So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
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So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
Howdy all. I don't have a shirt business or anything, I'm just a noob with a website who wants to make some shirts, mousepads, etc available for his users.
I just signed up with Zazzle.com last week, and it seems pretty good, although there are a few things that are really making me wonder what they're thinking:
First, it appears that shipping is per item, and not per order. I ordered a mousepad and a keychain last week (the mousepad looks great, the keychain is trash), and they were shipped separately with separate charges ($5.99 and $1.99 respectively). I spent $8 of my $20 order on shipping. And while I'm on the subject, if they're going to charge two bucks to ship a keychain, they should think about not printing the actual postage ($0.63) on the label.
On to the apparent downgrade. Last week I created a few products and put them up for sale. I quickly discovered that you cannot edit a product that you've published for some inexplicable reason. You have to delete it and create it again. Ok, that's unusual, but I can work around that.
So yesterday I receive the keychain that I ordered, and it's not at all like I expected, and despite that, the image very dark, and off center so you can see a white bar across the top where the printing ends. I decide that I don't want this product on my site to sell so I go to delete it and find... hey where'd the delete button go?
I looked through the help page at Zazzle and discovered that to have something deleted I now have to email the support team and wait for them to get around to it. I emailed them yesterday at around noon, and I'm still waiting for the item to disappear. In the meantime I changed the description to DON'T BUY THIS because that's pretty much all I can do (I suppose I should be thankful for that meager ability). What possible reasoning could be behind this change?
I also discovered they removed the ability to display large or "supersize" images of my designs without the big Zazzle watermark in the middle of the screen. I understand the reasoning for doing this, of course, but the option was there before. These are my designs, why not let me decide if I want to protect them?
Can someone tell me that I'm not crazy and that these options were there last week? I'm really disappointed with these bizarre decisions that they're making; it looks like a great service underneath it all (and like I said, the mousepad looks excellent).
Re: So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
I don't think zazzle ever had a "delete" button since they started. That's one of the things that keeps me from using them more (and really the only negative feedback I've heard about their service).
They say they do it that way so that customers can find products again if they want to come back and buy later, but it's pretty inconvenient for the designers/artists that make the products.
You just have to contact support to get the image/product removed.
Some companies will charge more for shipping than it actually costs because it covers the "handling" as well. The packaging, the slips, the employees, etc.
I think they have a pretty good return policy. You may have just received a bad print with the keychain that needs to be returned or exchanged.
Re: So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
Yeah, the fact that you can't delete designs at will, or change the order of the products, is pretty bad; plus, now you can't even change the name of your shop's product lines. Lately, I've been extra careful when uploading designs or creating new product lines, because I know it's a hazzle to make any changes...
Re: So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
Hi Slacker- Josh from Zazzle here. Thanks for the feedback - and while I'm glad to hear that you loved the mousepad, I'm sorry to hear about the bad keychain. That's unusual and something we want to fix. We take pride in our products and will gladly replace or refund your purchase -- just contact customer support at Zazzle Customer Support
Also, as Rodney mentioned, you can ask support to delete any of your products and it will be taken care of in 24-48 hours.
You can still change the Detail and Supersize views and remove the "watermark". To do this, go to MyZazzle, click "Manage My Gallery" and then click "Edit" on the product you want to change. One of the options on the Edit Product page is to change the Supersize options -- there you can remove the watermark. Based on customer feedback and that almost all customers preferred the watermark, we decided to move this feature from the time that you are first publishing the product. But this is good feedback and we'll try to make it easier.
And to Blacksheep77/Vectorsmith - thanks for the update. We still have the feature to change / edit product line names. An "edit" button should appear next to the product line name when you select the product line as you are managing your gallery. However, looks like there may be a temporary bug where this "edit" button isn't appearing in IE 6. It works in Firefox, and we'll have it fixed for IE6 in the next day.
For any more thoughts or feedback, please do send us a note at feedback at zazzle dot com. Thanks!
