Zazzle review: worst employee 8

Zazzle is a very very smart business. They tell you, you can design our products for free, and if they sell you get a commission. All fair and a great opportunity to earn money for everyone who want to give it a try. So you start making products, hour after hour, day after day. And you know what? It's fun! After maybe a month or so and you haven't sold anything yet. you go and check the forum and ask for help. The replies you get are: "you're just starting out, you need to have more products! Just keep on going and it will pay off". Almost no one of the people giving this advice is willing to share with you how much they make, but hey, if that's what they say it must be paying off really well!
So you continue and maybe after another month (about 80 hours spend on Zazzle) you get a sale! Wow, you are so excited that someone actually chose your design! They royalty you got was not much, maybe $1, - but you're so happy because you feel you can actually earn money this way.
Well to keep a long story short, this is actually how it happens with a lot of sellers. Before you know it you will have spend so much time on Zazzle that you feel you can't quite, because then you will really have wasted your time. And so they continue and continue to spend hour after hour for a small sale here and there. By that time you have also realized that the forum is not a very honest place, since any negative comments get deleted.
And Zazzle? They make millions. They have thousands and thousands designers work for them for very long hours without having to pay them anything. Unless someone buys it. And in that case they usually don't have to pay them much, since they tell the designers: "if you have a royalty about 15 percent, we won't promote you". So many designer who are so desperate for a sale, will keep it low, form 5% to 15%.
Zazzle can just browse through all the designs, and pick the ones the like and use them to get customers to their site. Very often they also advertise with designs made by designers, but when you click the link it doesn't lead to that design made by the designer, but to a blank product that the customer can make themselves. So they have free designs to use for advertising too.
Another thing is that the designers are completely dependent of Zazzle, because if Zazzle decides they want to close their shop, they can and all their hard work for years is gone. So they are afraid to say anything against Zazzle. Also because it is free, many feel they can't complain, they just have to be grateful.
So is it slavery? I guess not, since it's all voluntary. But can the designers really stop? I tell you, many can't, even if they hardly make anything and they would be much better of to spend their time on something else. Because here's the thing... there are designers who make a lot. And they tell the others, if I can do it, so can you. And so they all continue to spend time and more time and can't quite because they have already spend so much time.

I created 3 e-commerce sites to promote my Zazzle products and I have been studying SEO to rank those sites on Google. Do you think if I dream to make for example $100 k per year, someone or some people who work on Zazzle will not permit that I achieve this income even if I work hard?
Do you think I should give chance to another companies like Spreadshirt, Wordans and etc ?

Why did you say : If they have enough people making over $3, 000 a month, they are going to try to control it by pushing away any threats to their income? Why? If a large quantity people work hard to make over $5000 per month, do you think someone or some people who work on Zazzle will try to block it? It is a little bit strange... hum.. Zazzle founders should read your comments and try to solve those problems. I work hard everyday designing and promoting my products and I cannot accept people trying to block my success. I will not accept it! if I work hard, then I deserve to have a chance to be successful. I will start to give attention to another print on demand companies. I was 100% Zazzle, but I need to find another alternatives to make a living. I work hard everyday and I will not let anybody block my success. I have dreams and I will achieve them. Thank you for your advice! I will change some of my strategies.

I like Wordans.com

I am trying to make a full time income on Zazzle. Do you think is a waste of time? Your opinion is important. Thank you!

Like Zazzle.Com, the site moderators like to play games with the designers. If you attempt to become a non-hourly / non-salary but are contributing work with these companies, and are being paid a consignment fee or registered as an independant contractor, these companies enforce rules and policies that break the IRS rules. Sadly enough these companies create preferential treatment. It is not worth the effort to try and submit work for these companies. Stock Logos does not moderate the art content, and only has applicable rules to submit content. However, as power games, or delay in publishing content, like Zazzle they will irrationally prohibit exceptional design content. Biz-logos.com at least admits that they have strict guidelines, and that they do have an in-house company that designs for this site, and that it partner company www.logoground.com abides by these standards. Unfortunately, there designs are limited to the old standard of 2-Color print process designs. Places like Zazzle, and Stock Logos are a real insult to professional designers. The content management, or internal monitoring team, like to create un-realistic or imaginary reasons to prohibit a design from going up, or in Zazzle's case, they just delete it. It really is pathetic to not be getting paid and be subject to such insulting scrutiny. The games with www.stocklogo.com, are just like that with Zazzle. If you aren't a real designer, and just like to fight, then these places would be perfect. For professional designers, these games get old real fast.

Sure Jeny they pay the commissions ... if you make any. Good luck! Just don't use any type in your products. One word that they claim is (or often mis-claim), being they don't know the difference between Trademark and Copyright Infringment, and they will create a pattern of deleting your content. If you contest them, they create other reasons to delete more content as punishment. It would be one thing to honestly know what they where talking about. Most of the time it is B.S. One of my friends still has an operating account with them. She started early with them, so has lead postings. They even went into her images that she ranked in, and created a false reason to delete it. She lost quite a bit of revenue a month because they did that. Trying to rank in their system now is difficult because they have people that have taken most of all the single word search terms. So as the pattern goes, only the people whom initially started with the company early on get the placement, if they are still designing. When someone clicks on your image the design gets so many ranking hits that place it as most viewed content. Well the longer the image has been on the site at first ranking, the more hits it gets. This throws out newcombers from the get go. She makes $3, 000 a month. So, this makes the site look legit. But, none the less, she is a foreigner and tolerates a lot of the scrutiny that Zazzle deals in irrationaly deleting content; she needs the money. That is how Zazzle operates. Then there is a group of internal staffers that moderate the forums, and other activities. I once posted a simple question on the forum about "If anyone elses content was being deleted in high volumes". Well, I accidently posted it in an area on the front of the forum, and when I went back they had deleted it. So, I realized that I posted it on the wrong area; but I also realized that they were covering up any bad or negative appearing content. So, I went to another place further back in the forum and asked the same question. When I tried to access the forum. A forum moderator had placed a block on my account from accessing the forum. There are alot of group games going on there, and if you appear to threaten the workings they try to get rid of you, or make it annoying enough to deal with that you eventually just stop publishing content. If they have enough people making over $3, 000 a month, they are going to try to control it by pushing away any threats to their income. The worst of these is a guy whom leads the "content management". He is the one that fabricates the reason for the removal content. He has such authority their that when you try to get another voice in the matter, all the others will say is "We will look into the matter." Yet, he continues to act as he does. After a year, just when I started to make a little money, I got so irritated with the false claims of infringement, I just attempted to delete my content. And, I sent them an email telling them to close my store. They then went into all my items that where selling and retrieved them and put them back in the listing, and back in the store. If they, honestly, got rid of this "content manager" and his methods, I would probably go back. But, the I work 40 hours a week, and do not have time to deal with the scrutiny and stress that this guys disposes upon its designers. My life is a lot less stressful since I stopped trying to submit designs. In a year, my account made just over a hundred bucks. The stress isn't worth it. I design because it is a rewarding creative outlet. The bullying is not suitable for the design world. It shuts down the will to create. The money would be nice. But, being contantly belittled isn't worth it.

Your complaint is very interesting. Do you think Zazzle pays the commissions of all products sold designed by their sellers?
I have a new store on Zazzle and just want to make sure if they really will pay me commissions for all products I sell.