New Store Ranking Stuck at -1?

[jennifer22]

I currently have four Zazzle stores. If I recall correctly, the first three stores obtained rankings of at least 4 very soon after I completed most of the store completion steps (to a minimum of 95% completion). My newest store is still at -1 and I believe it's been 5 days since hitting that milestone. Any thoughts? (New store is https://www.zazzle.com/store/aicomputerart/)

[JB]

I have a store stuck at a 3 and it gets sales every few days, and when I search the marketplace from a difference browser I find the products, so no, I dont think you have to be at a 4 to show up in marketplace (and for all we know everyone of you who is stuck at a -1 visually, may internally actually be a 4+ and just dont know it yet, because its broken) I wouldn't stop working on your shops or  your plans, because when it resolves later, you will be that much further ahead, you know!

[Happy_People_Pr]

I want to know the same thing. Is it useless to put effort in a new (digital) store? Please give us some more information …

[JB]

I wouldn't stop working on your shops or your plans, because when it resolves later, you will be that much further ahead, you know!

[Chrissi]

I keep creating just in case "THAT" day will ever come, but right now it doesn't feel like it... I'm trying hard to get the word out over social media, but realize I need to let go of Christmas items and move on to regular stuff.

[JB]

Yes, I think you have to reframe Zazzle as a "long game" thing, rather than more of the instant gratification. Even with our payments being net 45 or something like that I've always thought of Zazzle as a place that you see the reward for your efforts a few months down the line. I would put up whatever christmas stuff you have ready already, but wouldnt necessarily count on it doing amazing this christmas season, but it will be there for next year! Or for people who celebrate Christmas in July or even Orthodox christmas in January!

But always plan ahead! Honestly, I am really bad at holiday stuff and every year I tell myself to get it posted starting in JULY and have everything I am most serious about ready by no later than end of September. I fail every year lol. So for me, this time of year is my worst on Zazzle and I want to remedy that, and next year I swear I am going to do better! (FOR REAL, IN JULY, THIS TIME! lol)

You can make a decent living and or at least a very decent padding to your savings, supplemental income etc on Z, I promise. But you do have to think of it in terms of efforts today will pay off in months, not weeks, for most things. I am thinking about stuff I have posted this fall and am excited about how good I know it is going to do for me NEXT SPRING! and I am okay with that and looking forward to seeing my efforts pay off months down the line.

So I would say start thinking about and designing for the upcoming late winter holidays (Valentine's Day, St, Pats, etc) NOW and the seasons that will be in full swing soon (Graduation season, wedding season, whichever sports are coming up etc) and anything that is more evergreen and year round (new babies, birthdays, retirements, new home, missing you, thinking of you, get well, save the dates, "just because" gifts)  Zazzle put out a chart this year or last year that kind of gave a good timeline of when you should have things posted for certain bigger shopping events. I can't remember where it is, but if I find it I will post a link to it. It's a good guide to help you think ahead.

Dont get discouraged. Keep plugging away,  keeping staying abreast of trends, keep promoting outside of Zazzle (and you can also promote other peoples holiday goodies this year and get 15% for those referrals, remember!!) and plan AHEAD! You will see it pay off down the line. THAT day WILL come!!

[DBCartoons]

Still a minus.  I want to be a plus!  😀

[Chrissi]

Me too.... 😩

[MrSaxon]

A few months ago I started with Zazzle and I had really enjoyed my experience so far - I took it as a given that it may take time to for my Store to gain traction, and as I learned about Z Rank it made sense to me that it could take time to progress through the lower levels. I was really enjoying playing around with the design tools and growing my presence on social media, happy to play the long game. I'm not sure when my "progression" stalled out, but it has been the better part of a month I think that I maxed out my Store completion, and overhauled the general presentation of my Store (many thanks to a Zazzle veteran for the advice there - if you're reading this, you know who you are!). For sure it still isn't the sharpest and best looking Store out there - but I'm confident in time I'll get there. Learning of this issue has been pretty devastating - I have no idea if there is more that I could do; I was at rank 3 before and I'm still at rank 3 now. I've been following this thread for a while, and I didn't want to comment, but I'd hazard a guess that I'm not the only person who has been following this from the side lines and wondering if they're also stuck in this situation too.

[JB]

I think it being a known issue means don't give it too much negative thought. It might not be your actual score. It just needs time to update. I sorta wish the zrank wasn't there because it didn't used exist at all. It has become a thing people REALLY fret over and that sucks because it didn't used to be a thing at all. I think the original intent for it was to get people to round their shops out (put up banners, organize your collections/categories, use a store logo or avatar etc) and not just post things. But I think it's become a real sour source of stress for people, and when it's broken (At least visually for us) its really disheartening and confusing.

I do wish the mods would give more than blanket answers about these issues. Give us more details about what is known and what is being done and what the ETA is and how, if at all, it is actually affecting us. That would be in good faith. but.. in the meantime, I would hate for it to discourage you if you have been having fun. I have a shop stuck at a 3 since I opened it and got 100% of the list done, BUT it does make sales - not every day yet because it is very niche and still growing, but it makes good sales when it does! So it can't be all bad.

