Create Your Own Zazzle Store

I'll try to explain this as best I can. As I said earlier Zazzle is a Print on Demand Company. They've made it really easy for us designers to use their site. Once you've signed up for a Zazzle account you can begin creating and uploading your designs right away. To begin you go to the Create a Product page and upload an image to Zazzle. Then you select the product that you would like your image to be seen on. You can choose from apparel like t-shirts and different style shirts, mugs, postage stamps, calenders, magnets and many other items. You will learn how to size your image, add background colors if you like and move your image around in the specified area. Once you are happy with how it looks (there are different views for you to see) then you are ready to post your product to the marketplace. Your work is then ready for customers to purchase on line.

The design process is a little different for every designer. Myself, I use a Dell Tablet to do all of my creative hand drawing. As well as hand drawing I love to use my photography skills and take beautiful pictures to add to products as well. Now you're probably thinking a 'Tablet' that sounds expensive but no, actually there are many different tablets available at all different price points. It is not necessary to spend a lot of money to get started in this business.

I use a couple of different paint programs to work in. Windows Paint is a basic program but offers enough choice and variety for a beginner. I have recently discovered SumoPaint and I am learning my way around this program as well. Both free programs. Of course, you can spend as much as you like to get a top notch Paint or Photo Program but that is a personal choice. In the Zazzle design program you can also add text (words to your designs) as I have added the word 'Lavender' to my postage stamp. There are many, many choices of styles and fonts for text.

Here is an example of my work that I designed using Windows Paint. I free handed this lavender on my Dell Tablet and then uploaded my design to Zazzle and chose to put it on this postage stamp.

Here is an example of my work that I designed using the SumoPaint program. I free handed this heart and ribbon design and played around with background colours to compliment it!

Here is an example of a design with text that I created for this t-shirt... hand drawn snowman in cone and then I chose the font I wanted to use.

Zazzle prints the digital design onto physical products and gets them ready to send off to the customers. Zazzle handles all of the shipping, and deals with any unforeseen issues that come up. They handle all of the customer service issues and questions so you don't have too. Pretty easy hey, you just sit back and keep on designing!

Royalties are set by you the designer. Basically you decide how much your time, design is worth. Royalties can be set for each individual product from 10% up to 99%. Now an average setting is generally between 12% up to 25%. Of course you can choose to set your royalty higher but remember, that will drive up the cost of the product so you always want to keep that in mind when setting your royalties. If you've spent a ton of time on a design you may be willing to give it a higher royalty and wait for the right buyer to come and it will sell at that price if it is well deserved.

Referrals are another way to build an income with Zazzle. As a Zazzle store owner you will get your own Referral ID and you will learn how to use this when you are marketing your store. Zazzle pays a percentage for each referral.

Zazzle allows each storefront owner to design their store they way they like. There are settings that allow you to customize your own gallery with the colors of your choice. Choose a light background or a dark background color, something that showcases your designs well. There are many opinions on what looks best, but it doesn't hurt to ask some other designers of their opinion. Also you can change, text colors, links, or any of the boxes. You can choose which side of the storefront you want the text displayed on too. Zazzle also offers several themes to choose from. You can upload a banner for the header of your storefront, and add your store name.

The Zazzle Forum is a place where all of the Zazzle storeowners can visit and post experiences, share sales, get help, and ask all kinds of questions. There are many Zazzle veterans that can give you answers fairly quickly.

Some of the topics and questions you'll see in the Forum are:

Help, my products aren't showing up on my page, what do I do?
What are products are the big sellers right now?
Can someone explain how to change my profile picture?
Does any one actually make money on Zazzle?
How do you become a featured seller?

...and lots of other questions that you can find answers to here!