Zazzle Tips
Lately a lot of people have been asking me questions like, if I can take a look at their stores and give them feedback. orif I can manage their stores. Or what they can change to make sales.
So, I want to start out by saying, I am not a professional consultant or marketer. That is not what I do. I'm just like you guys always looking for what the next trend is, fad is, or what products sell the best.
And my goal of this channel, is focused more on teaching you guys "HOW" to make products. I don't look at myself as a professional marketer or consultant. To be able to just "look" at someone's store and tell them what they are doing right or wrong really isn't possible. I'd have to go in there with their password and see their back end, sales, key words, tags and there is just so much that would have to be evaluated. And even with that, I would really not be able to tell you much as each shop sell different products.
That being said, I do have a lot of stores and I'm a silver seller. I'm not at the top of the Zazzle sellers list, and not at the bottom. Each shop seems to have a couple items that sell and many that don't. I think if you want detailed answers like that, you need to use a program that will analyze your site and sales for you. I will list some down below.
As you all know I have been a beta tester on the soon to open site Snuggle Hamster Designs and they will have some tools that help you analyze sales, stats and niches and there are other sites that do that as well. Those tools would be way more useful for you then me taking a look and just throwing out my opinion.
I always joke on this channel, I'm an expert at nothing but just know a little about everything. (Zazzle wise) And again this channel is more about giving you the knowledge to "Make" products, that is where my knowledge lies. But in this video I will talk about the things I have noticed that have been helpful to me. But, like I say, every store is different and everyone has their own methods of doing things.
This last year has been a hard year for everyone I talk to that does Zazzle. I know my sales dropped dramatically the last year. It seems like when I talk to people who have been on for a year or less they have made no sales, or very few, and people who have been on Zazzle for years saw their sales drop too. I don't know what Zazzle changed, or was it something google changed? Or maybe the whole Covid crisis and wars around the world knocked out the economy, I'm not sure.
My theory was that when Zazzle made all the collection changes, their focus switched from just any popular products to event planning, especially weddings. It would make no sense for Zazzle to make changes that would hurt their sales, but maybe switching their focus to "event planning" collections made them more money, as those are mostly bulk buys, but caused a lot of us artists and photographers to lose money.
This is just my theory, but that being said, I noticed that when I talk to anybody that does print on demand in general, that their sales are down across all stores right now. So I am not sure. Tell me your theories below.
I bring all this up because I know people are really stressing right now. I see it on the forum, in the comments under the videos, on my fb group and anywhere I read people's discussions about Print on Demand. And I feel the desperation in some people when i talk to them personally. Many many hours, days, months and sometimes years of work seems to be all for naught. Or someone who had a successful shop, saw big drops in sales this last year despite doing all the extra work with cover photos, videos, and promoting on social media sites.
And doing all the things Zazzle is asking us to do, actually costs us money. To pay for mockups sites, editing sites, ai sites, upscaling sites., movie making sites, is hard enough on our wallets but then to take a decrease in sales is a double whammy. Not to mention trying to learn all these new sites, and how to make all these cover photos and video's while trying to understand all the changes on Zazzle, is just plain overwhelming.
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[Insert Group Hug Here]
If you are very successful right now in any of your POD shops, please feel free to share down below why you think that is.
Let's get into this. What I have noticed works for me.
I know that the obvious things here are events such as weddings, which would of course get your huge sales, but that is such a competitive theme so I'm going to narrow it down a bit more than that. I am more of a "my sales add up" kind of seller, more than a "big commission on each sale" kind of seller, if that makes sense.
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Tip #1. Personalized items
As much as I love putting drawings and photos I've taken on products, I look at those products as more of a hobby. And not that I don't sell any of these, I do, but the sales of these aren't as grand as the sales of personalized products. Honestly, that is what most people come to Zazzle for. And you might be thinking but how can I make any profit on "one off" sales, but when it comes to personalized items, you can think in bulk too. Think of baby shower buttons for example, one of my biggest sellers. You only make like ten cents in commission on one button, but people will by a mom to be, grandma to be, auntie to be, godmother to be, big sister or brother to be, button for each person in their family.
Here's a couple products that have worked for me.
Here's a couple examples of that things that are smaller priced items that are pretty easy to design but I've sold a lot of.
1. Baby Shower buttons. Ps think of all the nicknames people use across the world for grandma.
2. Weddings cards
Not just congratulations but wedding party cards. such as Will you be my maid of honor, brides maid, flower girl cards are big. 3.
3. Anything with a child's, spouses or pet's fae and name on it. It doesn't matter if it's a coffee mug, magnet, button, T-shirt or key chain or phone case. People love to see those that they love on products.
