Spreading some colour!

Yesterday I saw a note on my To Do list - 'Check Zazzle and Add something!' . It must have been there for months.

Zazzle is a print-on-demand (or POD) site based in the USA but with an international marketplace. People can create their own templates or upload images for use on various printed and personalised products, and also sell their designs. I was starting to get to know my way around it (and other POD sites) better, when my old computer crashed terminally and I lost access to Photoshop Elements, which I used to use to manipulate images to create digital art.

Amongst the deluge of messages into my inboxes, at some point there will have been a 'we are changing our policies' message, which prompted me to add the job of checking it out to the list. But, as usual, I didn't get around to it for months. When I checked my account, there was a minus figure! Wait, what? 'Non-contributing account fees' have wiped out the paltry balance I had from sales commissions, because I hadn't been in there to do anything but look for since their policy change back in April.
Zazzle also have a policy of expecting their users who sell to create 'collections', curating designs they like from other Zazzle users, and sharing on social media. This way, you complete your user profile and raise your visibility. If you don't, your designs are consigned to the bottom of the search pile. It's fair enough, the products need to be promoted and POD sites have a huge number of designs, all vying for attention.

So, okay, lesson learned. I shall have to be more active, and that will be okay, because over the past few months I have been learning how to use GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program). I also have a new image to go.

I remembered that I didn't find the POD sites easy to navigate as a designer/seller and had written myself some notes. These came in handy so that I could upload the image easily, but when it came to applying it quickly across a whole range of products, the system only came up with 20, and only a few suited the image. Hmm. I suspect Zazzle's 'quick create' option over their range of products left them with huge numbers of items, some of which weren't ideal for the image. They want their designers to think a bit more about what they offer and that's fair enough. It might also be a difference between working from Zazzle.co.uk instead of Zazzle.com, as most of the designs are made up in the USA, hence a UK Sterling price which makes me gasp a little, so that's another thing to look into.
I went through to my existing products list, and found most of it hidden from the public, so it wouldn't come up in a search or be available for sales. That's not good, I thought I'd left it all public; perhaps this is another difference between .co.uk and .com? There were also some products which were being discontinued, so I deleted them and a few other items (like dartboards and baseball caps) which I don't really want to offer my designs on.

While thinking about what I do want to offer, I had a look at my 'collections', started several months ago. Some were empty, and I know I hadn't left them that way, so probably the items I'd previously added had been removed by their designers. I created a few new collections, including one for cushions, not that I can afford them, unfortunately.

With a bit of work, I found my profile completion had gone from 25% to 60%.

While I've been playing with kaleidoscopic art, one of the issues is creating a nice image on a rectangle; a square seems to lend itself much better to the reflections and repetition of a kaleidoscopic image. I tested out my new image on a square cushion and liked it, so completed that for sale (although it will take 24 hours or so to show up).
Then I loaded another image (which I thought I'd already loaded, but couldn't find it) and did another cushion. I'm biased, obviously, but I think they look lovely. There are options for two sizes and different fabrics.

I checked my profile completion and it had gone down to 55%. How does that work? A bit more product 'tidying', and it bounced up to 75%. I looked for my cushions so that I could copy their links into this, and the profile completion had bounced back down to 55%. I visited my store description, replaced the banner with a neater one, and the completion rate is up to 65%. And my products' visibility depends on this?

Aaargh!

With the amount of work involved here (it's not as simple as just uploading something!), I claim 2 creations.
Create 365 totals:
This batch of things: 2
Cumulative total: 37