Oct 13

How to Zazzle

Creative Graphic Design Business Reading, Cafepress, Commas, Css Codes, Design Time, Exact Answer, Experiences, Expert, Google, Internet Shorthand, Pot, Quotes, Shopkeeper, Storefronts, Web Search, Webpage, Zazzle Add Comment (0)

I am no Zazzle (or Squidoo) expert, so this lens does not pretend to explain everything there is to know about the service. I am an average user wanting to share my experiences with other Zazzle Shopkeepers. The ones who, like me, are striving to reach their goals, while managing to have some time left for other stuff. I wasted so much design time trying to understand the Cafepress and Zazzle interfaces, that I could have had about 500 designs or more online. In my store, there are about 150, only. Go figure!

I am writing this to help the little guy who does not know where to start when it comes to setting up shop on Zazzle. How can he have one of these nice Zazzle storefronts without going blind chasing after unclosed quotes or wandering commas, through hundreds of lines of html or css codes? How about Cafepress-like Sections? How does he show the products he wants on a specific page, or section, and only those? How does he link any image (or page) on Zazzle, to any webpage he wants? How does he find the answer to any Zazzle-related question?

I don’t know the exact answer to these questions. I am just going to point out what worked for me, hoping it will help a few others also. I am not going to reproduce any article that can be found online in a forum, a FAQ or somebody’s page. I will just post the link!

First (even though I got a lot of help from them), I do not recommend browsing the FAQs or the forums. When someone does, he/she wastes too much time reading stuff he doesn’t have no business reading. I suggest you do a Web Search instead.

GTFW! This internet shorthand stands for: Google The Frigging Web! When someone gives you this answer, apparently rude, you should thank them as if they gave you a pot of gold. In fact, they did; for, this is the best way to find a solution to any problem. Google is really your friend! (Of course, you will use your favorite search engine).

GTFW. All this little phrase means to tell you is: whatever problem or question you may have, instead of bothering the people at Zazzle’s Customer or Tech Service, or the helpful folks on the Community Forums, or anybody anywhere else, you should search the darn thing first!

Using the right keywords in the proper combination, will bring a wealth of information that would dwarf anything Customer Service or your Shopkeeper Friends could teach you. And you won’t have to read through tons of garbage to find what you want or need. You will get exactly what your keywords point to. The search results on a forum are no match for those from a regular search engine, as far as precision and range are concerned. Actually, some of the Google results might even point to a Zazzle forum or FAQ.

Second, I suggest not writing to customer service, unless it’s something really critical. On two different occasions, they asked me to call them. What? They’ve gotta be kidding! What can you tell me over the phone that you could not explain better in an email? You’ve guessed it! In both instances, I googled the frigging thing and got my answer, thank you! All you have to do is learn to search.

HTML or CSS?

Just Quackit

As a new shopkeeper, the first things on my mind were: How to organize my storefront and make it look nice? How to load tons of images and put them onto the products? How to have some nice thumbnails and link them to the different sections or product pages? How to make money with this thing?

To organize your storefront you definitely need to learn some HTML. It would probably be better to know CSS, but it’s not absolutely necessary. Unless you are into “coding”, leave the Custom Store Templates alone. You just need a decent page to start uploading some designs. Later on after making a few sales, you will decide whether to improve the overall appearance of your store or adding more designs.

I try to make mine look good enough, but I’d rather add more stuff. I have visited these absolutely gorgeous Zazzle stores offering only 10 to 15 designs. To me that’s an empty store. Not enough choices.

For help with html, I use Quackit. There are a lot of other sites with Free HTML Tutorials. Plan your store layout in advance, and go Quackit!

How do I load tons of images quickly and put them onto the products? How can I have some nice thumbnails and link them to the different sections or product pages? I had quite a few problems here!

My first real problem was: HOW TO MAKE TEMPLATES. Templates allow you to repeat the same operation over and over with similar results. Understand here that there are two kinds of templates.

First, the Product Template which is a Template for a Single Product. For example, I needed to have a Greeting Card template that enables me to have my logo, the name of the line and a copyright notice on the back of the card, all of which the customer should not be able to modify! The other parts of the card might be customized, that is the buyer (or myself!) could add or change the graphics and/or text.

All this is very well explained in Zazzle’s Template Help. In the Zazzle bar, click on “Help”, type “template” in the search window, click on GO, then click on “Creating a Product Template”.

