Royalties above 92.5% Need to be Fixed

[CrazyMermaid]

I set my royalty at 98% for Digital Downloads. Figuring the glitch would be fixed. But it is showing live at $42.50. Well actually the current sale did get applied so it is only $21.25.  Is this right? Some haven't updated they are still at 92.5%. Should I go back and redo? I'll just sit tight for now.

The rest of it looks great though!

[Scott]

What's the issue? Can you provide an example?

[CrazyMermaid]

Should the royalties at the uppper end be his high

97% = $28.35 cost       98% = $42.50 cost       99% = $85.00 cost

when the lower end looks like this. Should it incerase that fast? 

92.8% is only $11.95

50% = $1.70 cost     60% = $2.15 cost     70% = $2.85 cost
Royalty at 92.8 Pretty Magenta Pink White Floral 40th Birthday Invitation | Zazzle
Royalty at 98  Blush Pink Rose Rustic Floral Wedding Invitation | Zazzle
I didn't expect the increase to be that huge from 92. 8 to 98. If this is right (I admit I am terrible at math), I will redo it. 

[ColsCreations]

This is true on all products, not just Instant Downloads. As you work your way up the royalty scale, the cost starts increasing dramatically as you near the upper end. I've never been able to figure out the formula for calculating the new cost when you add in a royalty % so I have no idea why this occurs but I'm sure there's a logical mathematical explanation for why it does, it's just over my head for figuring it out.

[CrazyMermaid]

Again. Thank you so much for your mathematical analysis. I really rely on your abilities in this area. I should have known better than to go beyond the suggested royalty!

[DesertSky]

That's crazy. I'd love to know the reasoning behind this for digital downloads since it costs Z nothing (other than the technology they've already done and maintenance on it) to provide a digital download. For the price (of a rather inexpensive product) to increase by $73.08 when increasing the royalty by only 6.2% is insane. I'm assuming this has to be a mistake or at least I'm hoping it is. If it's not a mistake there doesn't seem to be any point in having a "name your own royalty" policy on digital downloads. Any royalty percentage above the recommended percent makes the product price too expensive to be a good value and it will probably never sell. 

[Cat]

Check out this post: Does Setting Higher Royalties for Digital Download... - Zazzle

Long and short of it is that because the royalty is over 15% Zazzle's system adds the 5% transaction fee - which means that the price tends to go up dramatically with higher percentages. @ColsCreations has a nice little spreadsheet that figures all of the math, but it's very counterintuitive.

ETA: My initial post had the wrong link - fixed now.

[CrazyMermaid]

Wow, that is one way to discourage higher royalties. I guess I will reset it back to 92.5% while I am within the 24 hour window to change royalties. That is allowed on paper - hopefully digital too. 

[Cat]

Well, the math gives me a headache, so for the moment I'm just leaving everything on the defaults.

I've sold 2 digital downloads so far - both seating charts, and in both cases I made more than I would have if the customer had purchased the physical product, so I'm happy!

[catinarezi]

What are your products? I don't see the button "download" on mine and I have opt in... Actually I looked at other products and not even one shows the download button for me. I thought downloads weren't working yet... Where is this button? Am I turning blind?

[Cat]

They're still beta testing it so while all of our enabled products are available for download, only a tiny subset of users can actually see the option to buy a download. Sounds like you haven't landed in the beta group yet. You might try using a different browser or device - I can see the download features on my PC but not on my phone and other designers have reported similar things.

[Getzaz]

Congratulations, Cat! 🤗

[Cat]

FWIW, I was able to find the actual equation that Zazzle uses to calculate the price from this help file.

The Site Price is equal to (Zazzle's Standard Price * .9) / (1 - royalty rate)

According to the math geeks in my life, the reason the price skyrockets at the very top end of the percentage range is that this is a non-linear equation - meaning that the "Site Price" (the price presented to the customer) goes up at a much faster rate than the royalty percentage - especially for royalties above 90%.

Assuming a "Standard Price" of $0.945 I was able to make the prices pretty closely match what the royalty calculator spits out using this equation.

I still can't get the "amount you will make" to match what the royalty calculator spits out - I suspect the calculator is building in a subtraction for a 3rd party referral, but I'm not sure - so that part is still a mystery. But the customer price part does seem to be in line with this equation. So I do not think that part is a bug.

[Malissa]

Bumping this up to the top as a PSA.  I decided to make my posters available as downloads, and since they are original art  I thought I would just bump the royalty up to 99%.  Well....now I have posters in the marketplace for download at $75 or more. 

When you use the bulk action to set the royalty it doesn't show the calculator so I wasn't aware this happened until I started making cover photos this morning.  I searched the forum and found this thread.  I set it back to a more reasonable rate, but I'll have to wait a month until the next royalty reset.  I am torn on if I should disable downloads on posters until closer to the 20th of next month or just let it ride? ack!!!

[CrazyMermaid]

Just change them and wait for it to change. If a customer wants to purchase one, I am sure you will get a message. You can then make them a new one, so you still get a sale and they get a good price. July 4th is in the middle and that is usually a slow time for my store anyways.