Re: So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
Hi Josh, thanks for the response. First, yes, the customer support people were fine to deal with when I arranged to return the keychain.
However, I still don't understand the deleting items situation. What is your reasoning behind not allowing your customers to remove items from their own stores? I submitted a ticket to have the keychain removed on Monday around 1:00 PM and it still hasn't happened. Waiting 24 to 48 hours is ridiculous enough. Waiting for three or four (or more) days is just boggling. If you're going to make us count on the support department for every little thing, they need to be able to handle these issues in a timely manner.
Re: So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
Hi Slacker,
Glad to hear you were able to return the keychain and I hope you let us print you a replacement and deliver a good product in the end...
On the deletion issue, this is a fair question. We do support your rights to your content and fully support you removing your content from the site if you want to. I would love to have the feature to delete right in the UI. However, architecturally, with the caching and more in our system, we cannot support items to be removed immediately from your gallery and from the marketplace yet. So instead, we have you go through our customer service to have this taken care of. 3-4 days for a deletion does not sound right, but it's possible that there was an extra delay since we just pushed out a major release on the site this week. The good news is with that release you should see some faster performance and other minor improvements across the site.
Re: So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
Quote:
the actual postage ($0.63) on the label.
Shipping charges are always misunderstood. here is what is not considered when you see the postage on a package.. Handling, packaging, packaging material such as box or envelope and packing material such as bubblewrap wrap. , Delivery in some cases to post office or UPS.. That 63 cents is just the postage. I am sure.
__________________ There is a center to everything.. I found mine at.. www.heatpressessentials.com What you need to do the job! www.tbiz101.com (New)Heat Transfer Education
Re: So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
I just want to add a comment for Josh and the rest of the Zazzle team: like any site, Zazzle will always have things that can be improved to make it more practical/functional, but I think it's a great site and concept, and I loved the recent revamp, with all the changes and improvements you all have made!
Re: So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZazzleTeam
Hi Slacker,
Glad to hear you were able to return the keychain and I hope you let us print you a replacement and deliver a good product in the end...
On the deletion issue, this is a fair question. We do support your rights to your content and fully support you removing your content from the site if you want to. I would love to have the feature to delete right in the UI. However, architecturally, with the caching and more in our system, we cannot support items to be removed immediately from your gallery and from the marketplace yet. So instead, we have you go through our customer service to have this taken care of. 3-4 days for a deletion does not sound right, but it's possible that there was an extra delay since we just pushed out a major release on the site this week. The good news is with that release you should see some faster performance and other minor improvements across the site.
Thanks,
JoshE
JoshE,
I'm very surprised to see your comment about the 3-4 day deletion not sounding right. I've been with zazzle for 10 months now, and the time for deletions has usually been a few days... till the past month. It took ONE MONTH, and about 4 reminder emails to get my products deleted... and in the meantime customers were able to view & purchase the products.
This is a HUGE problem, especially since we are not allowed to edit our designs at all. We have to request a deletion, and then recreate the products. Sometimes we buy our own products, only to find that the print quality wasn't what we expected, and then we can't even get it deleted to prevent an unhappy customer.
This definitely needs to be fixed... if we're allowed to delete for the first 24 hours, then why can't we continue to have that privilege? If it can't be changed, then customer service needs to be improved significantly.
I'd be happy to forward you a copy of my emails going back & forth to the support team if you need proof of my complaint. Heck, I'd be happy to email anyone at zazzle who would actually respond in a timely manner.
Re: So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
Adding to the comment below; I've been using Cafepress so sell custom t-shirts for our town's soccer teams for about a year, and so far I'm not sold on the quality, especially black items. I've also found their item management process very cumbersome when you are creating and maintaining multiple series of similar items for a bunch of different teams. I too tried setting up a gallery in Zazzle and while I love the interface in general, I'm very frustrated by not being able to manage and maintain a private gallery, and agree that the lack of a delete button is a complete deal breaker for me. There is no reason not to give the user the ability, even if the deletion does take some time to percolate through the zazzle system (which is a problem in and of itself). If and when Zazzle fixes these, I am strongly going to consider moving over to you.
