Any experience with Zazzle?

[madelaide]

I just have not had any luck with Zazzle. I don't know if I have the wrong products or what it is. I haven't had one sale. I kinda gave up on it. Do most of you have websites you market it on? How do you go about it?

You have some nice stuff, I can't tell why something sells or not.  In my store, I have very little of photography, those are basically as cards.  My illustrations seem to sell better though as stickers and buttons, even the most simple ones. 

They suggest us to be very selective when keywording, having the main five first.

[donding]

I just have not had any luck with Zazzle. I don't know if I have the wrong products or what it is. I haven't had one sale. I kinda gave up on it. Do most of you have websites you market it on? How do you go about it?

You have some nice stuff, I can't tell why something sells or not.  In my store, I have very little of photography, those are basically as cards.  My illustrations seem to sell better though as stickers and buttons, even the most simple ones. 

They suggest us to be very selective when keywording, having the main five first.

Maybe that is my main problem is the keywording. I'll have to go back and check to see if I've done it right. I don't have that many illustrations. I need to get back into that, but just haven't had time.

[steheap]

Thanks all, for your help in putting one of those rotating Flash product bars on my Zazzle store!

I investigated the promotion of Zazzle a bit more and came across an interesting gadget that shows the top products in any particular search, and if someone uses the gadget to buy one of the products, you get a commission for referring them to the site. It can contain your own products, but I think it makes more sense to show the best selling ones on the site and get some referral earnings based on those. The site with the details (it is called My Zazzlit) is http://www.highton-ridley.co.uk/tutorials/zazzlit-gadget-tutorial-adding-it-p1.html.

Here is my example in the left hand sidebar of my blog - I used "Valentine" as the search term, but will change this as the year goes by. http://www.backyardsilver.com

I've no idea how successful it will be, but it takes little effort as he gives you the code and explains very well how to customize it.

Steve

[stockastic]

I pretty much gave up on microstock because of the low commissions - and the feeling they're likely to go lower.  As stock, my images don't sell often enough to pay back the time spent on them.  But I think some might do well on t-shirts and coffee cups, so I'm getting interested in CafePress and Zazzle.   Those sites have their own forums but I think I'll get better information from the more technical and experienced people here.

One thing I found out right away is that Zazzle gives you tools to size and position your images on their products, whereas CafePress required you to modify your images.  On that score alone, it's Zazzle by a mile.

Initially though I'm somewhat put off by the base prices of the products, leaving little room for markup.  Are these prices fair and reasonable, or are businesses like Zazzle just another poke in the eye, like microstock, that make their money by constantly pulling in naive new contributors as old ones burn out?

My expectations are low, I'm not expecting some miracle, it's just that I've concluded that microstock is basically a racket that exploits photographers, and I'm hoping Zazzle is different.  Yes, they're in business to make money too, but microstock has deteriorated into instability and unsustainable pricing and I'm looking for other photographic outlets.

[UPDATE]
And I just noticed, in another thread, that Zazzle now withholds taxes, so there went 30%.   The whole 'image' business is like a popsicle melting in the sun.    

[oboy]

I have a Zazzle account for a couple of years, but only started creating articles in January 2010 after some friends reported sales and I had a couple of sales with only a few products. As my store is getting lager, my income is getting better there too. Zazzle has spikes around holidays like Valentines Day, East, Mothers day, Fathers day, Halloween, and Christmas. November and December are the best month with a big spike in November. I have an account with CafePress too, but I only work now with my Zazzle store, because I find CafePress more time consuming and I don't link to have a fee that I have to pay.

Here is a link to my Zazzle store http://www.zazzle.com/hlehnerer

The income is still behind Shutterstock for me, but if it increases from month to month like last year, then Zazzle will be my best earner pretty soon.

[Snufkin]

Has anybody sold an iPhone/ iPad case on Zazzle?

Mousepads seem a waste of time to me, never sold one. I suppose very few people buy them these days, since modern mice do not require them. I didn't have much luck with mugs, either - they seem relatively expensive compared to traditional retailers.

I sell mostly postcards and magnets.

[oboy]

So far I only sold only one iPad case.

At work I am always surprised how many people still use a mouse pad with an optical mouse, where it is not needed. There are some desk surfaces that create problems with optical mouses, because of their (I guess) reflection factor.

[madelaide]

I mostly sell business cards, stickers and buttons, but I've sold many other items as well.

Actually business cards sell so well that I am considering having a separate store just for them.

[stockastic]

I just started setting up some products on Zazzle and the first thing I'm noticing is that that for each product you have to make 2 selections from a totally pathetic, completely inadequate set of 'categories', none of which relate to my images.  So it's just like microstock in that regard 

[Fotonaut]

Has anybody sold an iPhone/ iPad case on Zazzle?

