Boost your income by promoting your unique Zazzle products. With my article about “How To Make Money On Zazzle“, you will Explore proven techniques, tips, and tricks to maximize sales and achieve Zazzle success.
Tips about how to make money on Zazzle?
If you’ve never heard of Zazzle, let me introduce you. Zazzle.com is a huge website that offers consumers a variety of products created and designed by its own users, including you. Every time one of your products sells, you make money! And the best part is that you don’t have to pay anything to set up your shop. Zazzle also makes the design process extremely easy, allowing customers to customize products exactly how they want.
Once you’ve created enough things on Zazzle, you’ll slowly (or very quickly for some!) start making your own purchases on Zazzle because the customization and variety is easy. For those of you who have been active on Zazzle for a while, I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. And for those of you who are new to this, I’m super excited for all the fun that lies ahead!
Nothing feels better than seeing that email arrive with all those “Zs” and the anticipation that follows in the seconds you have to wait to find out what you’ve sold. Regardless of your experience with Zazzle, I hope this site will help you take your shop to the next level.
Making money on Zazzle is a multifaceted process.
- First, understanding the platform guides you in navigating its features.
- Next, the success of your online store depends on choosing the right products that align with your brand and audience.
- After that, your products need captivating designs that reflect your creative vision.
- Finally, effective marketing plays a key role in driving traffic and sales. By carefully crafting these elements, you can build a profitable business on Zazzle.
Make lots of products
Yes, that might seem obvious – but not for the reason you might think. Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what people will use certain products for, and sometimes it’s hard to say exactly what images everyone will like. The vast majority of my paintings are photographs. When I first started using Zazzle, I focused on postcards and posters.
When I started experimenting with other products I was shocked at how much was selling. Lo and behold, one of my first and biggest bulk sales was 200 pins. Who knows what they were used for, but glad I made them! Postcards still make me the most money, but the other products that have made me good money are (in descending order): invitations, prints, pins, magnets, note cards, stamps, and ornaments.
The same also applies to the images you use. Don’t get me wrong – all your images should be of the highest quality possible. But don’t forget that different people have different tastes and not everything has to be completely unique! I used to turn away from the photos I took that I considered generic—flowers, my own pets, trees, etc.—. I finally decided to try some of these and now two of my top sellers feature a wildflower I photographed The walk to the beach one summer and my dog Phoebe.
Adjust your royalties
Sometimes it’s hard to raise your royalties when all you really want is to get a sale. And likewise, sometimes it’s really hard to keep them in check when all you want is to make a lot of money.
But finding that sweet spot is really important. I started selling prints at the standard 10% and would make about $3.00 every time one sold. I recently decided to bite the bullet and raise my print royalties to 65%—raising the print price from around $20 to around $50. I don’t sell quite as many prints as I used to, but now each sale brings in $25.00 instead of $3.00—far more money overall and well worth the increase.
With that said, you still need to be careful about which products you tie high royalties to. A poster is going to hang on your wall for a really long time—it’s worth finding the perfect image and paying a little extra for it.
Customers would probably be less likely to pay a 65% royalty on a postcard or notecard. Right now, all of my postcards are set to a 15% royalty, which raises the cost of a postcard from $0.95 to $1.00 for the customer—that’s something that customers can handle.
Adding text to your products is a great way to increase their visibility both on Zazzle and in Google searches.
Adding text to your products is a great way to increase their visibility on Zazzle and in Google searches alike.
Add text to your products
This was key for me and made by far the biggest difference. Zazzle is fully customizable for customers. So one might assume that there is no reason to add text to a product as the customer could just do it themselves. But that doesn’t seem to be true.
One of my best-selling photos is a great shot of the Hong Kong skyline. I am buying prints and postcards of this photo, both unprinted and with “Hong Kong” printed below.
For photo sellers, adding the city name to a skyline shot is probably a bit obvious. But there are tons of other text examples that help sell a product.
Remember that big pin sale I was talking about earlier? The pin read “Grandma To Be”. “Happy Birthday” and “Thank You” are other regular sellers for me. The possibilities are endless, so don’t hesitate!
Label your products well
Marking is very important and also very easy to do. Each time you create a product, you’ll be prompted to add tags – make sure you do! Currently, Zazzle only uses ten tags in its search engine.
However, you can add more, and these could be used in other search engines like Google (yes, your products will show up on Google too!). Choosing the right words is crucial if you want your products to be found by those whom you haven’t communicated directly.
When choosing tags, think about what words you would use if you were trying to find your product or something similar. For example, if you have a mug that says “Mother of the Year,” you can use tags like “mom, mother, grandmother, year, mug.” But think about what other search terms customers might use to ideally show your mug – “gift for mom, Mother’s Day, coffee lover, coffee mug”.
Also, try not to get too focused on a specific use of your product, and remember that everything is customizable! A Mother of the Year mug can be designed to say anything, so don’t limit your tags. You could use “Birthday Gift” as the tag, or even better, “Party Gift”. Sure, maybe someone would be unlikely to give away mugs that say “Mother of the Year” as party favors, but what if they customized the text to say “Party of the Year”?
Then you would have sold 15 cups instead of one! When creating your tags, just remember to think and reflect like a customer. You only have ten options for Zazzle’s search engine.
