My Special Picks Not Showing Up in Filter Search

[VivianD117]

Hi -- I'm back again about my golf balls -- the first piece started the other night when I went looking for them in the search on my IPAD -- but we resolved that the generic search was working.  However, I can't find them in the popular thread AND when I filter on Editor's Picks they do not show up there  -- and they were always in the popular search thread -- one or two generally on that first page.   I've now done this search on both my IPAD and my desktop -- just to make sure that I'm not missing something.  Can you please find out what has happened?  I'm including the links below.  Thanks, Vivian

https://www.zazzle.com/custom_three_layered_monogram_with_first_name_golf_balls-256237616170019943?v...

https://www.zazzle.com/custom_cart_clubs_monogram_name_golf_balls-256934925541605565

https://www.zazzle.com/unique_charming_golf_cart_with_clubs_monogram_golf_balls-256557464412111706

[CrazyMermaid · Accepted solution]

When I just clicked on them, there was a warning that they are sold out. Do you think that could be the issue? Are the others showing in the feeds sold out?

[VivianD117]

Hi Nelda -- I thought of that and decided that should not be the case because the customer could just as easily like the design and put it on another product.  BUT, I am so glad that you mentioned it because if that IS the reason that should be fixed -- not just for my product but for all products with that issue.  That is not a reason to hide a product where there are other alternative ways for it to be purchased.

[VivianD117]

Wow, Nelda -- that is absolutely correct -- OK, I am going to revise my request -- they should not be hidden.

[VivianD117]

Hi -- Nelda has an excellent idea which I thought of -- but can someone officially tell me that is why they are not showing up please?  That should not be the reason since the customer can easily decide to order another brand.

[Scott]

Search results pages do not include products that are sold out.

[VivianD117]

Scott, that makes absolutely no sense when there are alternative models of that product that the person could select from.  Are you suggesting that it makes more sense to replicate the design on all the models to make sure that does not happen?  (i am being factious, of course).  I think that needs to be modified when there are other options.  To whom up the Zazzle chain can I address this issue with?  I am losing business AND Zazzle is losing business based on that decision.  It also clearly says -- next to "sold out" -- "Please select another Brand."  BUT you (generically) are not giving them that option because the product is not showing up in a search.  How do we fix that?  I really would appreciate your help.

[VivianD117]

Scott, I don't consider this resolved and I would like to know how to pursue further.  That is something that is a programming fix and should be done -- "out stock and alternative brands available" do NOT eliminate the product from a search.  Zazzle has a very sophisticated search engine and I'm sure they can make that happen.  Has no one else ever questioned that before? I worked for a major computer company for a long time, so perhaps I look at things in a different way.

[KeegansCreation]

You can fix this in the back end. Edit>Product Merchandising>Change Options>change your product to one of the options that isn't sold out.

[CrazyMermaid]

Oh wow, thank you for posting this. I didn't know that this was an option. I will check and see if mine is correct. 

[VivianD117]

Nelda, I keep hitting "accept as solution" when I don't mean it.  That isn't a long term solution to this issue  -- and I'm sure it is bigger than golf balls.  We can't be expected to keep shifting a product's brand when the other goes out of stock.  I would like to find out who to escalate this to -- Scott is doing his job and those are the instructions they have been given.  I am questioning the instructions.

[VivianD117]

thank you I had not thought of that -- I just tried with a few and it will probably take overnight to index -- but I don't think that is the ultimate solution.  That is my niche and so I have a number out there and it would be very difficult to keep tracking to see if something is sold out and then have to change them all again.  And then, you miss something like today, where they are on sale.

[CrazyMermaid]

This happens. Right now I am dealing with out-of-stock guestbooks and napkins (maybe paper plates and cups.) It is one of the reasons that I have encouraged you to put your lovely design on as many items as possible. Always have something to sell. It happens when there are sales, because well they sell more than usual. I would probably be adding them to other golf balls asap. 

[VivianD117]

Nelda, and i have listened to you and done that.  I am guessing that with guestbooks and napkins there is no alternative brand — it is what they have or nothing.  But, with the golf balls — and I’m sure there are other similar products — if they are out of one brand, there are others and that is the key difference here.  That is what needs to get fixed and I’m trying to figure out who has responsibility for that decision. 

[VivianD117]

thank you — but that is just a temporary fix and shouldn’t be the day-to-day way to do business — you can’t keep on checking your products to make sure that a specific brand is in stock.  That’s not efficient for the creator and certainly not a good business decision for the company.

[VivianD117]

I do want to thank you. — I have done this and I am now starting to see some sales again and I would not have figured this out.

Vivian

[Scott]

It would be most helpful to everyone if all related conversation can take place in this discussion thread. That will allow other users to review this situation and take action accordingly.

[VivianD117]

Scott, that would be fine.  I just need to know from you — who do I go to next?  Someone can fix this and I need to find that person.  Your help would be much appreciated by myself and probably many other people who haven’t figured this out.

[VivianD117]

Hi Scott, I went in yesterday and changed several to a different brand but though I can see the change when I went into the backend of the product right now , they still are invisible in the filter search, for example, and the new brand isn’t officially showing yet — while the 40% sale is going on.  How long does it take to make that happen?  And, who can we speak to who has decision making authority? 

[PacifierCity]

It is upsetting that products that have more than 1 option are removed from the marketplace and show at Pinterest as sold out.  I have many many pacifiers that were designed with either a pink or blue mouth guard and they are sold out.  In fact, if I recall correctly, have been sold out for months.  Now I understand why they aren't selling.  I guess I have to go through the 100's that I have and change them all to have a white mouth guard.  I wonder how long that will take??  Time not spent designing or promoting.  It seems really silly to me to have the folks that create designs for you jump through these hoops.  Someone can clearly see that they have to choose a different color mouth guard or a different color shirt.  It was not the color of the mouth guard or shirt that brought them to Zazzle to shop, it was the design.  But with things as they are, they can't see the design anymore... no sale.  No good.  Was Zazzle really losing tons of sales because a product option is not available?  I can't imagine the reason this change was made...  Please ask the powers that be to reconsider this change.  I'll be changing all my pacifier mouth guards to white in the mean time... Ho hum...

