Advice on Pricing Zazzle Products For Sale

To set the default percentage to apply throughout your Zazzle store, go to your store account and in the "Seller Account" area choose "default royalty".  There you have the option to choose a royalty which will show on all products you don't individually price.  Or set one royalty for everything and it will show up automatically.

Use the Default, or Set Individual Prices?

Each seller must decide if they want all products to have the same markup.  This will depend on what they sell and how much work has gone into the image being sold.  I also take into consideration the original cost of the item.

Reasons I Set Each Percentage Manually (But I also choose a high default percentage)

1. Items with an already high price tag (set by Zazzle) get a low mark up from me.
2. Products I rarely sell, get a lower mark up. 
3. If there is lots of competition and similar products with (say for instance, a rose image) I keep the royalty low - closer to the base 10%. (update: recent changes have made the base 5%)
4. Set the price according to the amount of work you've put into the image design and how unique it is.  Good, original artwork deserves a higher mark up.  Don't sell yourself short.  Many customers will pay extra for a good piece of art.
5. Also, if I can expect the customer to possibly request a lot of help with something I've made (due to custom text needs), I will have a higher markup due to the potential time involved.
6. Use the Advanced Royalty settings calculator to add pennies to each sale.  (I talk more about this further down on this page.)

Now that Zazzle offers the transfer of designs from one product to another, set a high default. Whenever a customer transers one of your designs, the default percentage will be applied. I had a customer re-make a postcard with the exact same design to get a lower price because my default was set at 10%.  It is now set at 25%.

Will I sell more items if I keep my royalties low, and therefore have cheaper prices overall, or is it worth having higher prices and make more money?  That's a big question that is not easy to answer.

It's really trial and error, and depends on who you are, what you sell, and how popular your products become.  Affiliates want products with a lower mark up, or so I've heard.  Zazzle has told us to keep royalties below 15% to get help from affiliate marketers.

There is no good way to tell how many, if any, affiliates are choosing your items to market.  Third party sales appearing in your earnings is one way to tell.   Also, if an item suddenly begins selling often, there is a good chance customers are finding it someplace outside of Zazzle - unless it's right there on one of Zazzle's landing pages.   And, those two go hand-in-hand.  Once a product sells well, it will move up the rankings on Zazzle.

I raise my royalties when I create a design that is very unique and took a lot of time to make.  I am not going to give that design away for 5% markup.  If it's as good as I think it is, I will promote it myself and get the customers.  Anything I sell that is a simple photograph or a simple design can get a lower royalty setting, but I don't go below 10% these days because Zazzle tends to have big sales that cut our profits even further.

Every time you post a product for sale you'll see a notice about having a 24-hour window to change the markup percentage and set a new price.   Once that window has closed, any new price you set won't show up as changed, until the around the 20th of the month.

To change your royalty markup, and price of your product, go into "edit" for the product you want to change, and then make the change in the royalty area.

Let me explain.  Prices can be changed at any time, but the new price you choose won't change for the customer to see until "on or around" the 20th of the month.  Make changes by the 19th or you will have to wait a month for them to show up.  Zazzle's explanation for this can be read when clicking on the "why" in the yellow text line shown in my image below.

In part, the explanation from Zazzle is,"Real-Time pricing changes are putting our ability to participate in search engine feeds at risk." 

As the seller you can see the new price reflected in the edit section for each product.  See the example below.

Christmas Holiday Season

Keep in mind that Zazzle usually has an early cutoff date for changing royalties at Christmas.  Percentages will not change in December, so be ready for that.

Instead of choosing a basic 5%, 10%, 15% or 20%, you may add decimals to the percentage when clicking on the "advanced calculator" which allows you to slide the price up or down. (The link is in blue text above, and is shown being used in the image below). 

Using the image below of a square, wedding invitation in one of my shops, you can see that I have set the percentage at 30.9.  The price for the product will be $2.25 and I will make 66 cents on each card sold.

If I had chosen a round, 30% for the markup, the selling price would still be $2.25 but my royalty would be a penny less at 65 cents.

Also, be aware that it seems Zazzle would like us to stay under the 15% markup.  Sometimes setting the percentage at 14.9 will get you more than going a bit over that.  Play with the royalties to find what works best for you.  I write them down on paper to keep from having to play with it every time.

In the example shown above, if the customer changes the paper from felt (which I have chosen) to basic paper, the price of the invitation will be $1.95 and my royalty will be 57 cents.

This can happen for any product on the Zazzle site which gives the customer the option to make changes.  It can happen the opposite way and make you more money too, when they choose to upgrade.

If the customer uses a coupon code, or buys during a sale, my royalty will be even lower because the price for the item will be reduced.

Many products offer discounts when purchased in bulk.  Bulk purchases are wonderful, but with a discount added automatically, the royalty percentage shrinks but may be made up by the fact that many were ordered.

Zazzle's site wide sales and promo codes can also apply and reduce royalty amounts temporarily.

Postage stamps are a different story.  I talk about them below.

As I've said, if you offer unique, quality designs that YOU believe are worth more that a piddly 5% markup, set the royalty as high as you like.  I have some items set at 30% and higher, and they do sell.

A customer will recognize a beautiful design where time involved is part of the price, as compared to something else of poor quality, or plain and ordinary.

On the other hand, items that I wouldn't expect to pay a premium price for, such as stickers and address labels, I leave at the lower rate.