4. T-shirts that say Proud Grandma, Grandpa or Auntie of this sweet little angel with a picture of the baby.
5. Any drinking accessory with at least a name but a name and picture is better. Kids bring these to school and daycare so they don't get lost.
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Tip #2
Analyze Your Site
Judging by how often I get asked this, people want their sites analyzed to see what products are doing the best and what they should make more of. Trust me it's better to use some kind of tool to do this then to ask me to look at your site and figure it out. I really can't do that for many reason. So you can use Zazzle's insights or quick stats page to go in and see where your traffic is coming from or how many views your product is getting. Now if you are trying to get really into the stats or your page, these pages probably don't tell you enough.
There are sites out there you can visit to see if they have the info you are looking for. Some of these sites you pay for a one off visit while others you can subscribe to monthly and do this any time you want. I will post a list of sites that help you with this down in the description. As you all know I am a beta tester for Snuggle Hamster Designs, and they will offer this as one of their premium features. I'm not trying to push this site on you just because I was a beta tester, I get nothing in return for doing so, I don't think they have an affiliate program or anything like that right now. I just know about it so I am going to share it with you because I think it will be helpful.
I will list all sites I find that do this below and you can go through them. But here is an example of how it works on SHD. And notice how my biggest sales are on Time for the Holidays. You know how I was bugging you guys about making merch for these daily holidays and I'd stick them on my blog for you? Well these are my biggest sellers. This store is my biggest seller.
Tip #3
Niche down. This is why I have so many stores on Zazzle. I have a store for each niche. I still have some of my earlier stores up and they are big messes with everything from wedding, to baby shower to photography to random art I drew in them. There is no organization, no cover photos and no method to anything in those shops, its embarrassing to be honest, but I do still sell things in them. What I noticed over the years were the things that sold in there and I made a niche out of them. Pay attention to hobbies, sports and things that tend to stay evergreen. For example I was selling a lot of food related products, just random ornaments or buttons or stickers with food on them. So I made a store called, Foodie Friends.
If you notice a trend, fad or streak of things selling on your store, you might want to open a shop in that theme and have fun making a lot of products with that theme. Also, combine niches. Everyone in the world loves cats. If you do a search for cat products, hundreds are going to come up. So doing just a cat themed collection might not get attention but adding it to another niche such as cat with sunglasses on the beach, might get more attention.
Again, Snuggle Hamster Designs is going to have a section about niches. So make sure to check that out. Listed below are other sites that will also help you finding niches that might work for you. It's always best too if you know about the niche and know all the terms, nicknames and trends within the niche. That way you can use the best tags, keywords and you'll know all the nicknames and terms. What I mean by that is say you open a shop called Canine Kisses and it's going to be all about different dog breeds. Each collection you make with a dog breed, make sure you research it more. So when you do a collection for Pugs, you can search for nicknames for pug owners, which is a Puggy Wuggy by the way. So the average person who doesn't own a pug isn't going to know that, but someone searching specifically for something cute for a pug owner, will. So you will have niched down, and found a smaller audience but one that may be looking specifically for your product and thus a better chance for a sale.
Tip #4
Quality vs Quantity
I notice that a lot of new Zazzlers will take hours or even days to create a product. While quality is surely and obviously important. Quality is too. I expect to get slack for saying this, but it's true in my experience. If I have 100 products in a store I am not likely going to sell much. Definitely not as much as I'm selling in my stores with thousand of products. My goal is always to make as many products as I can with each design.
If you walk into a little shop and you see s design you want, but it's only on one of their thousands of products, what is the chance that, that is the product you need. Say for example there is a cute little skunk on a popcorn maker. You are one of those people that just loves skunks. But you already have a popcorn maker. You'd think darn, I really wish that was on something I could buy, like a coffee mug or stickers. So make sure your cute little design, photo or piece of art is on a number of products. And honestly, a lot of us are broke right now so make sure it's on big ticket items like cornhole boards where you will make bigger commission and make sure it's only affordable items such as stickers so someone can use your cute little skunk as an envelope sealer.
Another analogy I like to give is this. And I'm sorry I know a lot of you have heard me say this but for those who haven't... Picture a sandbox full of sand. Somebody walks by and throws a handful of sand into it. That handful of sand will just disappear into that big box of sand. You probably can't even point out where that sand just landed.
But now picture someone walking by with a big bucket of sand. They throw that sand in. It's more obvious where that sand landed. It will be more noticeable.
Think of your Zazzle products of pieces of sand in a big sandbox. You want as many pieces in there as possible so they will be seen. I can go even further with this analogy and picture someone walking by and now scooping out a handful of sand, what are the chances pieces of your sand will be in their handful?
