updated 6/17/15
Zazzle.com went into a new product frenzy over the past year or so and there have been hundreds of new items added with no end in site. I couldn’t find the exact number, but I believe it was mentioned by Monica in one of the Zazzle chats. Sorry, I didn’t want to go counting them up myself!

Some of the new products prove popular, some are duds and some don’t last long.

ArtInspired and Maz put together a handy list of new products and links to them in the Create Products forum.

For those who don’t know, new products (or lack of) are announced every Friday morning in the Zazzle News forum. What you see on the blog or in an email a few weeks later is when there are designs on the new products and some of the initial bugs are worked out.

Zazzle has confirmed today some products that have been discontinued, so take them out of your templates if you have them there and don’t waste your time on them. Zazzle will be hiding them, but you may want to do so yourself ahead of their actions. You may also want to remove them from your Pinterest boards. I guess everyone has to decide that for themselves.

Discontinued items as of June 2015

In the order that they came to mind, here are some of the discontinued items. It is impossible for designers/sellers to know whether an item is just continually out of stock, being re-sourced to a new supplier or completely dropped for the time being unless Zazzle confirms it. You have to get this info from the forums and you have to go looking for it. This is what I’ve found that are confirmed discontinues.

• Keds shoes – you know this, just quit holding your breath they are coming back. They’re not – although the one-time presence of them still screws up your categories because you can’t delete a category with a hidden product. For those of you who weren’t around, Zazzle hid the shoes because they had once thought to get a new supplier and migrate the shoe designs over. Crazy, if you ask me, because of the complexity of the designs, but that’s what happened.
• Slippers – these came out around Christmas 2014, were popular and then disappeared. Confirmed discontinued 6/16/2015.
• Scarves – these came out in late 2013 and were popular even though the design area consisted of two small blocks. After constant color shortages, they eventually just went out of stock altogether. Confirmed discontinued 6/16/2015.
• Leggings – Were these popular? I have no idea. They were odd to me because, like the scarves, they had two rectangular design areas. If you want all-over prints for leggings, try RedBubble or Society6. Confirmed discontinued 6/16/2015.
• Maternity t-shirts – no idea what happened with these! Obviously, a limited market, but very targetable. Maybe CafePress still has theirs. I know CP just eliminated dozens of products, but I’d guess not these. Confirmed discontinued 6/16/2015.
• Candy jars – these came out about three years ago and were the first of the breakable kitchenware that we got. Calling them candy jars was always a stretch because they were the size of a pop can. In the USA, every candy jar I’ve ever seen was more of a gallon size. And clear, so you could see whether you actually were interested in any of the selection inside. So, we’re left with the glass Jelly Belly™ jars. Which are half the size of a pop can (soda can or Coke can for non-Midwesterns) and hold a handful of tiny jelly beans.
• Christmas hats – these were introduced for Christmas 2014. One of your novelty items, for sure. Discontinued early 2015.
• Christmas stockings – there were two different stockings introduced last Christmas. The plain stocking with the red back is still available. The one with the cute curled up toe is history. Discontinued early 2015.
• Flip flops – for one glorious summer in 2013, we had these beautiful, pricey Sandalei flip flops. People loved them if they could fork out the forty bucks or so they cost. The company seemed to have had issues and weren’t able to continue production. Zazzle had mentioned looking for a new supplier, but it’s already mid-June in the northern hemisphere, so don’t hold your breath on this one either. Pretty sure CP has an inexpensive flipflop available to design.

• Embroidered Ladies shirts – I’ve not done much with embroidered clothing, but it was mentioned in the forums that ladies embroidered t-shirts and polo shirts seem to have been discontinued. Since I don’t even see them in the embroidery section, I’d say that’s a safe bet.
• Speck cases – these have been gone awhile and removed from stores at last. I bring them up for two reasons:
  • 1. Zazzle had a huge discount sale on these when they discontinued them and sold them for a dollar or two (if memory serves). That’s the only sale like that I’ve seen, but it could happen again.
  • 2. I do think they may still be messing up categories by acting as hidden items you can’t remove (like the Keds shoes). All you can do is recycle the category with a new name and put something else in it.

Out of stock for suspiciously long times:

Some items have just had the dread orange pop-up for a long time with no official word what’s happening. Often, there is a lengthy out-of-stock – remember how long envelopes were gone, but came back? Obviously, I don’t know what Zazzle is doing behind the scenes, but I’m guessing these items are:  discontinued but not removed, in the process of attempted re-sourcing or experiencing supplier issues.

Rickshaw folio planners – these seem to be available, but have been sold out  for quite awhile. I asked in the forums a month or so back and didn’t get a response. They don’t show up when you search by the brand, Rickshaw, so I think they’re history.

Edible Frosting Rounds – these seem to be available, but out of stock for awhile according to the forums and as of 6/16/15. edit: 6/17/15 Cbendel wrote in the forums that she contacted the company; they’re not making these anymore.