[Scott]

Hi everyone, wanted to mention that engineering is working on this issue as we speak. In times like these you may wonder what's taking so long, or why this hasn't been fixed yet, or why there isn't an ETA, and the answer for that is: bugs can be really hard to fix. And sometimes you fix one thing and then something else gets messed up. And sometimes (like in this situation) when you make a change to the system you have to wait awhile for the change to roll out and observe the changes. If that fix worked then you still have to wait a several days for the fix to slowly update every single user account. There are also performance considerations with fixes of this nature, and site performance is our main focus as we prepare our site for the holidays. All of these complexities can make it nearly impossible to provide an ETA, which is why we prefer to hold off on sharing information like this.

As far as zrank is concerned, it might be wise to set this aside and focus on preparing your store for the upcoming holiday season. Yes, I know that marketplace indexing is also slow at the moment, but that should also be fixed very soon. It might be the same issue as this one, actually. For those not aware, indexing being stuck/slow is a lot like a drain being stuck - once you unclog the drain then it'll just be a matter of time before everything is updated properly. So, once fixed you may find that your zrank is updated and your published products are all available in the marketplace.

[kennethwfd]

Which holiday season should we be preparing for?

Why bother to ask as you don't have a clue

[CrazyMermaid]

Thank you that was very helpful and reassuring. Indexing has been fixed, but sorry to say my Zrank is still reported as -1. You did state in another post that it is possible that is not the store's true rank. Since I have completed all of the required steps. I am just assuming everything is fine and my Zrank is progressing. I can see its products in the MP, some are getting views. So it seems like a pretty normal new store.

[KeegansCreation]

At this point I honestly believe that we can no longer see our zrank. We see a number that was the correct zrank for maybe a day back in early Fall and then it froze and any subsequent zrank changes are invisible to us. Getting sales and views with an actual -1 zrank seems implausible so I find it easy to believe that actual zrank is being regularly updated but the number seen in our stores is not. 

[Chrissi]

@Scott - it has been a while since you posted this and I was wondering if there is anything you can update us with?! Anything? 😊

[Chrissi]

Another day, another -1.. 😉 However, I had 3 sales (my very first) a couple of days ago - woohoo! Analytics said it was "direct" and Zazzle says referral from 3rd Party. Does that mean Google (or whatever search engine) magically transported them to my item? I'm just so new to this.. How do I know in Analytics when someone finds me through Zazzle directly? Is it an organic search or something? Just trying to figure out if it somehow works with a rank of -1 anyways...

[kennethwfd]

Nearly two months since I was aware of this issue and no indication of when it might be resolved.

I also note very few views of my products,  beginning to wonder whether these are customer views, or those within the Zazzle community checking the latest designs.

I realise that there is more to selling as I need to work on building a social media presence as well as my website and its SEO ranking, things you can't do overnight

[Chrissi]

The only views I get are pretty much solely from social media.. I wonder what it would be like if it was actually working. *sigh*  I need to do better with Social Media as well. Advertising for yourself with social media and stuff is definitely quite the process...

[kennethwfd]

Thought I'd give this a bump as it is now two months since I have been aware of the problem.

Any update?

[Chrissi]

I had the same thought this morning and was gonna check in this evening to see if there is an update! I'm with kennethwfd.. Any news for us?

[joybydesign]

Mine has also been stuck at -1 for the past few weeks. Did yours ever get resolved?

[kennethwfd]

no progress. still -1

[Scott]

At this time we're focused on ensuring website stability and performance for the busy shopping season. I'll check in on this after the new year. 

[CrazyMermaid]

That makes total sense. Thank you for letting use know.

[Chrissi]

Thanks, Scott. I assumed that this is what is going on with the busy season and that's where the focus is - makes sense. I just appreciate that you let us know!  

[MasterpieceCafe]

This is a general response to the thread and not just to the OP ... as a long time Zazzle designer I would encourage everyone to focus more on creating quality designs/products/titles/keywords and not worry too much about zRank, etc.

My zRanks have been all over the place in all of my stores and it has never seemed to make any difference in sales.

Time to work on Valentine's and St. Patrick's Day!

Good luck everyone!

[CrazyMermaid]

This isn't about z-rank being all over the place. It is a bug that doesn't acknowledge that a Zazzler with a new store has completed that tasks necessary to get the full benefit of the marketplace. Scott has suggested that in reality our stores could have the necessary Z-rank of 4, but we aren't able to see it. That is the reason that waiting until after the holidays doesn't bother me. According to Zazzle documentation, a 4 is necessary to participate in promotions. 

[MasterpieceCafe]

I was just trying to alleviate some stress related to the zRank. That IME it hasn't helped or hurt sales as far as I can tell.

[kennethwfd]

With respect to "could", well it could equally be "could not"

Prefer to wait for some definite news, 

[kennethwfd]

Well, just checked my stores, and the zrank has improved, up to where I would expect it to be

[Chrissi]

OH MY GOODNESS! Thanks for posting this! I went and checked right away as well and it almost made me jump out of my chair a little to actually see something else other than -1! WOOOOHOOOO! That just made my day...

[Scott · Accepted solution]

Yep, this should be fixed now. Very sorry for the delay on this one.

If you're still seeing a -1 rank please let us know.

[wbain01]

Hello Scott—my score is stuck at -1. Can you assist?