Running A Zazzle Business: What Works For Me

I work from home, at my own pace, for an online company called Zazzle.  They are based in California (and now have expanded to the southwestern United States) and produce print-on-demand products which contain designs created by professional and amateur designers.  No interviews are necessary, and no waiting to be hired, only an agreement to abide by Zazzle's terms of service.   Anyone at all can build a "store" at Zazzle and begin selling products of their own designs to sell. 

Zazzle is just one of the sites where I spend time creating and selling products. I also have stores at Society6 and RedBubble. These places are free to use. All that is needed is to familiarize yourself with how each site operates and create a profile with payment information.

Zazzle has recently made some very good changes, which I believe will help me (us) sell more.  

Color options for the same design is one change I am very excited about.  Often we make a product and know it would look good in various colors.  Sometimes I would mention in the description of the item that the customer can change the background color themselves.

Now, each color shows up right there next to the item.  All we have to do is create the product in our chosen colors and every one of them will be an option for the customer.  I love it!  And, I have already seen it being used by selling the new colors.  (See the wrapping paper below to see what I mean.)

Secondly, Zazzle now shows more products with that same design listed in a row beneath the original.    Currently, not every product contains a good image, so the idea needs tweaking, but I have also had customers transfer designs to new products.  This means more sales as well.

It is easy to become discouraged when sales are down, or nonexistent.  First, remember that different products sell well at different times of the year.  We all experience ups and downs.

If you've been designing like mad, and promoting like crazy, but to no avail, here's what I suggest.

Take a good look at your products.  Are they customizable?  This is very important as Zazzle is a custom site.  It's the reason most people shop there.  Can you add some templates in the form of text and / or photos?  Also ask yourself if they are really good, or do you need to learn more about design and graphics?

If that is not your problem, then ask yourself if your products are unique.  Photography is everywhere - and very good photography.  Clip art is not in itself unique.  What can you do that is different from what everyone else does?  It may take a while for you to be able to answer that question.  It has taken me years to decide what I want to focus on.

I live near the beach.  I collect seashells and write about them on my blog.  Now, seashells and beaches are not unique.  They are everywhere on Zazzle, and all over the internet.  So am I nuts to try to sell this theme?  I've had to think about this for a while but my answer is "no".  I can do this because my things are unique.  I am not simply using beach scenes that everyone has access to through photo sites.  I have my own photos to use.  I've also created my own elements to mix and mingle to create one of a kind designs.  I am taking a popular theme (beaches) and creating my own designs using my own ideas.  And they are selling.

I do a little drawing and have been lucky enough to sell some of my art as well.  You don't have to be a great artist to sell, but you do need a creative mind.  You must find a way to stand out.

If you don't know how to use a graphics program, you should learn.  I taught myself and it opened the door to a whole new creative world!  Currently I use Pixelmator on my Mac, but there are free programs out there.  It pays to learn them.

For many years now I have been in regular contact with a fellow designer at Zazzle.  I can't remember how we got to e-mailing so often, but talking with him has become a regular thing.  He is always mentioning things like page rank (which is a number Zazzle gives us for each store to tell us where we stand) and product views, keywords, and tagging.  He is trying to get his sales up, like all of us.

I am just not that interested in stats.  I work and I do my best and viewing stats really doesn't help me accomplish anything.  However, I do sell products regularly and I do pay attention to what is selling.  So maybe, in a way, I do pay attention to stats.

Some designers become too obsessed with numbers.  I wonder how much more good they could be doing if they were focused more on designing and promoting instead of trying to figure out how to raise their page rank.

What I am trying to say is to not waste too much time on worrying about things that really don't matter all that much.  If you are serious about making money, do what you need to to get there.  The numbers will rise when you find a way to make sales.

I've been designing products at Zazzle for over 11 years now.  Most of my time is spent promoting these days.  I've changed my product focus, but the need to promote myself never goes away.  I do have a lot of 3rd Party sales, which means someone else is selling my things - somewhere.

Here's what you can do to get your products seen:

• Write at Wizzley (where you are now!).  This is a friendly site with a great forum and although good written content is most important, showing off what you sell is allowed too.
• Create a Blog or Website about something you like.  Chances are it relates to what you are selling.
• Use Facebook and set up a FaceBook Store page.  I personally don't have much luck with FB, but it's easy enough to post there directly from Zazzle.
• Pin to Pinterest.  This is a great way to promote and it's easy.  Pinterest now offers sub-categories which keep things nice and tidy.  I am very sure that some of my sales come from pinning products.
• Twitter is also easy enough.  Personally I don't think it does me a lot of good.

Often I will see groups of Zazzle designers promoting each other.  I know we all want to help each other out, but I don't think that is the best way to find customers.  People get tired of seeing page after page of products.  From what I gather, this type of promoting does not work well.

We all have hobbies and favorite activities, so build off of that to create a following.  I love to knit, and I have incorporated that into my Pins.  Fellow knitters may come to my Pinterest pages and decide they love my Christmas cards and buy some.  That type of promoting works.

There are pitfalls to working for a company where the boss never meets you.  This job is like no other I've ever had.  It's wonderful to make my own hours and work from home.  But there are downsides to having it all left up to me to bring in the money.  Mainly because I don't have full control.  I must work according to the Zazzle company and what they decide to do.

This is what happened in 2013.  Zazzle made big site changes and I believe Google made changes as well which affected selling in some way.  I'm clueless about this stuff, but I do know that my Zazzle income dropped by two-thirds!  That is a huge pay cut.  I did nothing personally to cause this.  Zazzle made changes and I lost out.  I'm not the only one, as these changes seemed to affect every designer.

I learned a hard lesson, but I was determined to bring my sales back up.  To date, that has not happened, but I still make enough to be worthwhile, so I continue to design, promote and sell.  I have no hope of getting back to making that really good money again.

If you paint, draw, or create art in any form, opening a free store online can only help with getting the word out.  The amount of artists trying to sell their work is overwhelming, but with the option to set up a store for free it could be worth the effort.  There is nothing to lose, or is there?

If you spend any time online trying to earn some income, you already know how quickly things can change.  Sites that were great for promoting one day could be gone, or useless, the next.  Depending on income from a company that has not officially "hired" you, means the income can easily go away.  It's an odd thing to work like that.

I saw my earnings increase consistently and quickly for the first 4 years, but since 2011 my income has steadily gone down.  I am doing nothing different.  In fact I am working harder and have many more products for sale.  It is due to changes Zazzle has made, which I have no control over.

I only mention this to warn you.  Many high earning designers have suffered big losses and I know some have depended on that money to live and pay bills.  I didn't have an outside job that I quit, Zazzle was, and is, my one and only job.   My warning is to not depend too much on money that may go away.

One thing about working for a company who never sees you or gets to know you, is that you are basically on your own.