Zazzle Seller Frequently Asked Questions – Tips and Tricks
I started selling on Zazzle in March of 2019 and managed to build consistent monthly income from my Zazzle shop within the first year. I’m now two years in and have learned a ton along the way.
Here are some of the questions that I see most often from other sellers and people interested in selling on Zazzle along with my honest answers and advice.
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. We may earn a small commission for purchases made through links in this post, at no extra cost to you.
HOW DOES SELLING ON ZAZZLE WORK?
Zazzle is a print on demand marketplace. Print on demand basically means that the products aren’t produced until they’ve been ordered.
So I, the designer, upload my designs to Zazzle and choose which products I want to display them on. Zazzle provides mockups so that the customer knows what the end product will look like and lists that on their marketplace for sale. Once the product is ordered, the order gets sent to a fulfillment center where they then print the design and make the product.
Which means you don’t need to stock a store full of product before knowing if you will ever make a single sale.
IS ZAZZLE LEGIT?
Yes, Zazzle is legit. No it is not a scam.
I have been selling on Zazzle since Spring of 2019 and have had nothing but good experiences with the platform. Their customer service has been a bit slow since the beginning of the pandemic, but they have always gotten back to me every time I have reached out and I have never had an issue getting my funds.
Do you need help making product designs more efficiently? Creative Fabrica has a MASSIVE collection of fully made, ready to go, graphics and fonts to add to your products! I’ve been a member of Creative Fabrica since 2020 and can’t say enough good things about their catalogue.
Get your first month for $1 here.
OR use code: allaccessspecialevent to get your first year for $59.00 – this is a limited time deal.
HOW DO YOU GET PAID ON ZAZZLE?
In order to get paid you will need to fill out the appropriate tax form. I am in Canada, so I filled out the W8-BEN.
(Note to other Canadians: the US and Canada have a tax treaty, so make sure you fill out your W8-BEN correctly so that they do not withhold tax.)
You can choose how you would like to be paid out and when.
By default, Zazzle pays out once a month, 45 days after the end of each month. So there will be a bit of a waiting period for your first payment. You will only be paid out when you reach the minimum payment threshold, specified below.
You can also specify your own threshold, maybe you only want to get paid once you’ve reached $500 or $1,000. Or you can put your payment on hold and let it build in Zazzle to be paid at a later date.
Zazzle typically pays out once a month either by PayPal or by check.
To be paid out with PayPal there is a $50 USD threshold that you must meet. You can request payment before you have earned the $50, but you will be a charged a $2.50USD fee.
To be paid out by check, there is a $100 USD threshold that you must meet. To receive a check for less than $100 you will be charged a $5 fee. Checks are only offered in USD and no other currency.
All of this information can be found in the Payment Settings section of your account here.
WHAT PERCENTAGE DOES ZAZZLE TAKE?
Zazzle doesn’t really take a percentage, they have a set amount that they charge for each product and then you set your royalty on top of that, with a minimum of 5%.
So for example, let’s look at the cost of a postcard. The lowest you can charge for a postcard is $1.10 where you will make $0.06 per card sold and Zazzle will make $1.04. That’s 5% to you and 95% to Zazzle.
However, if you set your royalty rate to 14%, the cost of the postcard will now be $1.25 and you will make $0.18 in royalties while Zazzle will take a $1.07. Roughly the same amount as if you took 5%. That’s 14% to you and 86% to Zazzle.
So the percentage Zazzle takes really depends on what you set your royalty rate to. Instead, they have a set amount that they take for each product.
DO YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR ZAZZLE?
No, Zazzle is 100% FREE to sell on.
IS ZAZZLE LIKE ETSY?
Zazzle is an online marketplace that customers come to buy things, but that’s about all it has in common with Etsy.
Zazzle has a set catalog of products to sell and the designers are limited to those products and can’t sell whatever they want.
Whereas Etsy is a marketplace where sellers can sell anything handmade or/or vintage.
DOES ZAZZLE INTEGRATE WITH ETSY?
No. You can only buy Zazzle products on the Zazzle platform.
