Strange Zazzle Happenings: The Follow-Up 📍
In an earlier post, I discussed a...very strange problem with my stores over on Zazzle that only continued to get worse over time. And when I came back to posting about KTCW on Pinterest, I decided it was best to delete all the pins that were tied to those stores.
I still couldn't figure out why my account was having this problem or if it was worth contacting support over. I just knew that there wasn't a point in having links up for products, if they're not going to lead potential customers to them. 🤷🏾♀️ I published...maybe somewhere around 50 listings and it dropped down to only several public results. 😐 Zazzle has been the toughest time I've had making listings on any Print-On-Demand website so far. Perhaps this was my own fault out of my minimal experience, but it seemed a lot like it would be way too much work trying to rebuild what I lost. If editing these hidden listings didn't result in making them public again, I was ready to give up.
Last week, as I was putting notes together to make an update about the deleted pins and how I would handle Zazzle from now on, I realized I hadn't tried editing the listings yet. I said that I was going to do that months ago... and it would help solidify my decision, so, I logged in to test this out.
Upon getting in, I noticed more notifications about optimization. The last time I got these alerts, clicking on them only brought me to that specific item. But this time, I was led to ALL the product listings that disappeared! 🤯
but almost all of them were very much still available for customizing.
This was different from the page that was telling me the items were still active in spite of seeming otherwise. A description stated that my products were hidden due to low customer activity and this caused Zazzle’s system to react. It does this to encourage sellers to make improvements to their designs and how they list and / or share them. Among other things…
I selected the "Learn More" link at the end of the description and landed on the Marketplace Optimization page of the Zazzle Help Center. It was frustrating to read through at first; it feels like you’re getting "punished". How are you going to improve in your customer activity if it gets hidden ENTIRELY from others to see it?! And when the products are live, but aren't sold or seen, they can negatively affect SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? I've never heard of websites enacting or claiming such a thing. The closest thing I can think of to this was Redbubble’s tier system.
What was also included on the page, was how to make these hidden listings public again! I didn't have to start over after all! 😄 There wasn't anything I could think of to change the designs, so, I added more into the descriptions like I did with my Fourthwall listings and added a little blurb about who I am and what my goals are for KTCW.
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Hey! It's me, K-Tee! I'm a cartoonist looking for ways to sell my original art, while also looking for resources that can help other artists with theirs. If that's something you're interested in, check out my blog and other social media pages on my Carrd!
https://kteeartworks.carrd.co/
I wasn't able to find a clear cut answer on whether we're allowed to add links to our descriptions, just that they won't be clickable. It's a lot easier dropping it there instead of telling people to head over to my Zazzle home page to click on the social links. I’m hoping that even if I don’t sell anything, I can at least interest my visitors to follow me elsewhere. I’m also hoping that doing this doesn’t end up suppressing my reach. I’m so used to sites pulling stuff like that…😒
So far, I’ve revived listings for the general Autumn designs and all the Halloween-themed ones I had up. But while I am starting up again, not every single item is coming back. Some of these designs don’t work on these items as well as I thought…and other designs, I want to either improve or retire completely. Also, whenever I do get to using newer designs on Zazzle, I might just choose three to seven items to apply them to instead of every possible thing. I would rather put most of my effort into customizing on Fourthwall and prioritize Zazzle last. FW’s unique features and better control over profit margins make it more rewarding to invest your time into.
Let's try this again!
~*K-Tee ✍🏾👩🏾🐹