Zazzle Site Map

[ColsCreations]

https://www.zazzle.com/sitemap 

I've never looked at this before. If you haven't either, check it out and bookmark it. It's a gold mine of convenience!

It's sort of a combination of a visual guide to category structure + common themes at your finger tips

So you can for example go down to the Office & School section and click "Floor Decals" and that will take you to the
[Office & School] -->
[Promotional Products & Small Business Supplies ] -->
[Signs & Posters] -->
[Floor Decals & Stickers] section.

Or you could go to the Wedding section and click on "Bride Tribe" or "50th Anniversary", or to the Gift Guides section and click on "Pharmacist Gifts" - and in each case the products I was shown were all relevant to that specific theme, unlike when manually searching when you often get results that aren't relevant.

I don't know how this treats Zazzle product blank categories vs categories Creators choose on publishing (like if you made a floor decal for weddings) but regardless, it's pretty helpful.

And note the listings under "Gift Guides". Some are pretty specific, like "Pineapple Gifts". Which if you click does indeed show you pineapple theme designs over a range of product types. Why "Pineapple Gifts" and "Pug Gifts" and not "Avocado Gifts" or "Poodle Gifts" I don't know, but perhaps it's due to trending/popular searches. I don't know.

Any either ways, it's a great page to bookmark and help with navigating/finding stuff around Zazzle.

[TAngelone]

As I stated in another post I feel all would benefit from seeing a few detailed examples of Zazzle category trees. How many categories or subcategories should be visible within each Zazzle storefront? Yes there is a way to hide categories and subcategories when creating Zazzle Store Category Trees. I too have bookmarked and studied the Zazzle Site Map. I am still a bit confused as to how many categories or subcategories one should create within a Zazzle storefront. Finally how many clicks should it take before one can access a product on Zazzle. Thanks for suggesting all study and bookmark Zazzle's sitemap. Your posts are very  helpful. 

[imrann]

oo

[Barbara]

How can I have been here eleven years and never spotted the site map? It reminds me of the dropdown menu I've always wished for instead of the hit-or-miss method that's been used. Instead of the too-general menu on the left side of the front page, a system that goes from the general to specific would help customers drill down to precisely what they seek. Off the top of my head, there might be stationery > cards > notecards and then a list that includes common types such as blank, thinking of you, thank you, etc. It's a menu style that would give a full picture of what's actually here. As it is, the customer must know to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, find the site map, and then know it's not quite like such maps on other sites.

Likely, my wish would require regular maintenance of such a menu, but anyone who loves detail and organizing would be in hog heaven.

Colorwash's Home

[ColsCreations]

The drop-downs are not very user-friendly. If you want to find say, Reusable Grocery Bags, and start from the main Accessories cat, you have to click the cat drop-down and choose Bags & Wallets. The page refreshes, you have to scroll down to the cat menu again, click it again, and select Totes & Shopping Bags. Page refreshes, scroll down, click the cat filter again, select Reusable Grocery bags. You have to know that you have to keep clicking the cat filter to see the new sub cats, and you can't see what's up ahead until you get there. 😕

The Site Map lays it all out at glance though. And since they've made the first square on pages the CYO blanks, it's even more convenient now for Designers. If you know what you want to make you can just search for it, but if you're looking for ideas on what to put your design on, the Site Map is great. And you might find things you never knew we had. Like, uhm, tie bars!

For customers, I like the Shop page the best. Simple, uncluttered, shows a huge variety or products with direct links to those cats.

[Barbara]

I absolutely agree that the site map is great for designers. I just think it would be nice to do a version of it for customers since they're unlikely to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to look for what they believe they're getting at the top of the page.

I also totally agree with you about the current fly-outs. Not only are they cumbersome in how they've been implemented, but there are details in them that make it even more difficult. One example I come across periodically is guitar picks, which are categorized in with games. (Huh?) Zippos are another example of strangeness because they're categorized under barware. Though I'm not sure where they ought to be placed, I wonder how many people have a home bar, and of them, how many stock the bar with cigarette/cigar lighters. (I couldn't find them at all on the Shop Now page.) For us, if we go to the site map, we can dig out these products, but the customer is far less likely to find them because, again, they have to go to the site map all the way at the bottom of the screen.

Colorwash's Home

[dmboyce]

This is fabulous - I never knew this existed. Thanks so much for bringing it to our attention.