How Long Before Deleting A Product?

[Marblewave]

I'm thinking of doing some spring cleaning of products.  How long would you usually leave a product to see how it goes, before deleting if it didn't sell?

[sheindesigns]

I'm in the same boat, currently deleting things I made in 2021, if under 3 views, never sold and hasn't been viewed in over a year. Hoping if I get rid of some designs that aren't selling maybe my zRank will go up from a 5. What are you thinking?

[Marblewave]

Thanks for the reply @sheindesigns 🙂  I've been on Zazzle since the end of last year. I have started by creating a few hundred products over these few months (and being on the newbie learning curve, have deleted several along the way too).

I have a few stores which all have Z-Rank 4 at the moment, and heard that removing some older products might be beneficial. At a guess, I was thinking I'd remove about 10 per cent of the least 'popular' ones. This would be in the order Zazzle displays them under 'Popular' in my stores, though I don't know exactly how they calculate this).

[sheindesigns]

My zRank has stayed stuck at 5 for a year and a half, even with many sales... Hoping this helps!!

[Marblewave]

Yes, that is helpful to know - thank you. I'd be interested to know whether the deleting has any effect, and hope you get the results you're looking for soon.

[waterart · Accepted solution]

Before deleting them, why not first try redoing the title and tags to see if it will help with views and sales

[Marblewave]

Thank you @waterart . I've started going through the keywords, but haven't re-done titles so far, so will try that too. With the tags I know you can see at the bottom of the product page which ones Zazzle likes, but with titles I guess it's trickier. I'll take a fresh look at Zazzle's 'Best Practices' page for some inspiration!

[WHS_Designs]

sometimes a year or more. for me, housekeeping takes a backseat to design creation and promotion (especially when one has several thousand products to manage).

[Marblewave]

Interesting to hear your perspective @WHS_Designs, thanks for the reply. Yes, I can see how that would take some time, with thousands of products! 

[WHS_Designs]

@Marblewave you're welcome! I have just under 23,000 products, so it can be a real PITA, but there are other creators with 100,000 products, so I can imagine that housekeeping is an even more Herculean task for them than for me!

[chriiisss]

@Marblewave I give more or less 9 months, with some exceptions:
- less than if it's an item that I've already created a different one with better quality, in this case I'll drop the previous one so that it doesn't appear in searches ahead of the best one.
- more than that if I feel deep inside 😄 that the product is really good, unique and suitable. in this case it's just a matter of time before someone digs deep enough and finds it, buys it and in this case it's already up in the MP and another client will buy it (this when it's arguably a good design suited to the type of my zazzle customer)
- more than that if it's a seasonal product, like a Christmas product.
- more than that if it's part of a color group, and that color hasn't sold yet, but others have.

I've been on Zazzle for 13 months, I have 1120 items, 180 of which have sold at least once. so a ratio of 16%, is still not enough for me, I have to increase this ratio.
my zrank is 6.

[Marblewave]

Thank you @chriiisss That's really helpful to hear your statistics and how you work.

[CreativeLeahG]

You could always set the items to 'private' and then if you have a quiet period when you're not designing, reset them to public.

[Marblewave]

Thanks for the tip, @CreativeLeahG 

Does setting to 'private' mean that slow sellers no longer affect the Z-rank?

[chefcateringbiz]

For myself, rather than go through "popular" products, I'm going through "total views" most to least. This means someone actually looked at the product and decided not to get it, so those will be the ones I'd want to beef up. I don't think anyone knows what being "popular" consists of. If you get views, that's a solid event.

[Marblewave]

Thanks for your reply, @chefcateringbiz  Yes, I was wondering what 'popular' actually meant, and it seems I'm not the only one! I wonder how it is worked out. Maybe there is some calculation between views, sales, number of competitors for that product etc. but I can only guess.

The 'Total Views' approach is interesting, and that does sound helpful to focus on a solid event. Up to now, I've been assuming that a product which people are interested enough to view, must already be in a better position than products with lower views. But with the low (or no) views, I guess it depends whether customers don't see these products in their search results, or whether they do come up in their search and just aren't clicked on.

Enjoying learning from everyone on here!

[CrazyMermaid]

I never delete a product, make it private or do anything that would take it out of the market place. Ever. There are better ways to spend my time on Zazzle. And the old stuff does sell. 

[Marblewave]

Thank you, that's really interesting, @CrazyMermaid. Maybe I will delete less and keep things available just in case!

[Barbara]

I've sold a product now and then that has sat unloved for three or four years, maybe more. When you delete a product because it hasn't sold, you've no idea if it would have if you'd waited. If it hasn't been viewed much, then as suggested above, beef up titles and tags.

@Marblewave  You might want to ignore hot-linked tags, given that Zazzle does this to some of the tags for SEO, not for marketplace searches, which include all tags. If you have tags specifically targeting certain customers but that aren't hot-linked, keep them and wait for those customers to show up.

Colorwash's Home

[Marblewave]

@Barbara that is so helpful to know, thank you!  I had been removing 'hot-linked' tags in preference to the linked ones, and didn't realise it might not be the best idea!