Schmitty
Quote:
Originally Posted by FunTshirts
JoshE,
I'm very surprised to see your comment about the 3-4 day deletion not sounding right. I've been with zazzle for 10 months now, and the time for deletions has usually been a few days... till the past month. It took ONE MONTH, and about 4 reminder emails to get my products deleted... and in the meantime customers were able to view & purchase the products.
This is a HUGE problem, especially since we are not allowed to edit our designs at all. We have to request a deletion, and then recreate the products. Sometimes we buy our own products, only to find that the print quality wasn't what we expected, and then we can't even get it deleted to prevent an unhappy customer.
This definitely needs to be fixed... if we're allowed to delete for the first 24 hours, then why can't we continue to have that privilege? If it can't be changed, then customer service needs to be improved significantly.
I'd be happy to forward you a copy of my emails going back & forth to the support team if you need proof of my complaint. Heck, I'd be happy to email anyone at zazzle who would actually respond in a timely manner.
Re: So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
Quote:
Originally Posted by FunTshirts
JoshE,
I'm very surprised to see your comment about the 3-4 day deletion not sounding right. I've been with zazzle for 10 months now, and the time for deletions has usually been a few days... till the past month. It took ONE MONTH, and about 4 reminder emails to get my products deleted... and in the meantime customers were able to view & purchase the products.
This is a HUGE problem, especially since we are not allowed to edit our designs at all. We have to request a deletion, and then recreate the products. Sometimes we buy our own products, only to find that the print quality wasn't what we expected, and then we can't even get it deleted to prevent an unhappy customer.
This definitely needs to be fixed... if we're allowed to delete for the first 24 hours, then why can't we continue to have that privilege? If it can't be changed, then customer service needs to be improved significantly.
I'd be happy to forward you a copy of my emails going back & forth to the support team if you need proof of my complaint. Heck, I'd be happy to email anyone at zazzle who would actually respond in a timely manner.
Thanks!
Thanks for the note. You're right - getting items deleted rapidly has been an issue here at occasional times and is something that we take seriously and are actively fixing . I wish I could say it's trivial, but it requires some significant improvements to our system architecture to smooth out the deletion process. Will post here once this is updated to let you know that you can delete any necessary products directly on the website.
Re: So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
i havent made any sales, no one wants to buy a $16 shirt if it means and extra $5 in shipping...which is why im moving on and making them myself, as soon as i can get the materials of course..i still have no idea what to use!!!
Re: So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
Quote:
Originally Posted by karinachavez
i havent made any sales, no one wants to buy a $16 shirt if it means and extra $5 in shipping...which is why im moving on and making them myself, as soon as i can get the materials of course..i still have no idea what to use!!!
There are many ways you can go. I believe that doing the shirts yourself will be more to your advantage. You can do heat transfers which require a press and a printer. Pastisol transfers which require a press and a supplier. Vinyl which require a press and a cutter and sublimation which also require a printer and a press and special ink.
__________________ There is a center to everything.. I found mine at.. www.heatpressessentials.com What you need to do the job! www.tbiz101.com (New)Heat Transfer Education
Re: So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what?
Quote:
Originally Posted by karinachavez
i havent made any sales, no one wants to buy a $16 shirt if it means and extra $5 in shipping...which is why im moving on and making them myself, as soon as i can get the materials of course..i still have no idea what to use!!!
Actually, people are buying $16+ shirts with $5 all day long on the internet. Shirts are selling for $22 with $5 with no problem.
I don't think pricing is the issue when you are dealing with original designs. Especially when you're still in the $10-$25 price range before shipping.
There are hundreds of t-shirt sellers selling at that same price, so it's possible that something else is the cause for lack of sales.
So did Zazzle just undergo a major downgrade or what? 
I'm really disappointed with these bizarre decisions that they're making; it looks like a great service underneath it all (and like I said, the mousepad looks excellent).
