Your customer paid a total of $20.00 ($2.50 + $17.50).
What you are referring to as "the personalization price" is what is called a User Option. These are options a customer can select (or de-select) on the product page which increase (or decrease) the cost, such as zippers or outdoor fabric on a pillow for example. Adding an envelope or removing the designer attribution on cards are also considered User Options. When you select a User Option, the drop-down box shows you it will be + or - $x amount.
It does not matter what options you have set as your marketing default when publishing; User Options are always considered an "upcharge" and Zazzle policy is that they pay a royalty of 5% on those "upcharges". People tend to think this 5% for "upcharges" is a good thing, that it's in addition to the regular royalty calculated on the total sale. But it is not and when something is deeply discounted, it can even result in you earning less than if the customer selected the less expensive base option because discounts are never applied to User Options.
In your case of enclosure cards, the customer would have bought 50 cards with high-def printing selected, at 50% off. Bringing their total paid to $20.00.
One would think the designer then gets paid whatever their set royalty % is x $20.
But that's not how Zazzle calculates it.
Note the "upcharge" / User Option for high-def printing here is $0.35 per card.
$0.35 x 50 cards = $17.50
So you get $17.50 x 5% ($0.875)
But the customer paid a total of $20.00. So Zazzle calculates
$20.00 - $17.50 = $2.50
and then pays you whatever your set royalty % is on that remaining $2.50 (plus the $17.50 x 5%).
Also note that in this case with this sale, for 50 cards, the per-card price is $0.40. But if you subtract the $0.35 "upcharge" for high-def, you get the $0.05 per card you mentioned. But customers aren't actually paying only $0.05 per card. They're paying $0.40 per card ($20.00 / 50). It's just in the back-end where the"Zazzle math" works out to you earning your set royalty on what works out to be $0.05 per card ($2.50 / 50). As shown above, the other $0.35 per card ($17.50) pays you at only a 5% royalty.
I'm curious, did your sales report NOT have a Transfer indicator in the royalty history list?
Go to Earnings ---> Royalty History
In that list I can see when something was transferred. It's indicated like the image below.
If these cases didn't indicate a transfer in the list, that would be something Zazzle should check on.
However, the transfer feature can work the other way too.
I've had people turn $9 Pedestal Signs onto a $45 foam core posters, and $3 keychain designs turned into invitations bought by the dozens, etc.
Your customer paid a total of $20.00 ($2.50 + $17.50).
What you are referring to as "the personalization price" is what is called a User Option. These are options a customer can select (or de-select) on the product page which increase (or decrease) the cost, such as zippers or outdoor fabric on a pillow for example. Adding an envelope or removing the designer attribution on cards are also considered User Options. When you select a User Option, the drop-down box shows you it will be + or - $x amount.
It does not matter what options you have set as your marketing default when publishing; User Options are always considered an "upcharge" and Zazzle policy is that they pay a royalty of 5% on those "upcharges". People tend to think this 5% for "upcharges" is a good thing, that it's in addition to the regular royalty calculated on the total sale. But it is not and when something is deeply discounted, it can even result in you earning less than if the customer selected the less expensive base option because discounts are never applied to User Options.
In your case of enclosure cards, the customer would have bought 50 cards with high-def printing selected, at 50% off. Bringing their total paid to $20.00.
One would think the designer then gets paid whatever their set royalty % is x $20.
But that's not how Zazzle calculates it.
Note the "upcharge" / User Option for high-def printing here is $0.35 per card.
$0.35 x 50 cards = $17.50
So you get $17.50 x 5% ($0.875)
But the customer paid a total of $20.00. So Zazzle calculates
$20.00 - $17.50 = $2.50
and then pays you whatever your set royalty % is on that remaining $2.50 (plus the $17.50 x 5%).
Also note that in this case with this sale, for 50 cards, the per-card price is $0.40. But if you subtract the $0.35 "upcharge" for high-def, you get the $0.05 per card you mentioned. But customers aren't actually paying only $0.05 per card. They're paying $0.40 per card ($20.00 / 50). It's just in the back-end where the"Zazzle math" works out to you earning your set royalty on what works out to be $0.05 per card ($2.50 / 50). As shown above, the other $0.35 per card ($17.50) pays you at only a 5% royalty.