I don’t remember trying the other items on the Template Help results page. If you have the time, please do, and by all means put into use whatever valuable procedure you may find.

The second type of template I was interested in, was the “Quick Create Template”. May be it’s explained on Zazzle’s site also, but I found an excellent explanation given by Shopaholicchick, and this is the one I use and recommend. Basically, you pick an Image from one of your Sets, create a set of specific “Product Templates” and save all of them into a “Product Line”. This collection constitutes your “Quick Create Template”. Please click here for more details.

And then Shopaholicchick goes on to explain how to use the “Quick Create” feature itself. Awesome!

My second problem was: HOW TO SETUP SECTIONS AND SUBSECTIONS? Here also, Shopaholicchick, who is always a tremendous help, brought a lot of light on the subject in this tutorial. This is where you should start.

For Creating Sections Thumbnails and linking them to their respective sections, I found all the help I needed from Lisa Marie Robinson (LisaMarieArt, LisaMarieDesign) at this link.

Also, In order to save myself time and aggravation, every time I create a Section (here it would be a Product Line), I immediately Make a Thumbnail and Link it to the Products in the section, using the methods outlined above. When I add more products to the line, the process is repeated. This way, all the Sections, Subsections and Products are layed out in a organized fashion. It’s still overkill, but it’s my method to the Zazzle Sections madness.

If you find a better way to do this, or just a way to improve on the above techniques, please, post the link in the comment section of this Squidoo page.

The Technical Staff at Zazzle needs to work on this, ASAP. “Visual” people like myself would find it quite a chore to browse through links instead of images. The customer can’t really “see” what you are offering. It’s like going to a store where everything is enclosed in separate unmarked closets. You actually have to open them to find out which product they contain.

For storekeepers with hundreds of designs, there is no practical solution to the “display” dilemma. Theoretically, as I pointed out above, one can create tons of product lines and link them to their respective thumbnails, which in turn are linked to another image representing the section or category.

When I started reading the Zazzle forum, I saw a few people recommending the use of online pictures storage sites (Photobucket, Picasa, Flickr, etc.) to host thumbnails and other graphics. As Lisa Marie Robinson showed in the above article, it is better to use the products thumbnails from your store. There is a lot of “cut & paste” involved, but it’s worth it.

Choose the product you think will give you the best layout, or better yet, use your signature product. For some shopkeepers, it can be Stamps, for others Posters or buttons. For me, it’s T-Shirts.

Even though I haven’t tried it yet, it seems I could have hosted my frontpage banners on Zazzle.com itself. Because right on MyZazzle, in the center column, under “Create a product”, one can read this line: “You can also store your images on Zazzle”. I don’t think it can be any clearer!

TRAFFIC TRAFFIC TRAFFIC

My third problem was, and still is: How to make money with this thing? The answer is traffic, traffic, traffic! HOW DO I BRING MORE VISITORS TO MY STORE?

As far as exposure is concerned, there are a lot of theories going around. Everyone have read about the SEO stuff. I tried my best to apply some of the principles, but I cannot say I saw any results. I still have my one or two visits a day. In my book, this is not a working technique! But, if it works for you, hey! Just don’t get on your preaching horse as if Search Engine Optimization were the ultimate promotional technique. Because it is not! At least not for me.

One guy set the record straight for me once and for all. He said point blank: “Forget about all this SEO foolishness. Just go ahead and advertise!” He is right: nothing beats targeted advertising. It will bring more interested consumers to your “virtual” doorsteps. I would rather buy advertising, and use my time to produce more designs. It makes more sense to me. It’s not by accident that everything revolves around advertising in one form or another. We are a consumer society; we feed on advertising.

Make sure you use all manners of advertising you can afford: Google ads, Facebook ads, Craiglist, Nespapers ads, Newsletters, Flyers, Bumperstickers, etc. Don’t forget the free ones: email signatures, friends, flash panels, etc. This article may help you get started. You can find a lot of good posts in the forum “Ideas to promote your stuff” on Zazzle. But remember, waste no time!

We also have the Social Networking sites. These days this is one of the best ways to get exposure online. But you must learn how to use these babbling sites to your advantage. Do not waste valuable time playing the game of these Networks administrators. They want you to spend as much time as possible on their sites. You shall not do such thing. Find what you need to do, do it and get the hell out!

