How to make money using Zazzle
Zazzle is one of my favorite online sources for generating income.
When I was pregnant with my eldest child, I was stuck at home with nothing to do. I needed to find something to occupy me and make a little bit of money at the same time. I first starting out on gaming sites to see if I could win the jackpots whilst playing blackjack. I quite enjoyed playing online considering I had nothing else to do. I found these guys really know their stuff and helped me play in the right casinos. I even made a bit of money every once in a while but the thrill of playing was most exciting! Once I had the baby, I didn’t have time to play online and needed to find a new way to make a little extra income. I was searching for alternative income sources as a way to become a stay at home mom and that’s when I came across Zazzle. While the profit from Zazzle has never been able to support us financially it is still a valuable source of income for me. I’m certain that if you did a quick google search on whether or not people are able to make a lot of money on Zazzle you would immediately find a lot of negativity. But here’s the thing. Few people will ever get rich quick by something off of the internet.
Does that mean sites like Zazzle are a waste of time? Not in my opinion. We all know that you can make money from Etsy and Ebay but that doesn’t always mean that you will make a lot of money, just that you will make money. Zazzle is no different from those when it comes to a financial viewpoint. Many times it is better as there are no seller charges on Zazzle.
Now, before I get to the nitty gritty of how to make money using the website Zazzle.com I would like to share with you some of the reasons I love Zazzle, as well as some of the drawbacks that people often refer to.
Things I love About Zazzle
- Easy to use
- Fun to work with (feels like you are playing a game)
- They send weekly reports on store activity
- SEO friendly
- Endless creative opportunities
- Offers an affiliate program
- Can be embedded onto an existing website
- Beautiful and captivating banners for bloggers
Things that could be better about the site
- Store activity (it’s a very crowded network of people)
- You have little control over the finished product
- Small amounts of revenue at a time
- Certain items don’t sell well
- Lack of immediate results
What is Zazzle?
Forgive me. Here I am rambling along about how to make money using Zazzle and you may have never heard of it before. I’ll give you the short answer. Zazzle is a website where the products are designed by ordinary folk, such as myself – and such as yourself!
How is that different than Etsy?
Good question. Sites like Etsy sell handmade items. The people who create these items physically touch each item and because of that they put a lot of loving care into each product sold. Zazzle differs from this in the fact that the person designing the products may never see a physical copy of what it is that they have created. The site sells production ready products using images and graphics that have been designed by individuals. This plays a great role when bringing in new customers to your online shop. There are many Etsy designs online along with many shopify design websites/ companies to get some tips and also a solution to enable your site to be the most effective.
Is the quality good?
Yes. It is possible for a poor product to slip through the cracks from time to time but Zazzle has hired a team of people to monitor every design that has been submitted. This protects against copyright issues and vulgarity as well as deals with quality control. Additionally in the design process there is a banner that displays whether or not the product may fail the quality standards.
Getting started – How to make money using Zazzle
If you are interested in selling items on zazzle you will first need to create an account with them. This is an easy process.
Once you have created an account it will be time to set up a store. You can do this by going to >My Account >Manage My Store >Open New Store and then naming your store.
Once a store is created you can begin designing products to sell.
Designing Products
Go to >My Account >Create A Product Then just select the product that it is you would like to sell. You do not have to sell the same product every time.
When you have an item selected a pop up will occur that prompts you to add an image to your item. Certainly you can add an image here but it is not necessary and skipping this step does not exclude the option to go back and add an image later.
Inside the design area you will be able to customize your product according to the guidelines that Zazzle has for that particular item, usually this includes images, font, and color scheme.
Once you are satisfied with your product select >Post For Sale. Occasionally you have to select a size before listing your product. This does not exclude other sizes from being bought. For instance, if you were to design a child’s shirt and then select Youth Small someone would still be able to order that shirt in a Youth Medium.
Posting Products For Sale
The last step you will have control over is posting the product for sale. After this step it is up to Zazzle to do the rest. I tend to think of this step as the most important step in the whole process because this is how other’s will find your product and without shoppers there will be no sales. So pay attention.
You will need to name your product. This is not a time to give each product an individuality. Infact, this is a great time to think generic. Remember that shirt we were talking about in the last step? Our example was that we designed a shirt, size Youth Small. If that shirt were baseball related a great name for this item would be Baseball Style Shirt, Youth Small. This helps the buyer know exactly what it is that you have designed.
After naming your item you will be asked to give a description of the product. Now this is the place you to give the item a personality. Think about why someone would want to purchase this item and then write to those needs.
An example would be “This baseball style shirt is perfect for the home run of a son in your life. Let him know just how much he means to you today.”
Product Merchandising allows you to give one final look over of your item up for sale before moving on to categories. Once again, think about the shopper. If a grandmother wanted to buy a shirt for her son I would want her to see the baseball shirt that we have theoretically listed for sale. So, I would probably select options such as >People >Family >Children.
There are four category sections to fill out here, select a category for each to better improve the chances that your item is being viewed by the public.
After categories you are asked to provide TAGS. If you are familiar with the term SEO you already know what these are. However, if you have never heard of the term SEO before and really don’t care to know what it means due to the fact your head is already spinning with all of the information of the page, don’t worry. Just know, that this is yet another way for people to find your product. Consult with an agency who specialises in SEO, build backlinks from Rhino Rank and don’t give it another thought. More on this can be found at: http://fusionvegas.com/services/
You are given ten TAGS or rather, keywords. It’s best to use all ten of these provided.
If we were creating a baseball shirt for a little kid then we would want to use tags such as >kids >clothing >shirt >baseball >grandchildren >grandkids >gift >team >homerun >allstar
Once you have your item set up for people to easily find it, Zazzle will ask you who the product is for, they want to make sure you don’t display foul language or vulgar content. Next, they ask if you would mind someone customizing the product.
I find that if I allow people to customize my products
they are more likely to sell.
Finally they ask you how much royalty you like to make on this product. Keep the shopper in mind. You might like to make $5 off that shirt but would someone be willing to pay for shipping after the total cost of the product, if you think the answer is no then drop the price down to something more realistic.
When I first started selling all of my items were listed at a ten percent royalty but now that I have been selling for a few years I have upped the royalty price to 12 percent which is Zazzle’s recommendation.
More Quick Tips
- Don’t use solid color backgrounds
- Take advantage of the mass create option but check each item separately for addiontal changes
- Keep the shopper in mind
- Novelty items sell best
- Think seasonal
- Tag with internet searching in mind
- Share the product on your social media feed
Tips for Bloggers
- Embed the items directly to your site
- Become an affiliate (you don’t need a store to become an affiliate/associate)
- If you know HTML like the back of your hand then you can establish an RSS feed directly onto your blog
Not how you want to earn extra cash?
Then check out this blog post on how to earn money using Swagbucks
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