Watch out for new product launches
Zazzle regularly adds new items to its marketplace, some of which are sure to be big hits. Even after you’ve created your shop and made different versions of your images, don’t forget to check back regularly to see what new items are available for personalization.
When luggage tags came out I immediately started making them and was pleasantly surprised that they were a huge hit. Within the first few months, I had made 15 new sales (some of them for more than one luggage tag). Pacifiers were another big hit that I immediately jumped into.
Create separate stores
If you’re just starting out at Zazzle, spend some time focusing on your first store. Try out different items and images and go where the demand is—if you’re buying lots of t-shirts, then keep making t-shirts! If you have one particular image that keeps on buying, then put it on as many products as you can.
Once you have your store up and running, consider whether you can branch out to other specialized or focused stores.
Ideally, a customer would find your product, go visit your store, and leave with 5 items in their cart!
But to do that, you need to make sure that your store offers various products that each visiting customer is going to like.
Categorize your products
Once you’ve created a store with multiple products that customers might be interested in, you need to take it a step further and create categories that help customers find products they’re interested in.
Your categories will vary depending on the store and the items you want to sell. If the nature of your images is different, you may want specific categories for each type – photography, cartoon, vintage, etc.
If you have created special occasion items, your categories could include weddings, birthdays, holidays, etc. Categorizing your items has an added benefit: when a customer views your product, Zazzle will show other items from that category underneath.
So the more relevant the other products are, the more likely it is that a customer will buy more than one product from you.
Focus on products that sell
This may seem obvious, but you may be surprised at how easily overlooked it is. When a product sells, there is a reason for it. Use your sales as motivation to make other similar products.
If you are selling a t-shirt with a funny saying, create more shirts with your other images and add that funny saying to other product types. My Best Selling Image is the best image for five different product types – postcards, baby t-shirts, magnets, keychains and more.
I originally started out just selling postcards and then decided to try the other types of products. When I started to sell baby t-shirts, I designed more baby t-shirts with different images – now I can sell baby t-shirts with different images. I would never have predicted that on my own – I just watched what sold and then moved on.
Marketing
The great thing about Zazzle is that you can create your items whenever it fits into your schedule and then make sales while you sleep through the night.
However, if you really want to make big bucks, there are quite a few things you need to do to make midnight sales regular and regular. There are countless ways to market your items. So always pay attention to what works for you.
If you’re really social and have a huge personal network, then by all means: sell, sell, sell! Make sure your network knows when new items are coming and be ready for special occasions and holidays.
And if you don’t have a strong personal network – don’t worry; Zazzle is still here for you! The Internet offers many great opportunities to market your items.
Social media is no longer cutting-edge or high-tech. It is now commonplace and used by people of all ages. So use it! If you have your own personal Facebook page, add your Zazzle shop to your profile so friends and family can browse your items. Release one of your new items every now and then.
Zazzle also offers special tools that can be used within Facebook. Other social media sites can also be helpful.
One of the sites that has worked well for me is Pinterest. The Pinterest following is perfect for the items I sell, so it serves as a way to market my items, but also as a source of inspiration.
On Pinterest, you can create special boards for your items or combine your items with other relevant material.
Be open-minded and give it a try! Most of Pinterest’s popularity has come in the last few years, so it’s still relatively new. If I hadn’t tried it, I would never have found it to be a good resource for me.
Use referrals
One of the biggest earning potentials that Zazzle offers is the referral program. Essentially, Zazzle pays you to recommend someone else’s product. So if it seems impossible to develop more products, don’t worry! Referrals should be your next focus.
Once you have developed successful methods of marketing your items, start marketing other people’s products. You must use a special link to ensure the sale is tied to you. However, Zazzle makes this easy and provides the link for each product as long as you are properly logged in.
Market research
Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by the ideas that others have. And while you don’t want to copy someone else’s product, it often happens that an original thought pops into your head when you see something different that has already been made. Scanning Zazzle’s website will also give you a good idea of what types of products are sold.
If you have a picture of the beach, search for “beach” in Zazzle’s search engine and see what you find. Maybe you will be surprised that mouse pads are the top search result, or maybe there are many happy birthday cards. Use what others have learned and follow their example! It will help you reach your goal much faster.
Think outside the box
For some people this comes naturally, for others, you may have to work harder at it. Maybe you need a glass of wine while brainstorming, or maybe you need to ask others what they’re doing! Either way, thinking outside the box is a HUGE way to dramatically increase your sales.
This is what I mean by thinking outside the box: I told you before that postcards are my top sellers. When you hear that, most of us think that people have traveled somewhere that I photographed and then sent my postcard to friends and family. In many cases that is exactly what happened. Or maybe they sometimes collect postcards. But what about other uses?
I actually had someone comment on one of my postcards that they used it as a note in the welcome bag at their wedding! The Point: There are many ways to use some of Zazzle’s most common products that aren’t exactly what they intended. Good luck brainstorming!
I hope these steps have proven helpful! Let me know what works for you! Remember: A rising tide causes all boats to rise!
This article is accurate and truthful to the best of the author’s knowledge and belief. The content is provided for informational or entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for personal advice or professional advice on any business, financial, legal, or technical matter.
FAQs
If you have any questions or would like to read more about Zazzle customer satisfaction insights, or how to know ways for running a print-on-demand business, Kindly drop them at wlo-usa.org to get help. We’re happy to accompany all of you anytime you need.