Mousepads seem a waste of time to me, never sold one. I suppose very few people buy them these days, since modern mice do not require them. I didn't have much luck with mugs, either - they seem relatively expensive compared to traditional retailers.

I sell mostly postcards and magnets.

I have sold a few iPhone cases, even though I have only put designs on T-shirts.

[madelaide]

I just started setting up some products on Zazzle and the first thing I'm noticing is that that for each product you have to make 2 selections from a totally pathetic, completely inadequate set of 'categories', none of which relate to my images.  So it's just like microstock in that regard 

You only need to select one category, the second is optional.  In a few occasions I did not fin any really suitable category, so I selected a more generic top level (you don't have to select the sub-sub-sub-category in a list).

[mwp1969]

I have just passed 1000 products at my Zazzle store. Unique user traffic has been on the rise for myself. I feel my store is really starting to come together ...

You can check-it-out here: www.zazzle.com/mwp1969

-Mark

[madelaide]

1,000, oh mine!  I'm still far from that.  But Zazzle is ahead of any of the micros already this month for me.

[mwp1969]

1,000, oh mine!  I'm still far from that.  But Zazzle is ahead of any of the micros already this month for me.

I hope those products translates into lots of sales. In the meantime I will continue to add to the portfolio each day and enhance my store front.

-Mark

[steheap]

Mark

You have really worked hard on that store - some nice customizations. I've been trying to come up with interesting takes on products, but at least with Shutterstock you get some pretty immediate feedback when you upload images - it seems to take a long time for a sale to come along with Zazzle!

Steve
http://www.zazzle.com/backyardimage

[sponner]

Interesting stuff.

Joined Madelaines fan club, does this make any difference to ranking etc?

If so I'll do so for all those on here.

www.zazzle.com/sponner*

[oboy]

I ask that question before in a Zazzle forum before, and the answer was that it has no impact of your search rank.

Never-less, I joint all the fan-clubs here too.

http://www.zazzle.com/hlehnerer

[madelaide]

I have no idea if fan clubs count for anything. I get many requests, so I may miss some of you, but I tend to decline when the person has a few hundred fans. 

[mwp1969]

I've heard that people will often search through fan club lists.  If we make that assumption it may certainly have some impact to cross-pollenization of buyers ...

www.zazzle.com/mwp1969

-Mark

[pelmof]

Hi guys,

I've been on Zazzle for about 5 weeks now, got a TBA on 12/18/2010 and some nice comments as a result--but no sales yet. Guess that's not surprising since I don't even have 100 products up and haven't started any marketing, unless you call this post a first effort.

I actually joined Zazzle for a couple of reasons. Although I've been a photographer for over 30 years, I have little interest in stock photography and devoted most of my microstock submissions to fractal work. Alas, the micro industry seems to have decided they hate fractals now. I used to get 100% acceptance, now it's like 95% rejections--end of market for me. My second reason was because after 3 or 4 years on Red Bubble (but no submissions since first joining) I made a rather surprisingly large sale of one of my prints and a couple of greeting cards. So, since microstock seems dead for my kind of work, POD looks like my new venue. Just have to learn how to market my little store

BTW, I've joined all your fan clubs.

Here's my store link:      http://www.zazzle.com/pelmof*

Any comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

P__

[mwp1969]

Today I woke up to find that I received a TBA (Today's Best Art) award and my image was briefly highlighted on Zazzle's home page 

Here is the link to the image:

http://www.zazzle.com/go_ducks_bag-149649529075955474

-Mark

[madelaide]

Congrats, Mark.

Do you receive any email saying that? I once received a comment in my Zazzle page congratulating me for something like that, but I didn't know what product they were referring to, and didn't get any email from Zazzle.

[mwp1969]

Thanks for the congrats Madelaide

I did not get an email notifying me. Multiple people just started commenting on it with congrats  ... then I researched the forums and found out that there is suppose to be an email that is usually delayed and you find out from other sources usually before you ever see it ... if it comes. Then I was able to actually see it before it rotated off the graphic links on Zazzle's front page. I got a screen grab of it for my own documents 

-Mark

[mwp1969]

I Had my first Zazzle sales. They were a couple of postcards of a brick wall 

http://www.zazzle.com/textured_red_brick_wall_postcard-239047825518085767

-Mark

[zsooofija]

Has anybody sold an iPhone/ iPad case on Zazzle?

Mousepads seem a waste of time to me, never sold one. I suppose very few people buy them these days, since modern mice do not require them. I didn't have much luck with mugs, either - they seem relatively expensive compared to traditional retailers.

I sell mostly postcards and magnets.

No iPhone/ iPad case sale here, but 80% of my sales are the same mousepad over and over again  .

Here's my store: http://www.zazzle.com/zsooofija*