However, if you are interested in starting a print on demand shop on Etsy you can sign up for free with Printify or Printful and integrate it with Etsy so build your own print on demand Etsy shop.
Get your first 40 listings for free by signing up for an Etsy shop through this link.
DOES ZAZZLE OWN THE RIGHTS TO YOUR DESIGN?
No. You retain all the rights to your own artwork. By uploading your designs to Zazzle you give Zazzle permission to display your work, promote it, and print it when ordered.
You can use your designs as you wish and even upload them to multiple sites if you’d like.
For more information take a look at their License Agreement here.
CAN YOU USE COPYRIGHTED IMAGES ON ZAZZLE?
No. You need to own the copyright to all of the designs that you upload to the platform. Whether that means creating all of your own original work, buying the rights to use someone else’s, or using copyright-free images.
HOW DO I GET AROUND ZAZZLE COPYRIGHT?
There’s no getting around copyright and it’s not worth getting into a legal battle over copyright down the line. So it’s important to do everything above board.
If you aren’t a graphic designer yourself, consider getting a subscription to Creative Fabrica, they have an awesome print on demand license and thousand upon thousands of design elements to choose from.
I have a subscription to Creative Fabrica and I can’t recommend it enough, and if you use it, it pays for itself.
HOW DO I BECOME SUCCESSFUL ON ZAZZLE?
Everyone’s idea of success is different. To some it may be making $50-100/month and to others it may mean replacing their full-time income.
Either way, it can be done, but it will take time and patience. It take a while to build a portfolio of products on Zazzle that sell well.
A few tips to become successful on Zazzle:
- Stay on top of holidays and trends
- Do your own marketing
- Pick a niche and stick to it
- Keep learning and improving your design skills
- Have patience
MY RECOMMENDED PRINT ON DEMAND TOOLS
- Creative Fabrica – Where I buy ALL of my graphics and fonts. They have an awesome POD license.
- Drawing Tablet – This is the one that I have. It’s an entry-level, affordable tablet that has allowed me to create graphics I never could have with a mouse and keyboard.
- Adobe Creative Cloud – Photoshop and Illustrator have allowed me to level up my graphic design skills in a way that wouldn’t have been possible using the free alternatives.
- Canva – I use Canva to assemble the graphics I find on Creative Fabrica and create unique graphics.
WHAT SELLS WELL ON ZAZZLE?
There are lots of different niches to go after on Zazzle.
Some of the best selling items are paper products such as invitations and stationery.
Small business items such as business cards, price tags, and personalized stationery also do well.
The monogram niche is another big seller on Zazzle as it’s one of the things that makes Zazzle stand out from the other print on demand marketplaces.
For an in-depth look at the products that sell best on Zazzle check out this article on the best selling products on Zazzle.
For and in-depth look at the best selling niches take a look at this article here.
DOES ANYONE MAKE MONEY ON ZAZZLE?
Yes! There are tons of sellers that are making money every month on Zazzle, myself included. At the time of writing this post, I have been on Zazzle for 2 years and in the last year, I have made anywhere from $200-5,000 per month just from Zazzle. I am living proof that it is possible to make money on Zazzle.
Please note that this didn’t happen overnight and I have put a lot of hard work into building up my shop and learning what does and doesn’t work.
HOW DO I INCREASE SALES ON ZAZZLE?
This will be different for everybody, but there are a few things that you can do that can hopefully increase your sales. That being said, if your designs are bad there’s not much you can do.
A few thing to help Increase sales on Zazzle:
- Optimize keywords – Use them in your titles and use all 10 keyword spots given.
- Organize your shop – Make sure your shop is organized with categories and collections so that customers can navigate through it to find what they want.
- Promotion – Promote your shop. Pinterest is a great place for this.
- Create more products – Whether that means uploading more designs or just uploading the same designs to more products. It took me thousands of products to starts seeing significant returns from Zazzle.
CONCLUSION
Hopefully this has cleared some things up about the Zazzle platform for you and has given you a better idea of what it’s all about and how you can start making money online from Zazzle.
For more articles on how to make money on Zazzle, check out our catalog here.