The more sand you put in the more chances they will have some of your sand in their hand.
Now think of that handful or sand as a Google or Zazzle search. When a person searches for a product, is it going to come up in a search? If you have one product, unless it's really really niched down, probably not. But if you have several items in your store related to that search then there's a much better chance. More eyes on your products of course increases the chance for more sales.
Tip #5
Get your products out there. I feel like my products just disappear once published on Zazzle into the abyss. So make sure to get them into the public view by sharing them everywhere. My favorite is Pinterest. But i share on Tiktok, Instagram, fb, on blogs and anywhere I can think to.
I know this part can be a pain and it's really hard to push your products on your own personal fb page,, but you can make a page ofr your brand or a group or join other Zazzle groups and follow other creators on twitter or inta and share each others works. <3 Find your community because I have found that the artist/writing and photography communities love to support each other.
And I know blogging went out of style a decade ago, but I still do it on my free little blogging platform because when I check google analytics, most of the traffic to my time for the holidays blog, where I promote my Zazzle daily holiday products, comes from Pinterest. Plus blogger is free to do and it's super easy to pin your blog posts and bring traffic into your blog where they will also see your Zazzle products. It's also fun and therapeutic to blog about something you love. I literally started my time for the holidays blog to distract me from medical stuff going on my life. To give me something positive to think about throughout the day. And though it was not my intention at all to even sell anything through it, here it is years later my biggest selling products on Zazzle.
Tip #6
Time. I know this is the most frustrating part of print on demand. But you have to give it time. POD is not a quick fix or any income situation. For most it will just be a fun hobby to share your art and photos on or whatever it is that you create. Many if not most of us need money as in now, there's rent to pay, food to fill the cabinets, bills to pay.. you all get it.
Sadly, I don't think there is any get rich now schemes that work on Zazzle, or any POD company despite what you might see claimed on some videos. But that being said, still watch those videos. The way YouTube is set up, you have to put these "weird, look at me" thumbnails on videos to get people's attention, at least according to YouTube. I'm sure each video does have some useful info inside.. But just don't think you will become rich overnight, because likely you won't. I wish that for everyone, don't get me wrong. But honestly, print on demand takes a lot of work, and it's a long time before you start seeing the money you were hoping for rolling in. That is the hardest part for people. It takes soooo much time for that to start happening.
If I'm being completely honest, each time I make a product I expect it to be a year before that product takes off. And not every product will. Only a handful of product from each store make continual sales. But you never know which products those will be so keep on making them. And im not saying anything you make will take a year to sell. I have made a product and had it sell the next day once it became public. But Im just saying on average that is what I notice on my shops.
For example, you know how i showed you that my Time for the Holidays shop gets the most sales? Well a couple years ago I almost gave up on it cuz I thought I was never going to sell any dang National Broccoli Buttons!!! But here we are a year later and it's my most popular shop! So don't give up. A year seems so far away... and you will sell items here and there in between, but time goes fast and before you know it you will be making sales.
And for the shops that had their sales drop dramatically i the last year, an I don't know what to say. I experienced a lot of that too and just lately it felt like it was starting to pick up again. So I hope it continues to do so for everyone.
Tip #7
I think this leads to my very last tip for today. Make sure not to put all your eggs in one basket. Make sure to do lots of the POD sites. In fact, tell us below in the comments which ones are your favorites or how successful you have been on each POD site that you use. I would be really interested in hearing that. My best is by far Zazzle. I'm on lots and lots of POD sites but Zazzle is my fav and where I have been most successful but its always nice to get a little unexpected sale on Fine Art, Tee Public or Red Bubble here and there. And now my YouTube has been monetized so you can actually see my products from my Spreadshirt store under this video. Pretty cool, I didn't even know YouTube would do that until it just happened last week!
Those are my tips for today. Again, not professional at anything over here. Not a consultant or marketer. Just someone who is doing "ok" on Zazzle right now that wants to help all of you. <3 So I hope some of this advice will.
Let me know down below your own tips. I am totally aware that I do things differently then a lot of the more popular youtubers that do print on demand. I'm not overly organized, I have not used a ton of programs to give me advice on tagging and keywords, I'm just discovering some of that stuff now. But I think there are different ways of reaching success and each person has to find their own, so we can learn a little for everyone who is out there trying to teach us all, how to do this, and apply what feels right for us in our own lives. And hopefully by using this advice along with your own gut instinct on what's right for you, you can eventually become successful too.
Tools & Articles
Snuggle Hamster Designs (Promoting, Analyzing and Niche Finder)
How to Find Key words for your Zazzle Articles
If you are like me and don't have to patience to read all this, then here is a video you can play in the background while you are doing whatever it is you are doing!
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