Here also, apply the same searching routine to improve your understanding of the Social Networking phenomenon: GTFW! Use search phrases like:”twitter secrets”, “facebook tips and tricks”, “myspace expert tips”, etc. Before you know it, you will have enough information on how to increase traffic to your store.

Time’s a-wastin’

A rolling stone gather no moss

One theme pervades this whole lens: DO NOT WASTE ANY TIME! Time is the only commodity we can’t replace after it’s gone. Always remember, you are selling designs through a Print on Demand outfit. Your first priority is to create and upload designs. Then to show them in a way that make them appealing to your target audience.

When I navigate the Social Networking sites, I keep in mind the fact that I am not out to become a Giant Squid, a Master Blogger, a Twitter god, or anything like that. I am there to promote my business. I don’t want to make 200 Squidoo lenses, 2000 Tweets, or Chat all day long on Facebook or anywhere else. I want to upload tons of nice designs and sell them. The more the better! I do use Squidoo, Twitter and Facebook, but becoming a star there is not my primary goal. More than anything, I am dying to see that “Zazzle Pro Seller” thingie attached to my logo.

Instead of wasting time on Twitter or Facebook, or any Chatroom, try to polish your design skills, learn another program or operating system. The same Google search techniques can be used for software search also. Whatever program you are using, if you happen to get stuck at any point, if you have any question, GTFW. There are tons of Graphic tutorials online. Go ahead and teach yourself a thing or two. This beats social networking babble anytime!

Apply what you learn immediately! I mean, if you are reading a book, mark the page, put the book aside and get to work. If you happen to be online, leave the current window (or tab, or screen!) open another one and start implementing the new idea or technique. If you finish the article (or book or webpost), you might be too tired at the end, to do anything about what you just learned. Plus, there might be many more ideas or techniques to use. You will end up doing nothing! Trust me, I have been there!

This reminds me of a favorite phrase of my good friend Alexandre, when we used to play Dominoes: “Ou paka pèdi tan an” which is Haitian Creole for: “you should not miss this opportunity”. This belongs to the same family as: “A rolling stone gather no moss”. As soon as you stumble upon a good idea, put it into practice. Here is another gold nugget from the same vein (pun intended!): “Never leave for tomorrow (or the next minute) what you can do today (or right this minute). The key word is : NEVER!

SHARE SHARE SHARE

Sharing

Another theme is the idea of sharing. The internet is a tremendous reservoir of ideas and knowledge. If something works for you, let the world know. You probably used some free stuff to get there anyway! Somebody helped you; repay them by helping somebody else. As you read through this Squidoo lens, post your comments, and paste the link to any webpage you think might help someone further his knowledge of the topic being discussed.

This unselfish sharing is the reason why I like GNU Linux: Programmers, Hobbyists and True Hackers, working hard to provide free quality software for the little guy. As a Graphic Artist, I use the Gimp and Inkscape daily. I also use Ubuntu Linux exclusively. (I use the “flavor” of Vista that came with my computer only for Games and a particular orphan piece of music software I am very fond of).

Please, share, share, share…

POWER SEARCH

The last and probably most important theme is the ability to Power Search. Know your search engine, and learn how to search. As usual, sit down and think about your problem, find the right keywords, and go for it. Always use Advanced Search.

Now if you are really serious about power searching you’ve got to go to Fravia’s Web Searching Lore This site is indeed a goldmine for the web searcher. (Fravia died on Sunday, 3rd May 2009 at the age of 56. I hope the site will keep going…)

THE END

Remember, never take your eyes off the ball. That’s the only way you will reach your goal. Before long, your understanding of the platform will go beyond your own expectations. You will be able to duplicate and modify all kinds of templates quickly and efficiently. You might even find a better way to do the whole thing.

While you are at it, see if you can solve the problem of setting up a huge store. I still have 80 or more designs to upload. Just the thought of creatinhg 100 product lines to accommodate them in order to improve the navigation, make me shudder. It’s horrible! I wish the guys at Zazzle would do something about this.

THE END

Please, drop us a line if you find any dead links, mistakes, mispelled words, etc. If you like this blog as a whole, or just this article, kindly share it with your friends, would you?

Blog post by Tatán
Please, don’t forget to visit Lakay Graphics where you can browse through our Haitian Designs and Products.