PC

...................

[VivianD117]

Hi — the answer should not be that you have to go in and change them — i would like to figure out who has responsibility for this decision and reach them.  Do you have any idea’s or if Scott can suggest who we should talk it, I think that is the next step. 

[PacifierCity]

I agree.  I have 32 pages of pacifiers to check.  The really fun part (sarcasm) is that there is no symbol next to them in the back end to tell me that I need to change the mouth guard option.  I have to look at each product image and make sure the mouth guard is white, not pink or blue.  Then 8 clicks to change it to white.  Then tomorrow, maybe the next day... or a few days from now I will have to go through them all again to see if the change actually stuck.  Not a productive use of a designers time.

PC

..............

ETA: What is really strange is that the pacifiers that need to be changed have last viewed dates from 5 days ago to 13+ months ago.  Its the 5 days ago one that stumps me... since its been removed from the marketplace... perhaps a promoter... idk.

ETA more:  Page 6: 3 have white mouth guards, all the rest need to be changed.  I think I'm done doing this for the night.  Mind numbing 🤕

..........

[ColsCreations]

This is the same situation I posted about here in regards to shoes. And the same search vrs navigating results apply here, too. If one uses Z's navigation menu (or your own in-store navigation) to make their way to golf balls, they can see everything, sold out or not. They can even specifically choose the two currently sold-out brands using the Brand filter.

If on the other hand they manually search for golf balls, options marked as sold out are not included in results and the sold-out brands are not included in the Brand filter.

@VivianD117 

[VivianD117]

Do you have a clue how we can find a zazzle person who is a decision maker == this needs to be fixed.  I have been told specifically that if a brand is out of stock and your design just happens to be on that brand, then it does not appear in a search — as mine don’t — even though there are other branch choices for them. So, we need to get that fixed since it is a bad decision for any number of obvious reasons.  Any idea how we get to the right person? 

[KeegansCreation]

There isn't necessarily a right person if Zazzle doesn't consider the hidden products a mistake that needs to be fixed. Scott the moderator said upthread that search results don't show out of stock products. So that is an intentional management decision and not a technical problem that they will fix once made aware.

ColsCreations has found that although search results don't show out of stock products, drill down results do. Clearly these are two wildly different ways of accessing the database. I can't get on board with trying to escalate this too much since it may be that the only error that is actually happening (from Zazzle's point of view) is that drill down shows out of stock products and they will lean on their engineers to fix that and hide out of stock from drill down too.

I get why Zazzle hides out of stock. It can be disconcerting and possibly drive away customers if they see that one too many times. I got the same disconcerted feeling seeing bare grocery shelves during the height of the pandemic. It feels less weird to see full shelves even there are simply fewer shelves. So I get why they do this.

The ideal would be, as you suggested, having products auto-switch to a non-out-of-stock variant. Having to do it by hand is cumbersome and time consuming. I learned the hard way that not choosing a size for clothes and shoes means that if one size goes out out of stock, the product as a whole is hidden. Now I always choose a size after having to change many clothes and shoes.

The next best thing would be a sort in the back end for out of stock products, as there currently is for discontinued. I wonder if we already had that (but now don't) because there was a chunk of some months when many things showed up in the back end in the discontinued sort but when I clicked on them they were actually out of stock and in many cases it was only one product option so I changed to a different option. This confused a lot of people and was frequently discussed in the forum. I don't see it happening anymore. I wonder if it was actually flagging things hidden from the MP but just calling them discontinued instead of out of stock. If so, I hope they could bring that back (flag anything hidden in the MP) but instead label it out of stock/discontinued and people could click on it to see which it was.

I wonder if the reason they didn't write a subroutine to auto-choose an in-stock variant is because they have no way of knowing what the designer would want as a second choice and wanted to leave it up to designers. If so, I bet most would be fine with simply "choose next variant in stack, wrap around to front of stack when end is reached" as an alternative to hiding. 

[VivianD117]

Hi -- I think both of your ideas are excellent -- the back end where in "all products view" the product shows up as "out-of-stock" so that you know to take action and the ultimate where when it is out-of-stock it auto rotates to the next brand.  What now?

[Scott]

I agree that this is not an ideal situation, and I passed this feedback along to our Product team late last week. We have a project underway that should help with this situation in the future, but I don't have an ETA for release. When this project nears completion we will certainly share more information with the community.

In the near term it's possible that we might be able to implement some of the ideas that have been suggested here. It makes sense that we would want to make all of the best artwork available on our products, because then everyone wins. On the other hand, it's possible that we've already tried some of these ideas and they didn't work out for one reason or another. For instance, dynamically updating a product attribute (golf ball brand, t-shirt color, etc) might harm SEO and/or off-side advertising. I don't have many details here, but if I get more information I'll share it here.

[VivianD117]

Thank You Scott — just becoming aware of this problem has been helpful — because I was able to follow someone’s excellent posted suggestion, and went in and changed the brands on my most popular so that they are now visible and I’ve actually had some sales!!  I think it is really is a two-part problem : #1 how to make us aware that there is an issue with a brand / size / color, and #2 is there a possible work-around.  I will definitely stay tuned.

Vivian

[NPL]

Same issue then goes for skateboards... a lot of models have been sold out for ages. Does this mean we have to change each one to a different model? I agree, total waist of time!