Cork Coasters – these still seem available, but have been out of stock for a while as of  6/16/15 The other cork products are still available, so status unknown on this one, I’d say. edit: 6/17/15 Wollastonite pointed out in the forums that these were officially discontinued in June 2014.

Skins – a handful of skins (decals) have been out of stock as of May 1st. This whole line up of more than 200 products seems to have been abandoned, to speak frankly. The newest iPhone skin available, for instance is for the iPhone 4. I have sold some skins for laptops, but the rest aren’t worth bothering and it’s hard to trust that they will stick around since there haven’t been any updates.

Speckled Paper – for letterhead and stationery, the speckled version has been out of stock for as long as I can remember.

Style and/or Sourcing changes

There have been other style or sourcing changes that led to product changes. From a design standpoint, these changes don’t mean much once they’ve happened. You have the option to set automatic design migrations in your account settings if you’re comfortable with that.

From a promotional standpoint, you may need to update a blog post or Pinterest pin if you have discussed a particular brand, style, material or color OR if you want to share IRL (in real life!) images.

Some that I recall are:

Poker chips – the initial style was replaced earlier this year by the maker and now they’re all clay.

Wrapping paper – this got re-sized in 2014 and any old designs that weren’t repeating patterns probably looked terrible on the new wrapping paper. Mine did, anyway! I think Zazzle migrated the designs and then hid these until we could check for ourselves.

Invitations – The sources for these were all changed in late 2013. The edge effect adds were at different times. I did design and re-buy an entire set of invites so I could see the papers and how the printing turned out on them, but I never made a new post to describe them all. It’s on my list. . .  (You can purchase these yourself if you like. It is helpful to compare the papers!)

Liberty water bottles – these went out of stock a while ago, which was too bad. They were nice bottles. (I have one and wrote a post about it. I’m not yet familiar with the newer ones.) If you promoted water bottles by brand anywhere, you’ll need to update that. These were replaced by a bigger selection of SIGG brand water bottles and thermoses and an unbranded water bottle. Zazzle did a fantastic job of migrating old designs to new bottles for these, but you needed to take a look anyway.

T-shirts – there was a big shift in tees about two years ago with a lot of new colors added. I think the brands were shuffled around as well, but someone who does more shirts would know better than I do. Didn’t the organic ones have a big change? The models for shirts underwent a big change, too, and it sounds like there may be more changes coming from the wording of the announcement of the new ladies’ tank tops last week. Don’t be surprised when a fashion line like t-shirts is continually being changed.

Tote bags – this was not a very big event about five years ago or more. The only reason I recall it is because I bought a big tote bag just before they changed over and then couldn’t use to to show a product IRL. I have enough free tote bags that I just haven’t bought any more since then. Tote bags styles/colors DO go in and out of stock often enough, however.

Mugs – this was a non-event several years ago, but we got different colors and more sizes.

Kitchen Towels, cloth placemats and cloth napkins – these were re-sourced in early 2013. The reason I mention them is because there was a lot of fanfare with the initial supplier being an employer of single moms and how it was a socially good thing. I don’t think they could keep up with the demand, but I also think the towels were not initially waffle weave. So, if you bought the early ones, they aren’t the same anymore. When I buy tea towels, which I prefer for the flatness of the fabric, I’d be more likely to buy fat quarters of fabric instead and just hem them up.

 Wrap-up

Did I miss any? Let me know in the comments and I’ll add them. It can be frustrating to know you may be designing for nothing and hopefully this helps avoid more of that for all of us!

Where have I been? Just trying to get my life in order – particularly my online work, including my Zazzle stores and files!

My Zazzle image folder was overflowing with nearly 10,000 images in it. I didn’t even know what I had uploaded anymore. I couldn’t stand being a hoarder anymore, so today I began images. A thousand were easily zapped and I’ve just begun. Starting this process this morning as a spring breeze blows in the open window got me thinking that I should refresh this website as well; Right Brain Left Turn deals a lot with Zazzle. This site has been on my mind and today’s the day to begin!

View from the Florida house main floor.

I started on Zazzle over seven years ago, sitting at a big table in the second story kitchen of a beautiful beach house on St. Augustine Beach in Florida. I was looking for something new to do after an unsettled few years and the wrenching difficulty of getting caught in the real estate bad times that had hit Michigan and me really hard. From that table, I could look out the huge windows and over the sand dune to the beach and the Atlantic Ocean stretching out forever. Zazzle was part of my reinvention to become a more creative, less location-restricted person.

Going through my image files, I see my progress over seven years – my images today are better done, my Photoshop experiments more restrained, my text designs more sophisticated. I see national and world events  – earthquakes, blizzards, a tsunami, political elections and more – reflected in my designs. I see the places I’ve been living echoing through in the images: Florida, Colorado, New Mexico, Georgia, Texas, Michigan. I can see the seasons and the life changes as my designs continued to reflect events in my own extended family: proms, graduations, weddings and beautiful new babies and fascinating toddlers.

I could see the interests that are stubbornly in my DNA: beaches, woods, stones and wildflowers; family and travel. I can see the interests that I just couldn’t sustain: weddings, politics and current events.

