It's been quite awhile since I updated my blog so I am sure there's work to do if I want to have readers! First off, I have to apologise for not blogging more regularly (or at all!) but Zazzle has been changing their site; which lead to changes for designers requiring us to give our shops a 'facelift'. This meant devoting lots of time to simply having my shop presentable so I could meet the new standards.
We are now given a number rank from 0 to 10 based on how we perform. I must say it gives one some incentive for performing if you're at all competitive. But I find the ranking system (which is not visible to customers) somewhat discouraging too because it rewards you for selling more products. Yet I am not a salesperson first-I consider myself to be a designer before a salesperson. So now I have to 'weed out' loads of products from my shops that never had a viewing. At first this was not so difficult because I just deleted stuff I didn't care about but my rank never improved. That lead to more product deletions so people could see the most popular stuff but I have yet to see any rank improvement. It's all a bit disheartening because I hate focusing so much of my effort on marketing.
None of this would bother me but the higher your rank the better chance you have of getting a prime spot in the Zazzle Marketplace search results. If my rank is below 6 (which it is) I have to devote more time to marketing. Otherwise my products end up on a page number nobody ever goes to (usually people go a max of 13 pages or 20 if very interested). Anyone with products on pages past the first 1-20 are out of luck in terms of having Zazzle promote your designs.
All this means I am less focused on designing lately and more on trying to climb my way up the ranks from a 4 to at least a 6 so I can have my stuff viewable in Zazzle search results. I don't enjoy having to delete products (so far I have deleted thousands from my main site and hundreds from my smaller shops). But it's the only way to improve rank since it allows customers a chance to see more of your products if there's only a few hundred items instead of tens of thousands.
Ultimately my goal is to have great designs and fewer products so that what I have is more likely to be viewed (and bought!). Thanks for reading.
We are now given a number rank from 0 to 10 based on how we perform. I must say it gives one some incentive for performing if you're at all competitive. But I find the ranking system (which is not visible to customers) somewhat discouraging too because it rewards you for selling more products. Yet I am not a salesperson first-I consider myself to be a designer before a salesperson. So now I have to 'weed out' loads of products from my shops that never had a viewing. At first this was not so difficult because I just deleted stuff I didn't care about but my rank never improved. That lead to more product deletions so people could see the most popular stuff but I have yet to see any rank improvement. It's all a bit disheartening because I hate focusing so much of my effort on marketing.
None of this would bother me but the higher your rank the better chance you have of getting a prime spot in the Zazzle Marketplace search results. If my rank is below 6 (which it is) I have to devote more time to marketing. Otherwise my products end up on a page number nobody ever goes to (usually people go a max of 13 pages or 20 if very interested). Anyone with products on pages past the first 1-20 are out of luck in terms of having Zazzle promote your designs.
All this means I am less focused on designing lately and more on trying to climb my way up the ranks from a 4 to at least a 6 so I can have my stuff viewable in Zazzle search results. I don't enjoy having to delete products (so far I have deleted thousands from my main site and hundreds from my smaller shops). But it's the only way to improve rank since it allows customers a chance to see more of your products if there's only a few hundred items instead of tens of thousands.
Ultimately my goal is to have great designs and fewer products so that what I have is more likely to be viewed (and bought!). Thanks for reading.