by the back-end notices being inconsistently applied and not matching what is or is not shown on the product pages

further complicated by getting different results depending on whether one is navigating or searching

further complicated in the case of Zipz by there being 17 sizes the designer has to choose from even though no size is selected by default on the product page. It doesn't make any sense we have to designate this because who is going to promote specifically a size 9 or whatever pair of shoes? You promote the design and then the customer selects a size and if their size is sold out, well that stinks for them and you, but at least they/you are not getting warnings that the product itself is discontinued and/or that's it sold-out before even selecting their size.  Having to select a size behind-the-scenes isn't accomplishing anything but adding another layer of complication to the discontinued/sold-out problem.

@Pádraig 

[TShirtfort]

I'm pretty sure I picked the most common size as the default for my shoes. They are pretty girly so I picked womans 8 or maybe 9 for all. Do I really need to go pick a weird size no one wears just so they don't show up as a discontinued mirror?

[Argyleimp]

Thank you, ColsCreations, for taking the time to document this so thoroughly.  Every single thing you have talked about is happening to me as well.

I will add another thing:

I wanted to move designs from one category to another: however, because ZipZ shoes that are out of stock are currently registering as discontinued, the option to move them is completely deactivated---because apparently the option to change categories of items that are "discontinued" has been completely deactived; discontinued items are now a "status" all their own, treated completely differently, and a whole bunch of options to edit them are completely unavailale and no longer an option.

So...I can only move NONdiscontinued items to a new category, even though these shoes aren't discontinued at all but are only registered as discontinued because they are currently out of stock.

So, that's a thing to add to the list of complications you mentioned above:

Can't change categories of "falsely-registering" discontinued items.

[Argyleimp]

Are shoes discontinued? They've been out of stock for moths 

[MasterpieceCafe]

Does anyone know if we should be deleting shoes? Are they ever coming back?

[ShadoWind]

I saw all my shoes were in the discontinued catagory today...wondering the same thing, 3 pages worth of shoes in there ....kinda hate to delete them 😞  not that I ever sold many shoes but I always thought they were a cool item.