There was a little problem with the heating system.

I haven’t blogged hardly at all since last summer. I moved to a house out in the country that turned out to need a LOT of work. In fact, it wasn’t even livable (although someone had been living here until the week before I moved in!). So, I visited my mom up north where there was no internet. When I came back six weeks later, it took a month to get internet here. Waiting for that, we started working on the house and workers were here all the time for about three months.

I had to move my office setup a few times as the construction progressed and each time, I lost a bit of forward momentum. The internet was another thing. When first installed around Christmas (I did miss most of the Christmas season unfortunately!), it zipped along for about six weeks at 5.9Mps and then dropped to near nothing with hundreds of drops a day. You absolutely cannot use Quick Create nor upload files under those conditions.

The internet provider – the sole choice in this town of 1033 – had installed a new line on the other side of the state and, somehow, screwed up rural customers all over the place. I know all the local techs by name now: Joe, Ron, Jason, Jake and Russ. Terrible internet, but the nicest customer service you’d ever want! On the phone AND in person. It took them until the end of May to get it mostly fixed.

Today’s internet speed. Hey, at least it works!

So, my internet is not great, but it’s quite a bit more reliable. (Never mind that it was out all Sunday evening due to unscheduled line repairs.) Now, I feel like I can concentrate again on my online work. Hurrah!

But, first, getting the junk out of the way. Hundreds or thousands more images are going to go. The Zazzle image storage system is just too awkward to keep thousands of files. I kept hoping it would be updated, but the awkward search function is all we’ve gotten in ages.

So, I’m cleaning house with my Zazzle images, my own image files on Lightroom (63,250 keyworded photos!) and my blogs.

Look for more postings, useful info and tutes on RightBrainLeftTurn.com over the coming weeks and months.

I’m back!

Spring afternoon in the country

Someone recently “liked” my Woodswalker store on Zazzle.com and asked how I had added shadows to the category icons.

With so many “flat” designs these days, shadows and dimensional adds aren’t seen as much. I recently checked to see how Zazzle was adding shadows to product images and saw many product images with no shadows at all!

Shadows are one way to make your category images stand out. This can be part of your brand marketing and it can be a good way to separate your category icons from actual products – sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which!

All category icons have to be created elsewhere and uploaded as images to Zazzle, so you have a lot of creative freedom!

To have shadowed category icons, simply add the shadow in Photoshop (or whatever software you use). The trick is that you will sacrifice a bit of your available icon space in order to create a shadow.

Category Icon Size

Zazzle has changed the size of the icons a time or two (we won’t count back any farther than that!). Really, any square size will work – try 250 pixels square if you want actual size and will be including your own category name. Try 250 x 225px if you want Zazzle to add the category title (only available if you have three icons across and choose the title option).

I used shadow settings as shown here:

You can leave about 10px around the sides and bottom for shadow, depending how big you make the shadow. The key is consistency: make all your shadows the same size, angle, opacity and crispness. The best way is to make a category icon template you can use over and over again. If you have a lot of stores and/or a lot of categories, the consistency can get away from you if you re-design your store or Zazzle re-designs for us.

You can tell that has happened to me!

You can use JPG/JPEG files with a white background or PNG files with a transparent background. A blending option of normal would be better in general for shadows, but the default multiply option is okay for these icons.

Sampling of Zazzle Category Icons

Below are some variations of category icons you can check out for ideas on creating your own. Your available space is square, but you can fill that space in creative ways.

Simple Category Icons

Simple titles can work if you don’t have too many.

• Berry Berry Sweet

Category Icons Using Zazzle Titling

Some storekeepers plan space for the Zazzle titling and others let it fall where it may. When you consider the variety of devices used by shoppers and how the titling adjusts for the device, this is not unreasonable. Don’t think that how YOU see your store is how it is seen by everyone!

• Jais Jewels
• Strange Store
• 12 Step Shopping Network
• Frogs Frogs

Category Icons With Own Titling

Some stores incorporate actual Zazzle product images into their icons, as Liberty Maniacs has done. FamilyTreed* did so to a lesser extent, but has some products pop out of the frame. BluntCard chose a random product to represent categories of product type rather than design. I think it makes shopping easier when it is easy to distinguish categories from products as Jennifer Stuart has done. A title bar is popular and you can mix and match sample products with designs as done on the Beachwalker* store.

• Liberty Maniacs
• FamilyTreed
• Blunt Card
• Beachwalker
• Jennifer Stuart Design

Have you seen some category icon designs that really tickled your fancy? Please share in the comments below – I love to get new ideas, too!

Zazzle Category Cautions

I would caution anyone not to spend too much time on category options for three reasons.

One, there’s no telling when Zazzle will make a change that renders them all obsolete (burned once, twice shy)

Secondly, they may not display so well on every device, so you might not get the effect you want.

Thirdly, Zazzle is steering customers AWAY from storefronts in a very determined way, so your category designs may never be seen. If you send customers directly to your storefront yourself, that’s different.

Best of luck with your designing!

*My own stores