What is Zazzle.com? A Good Fit to Buy or Sell Custom Items? [Review]

Have you had times where your expectations are far from reality?  I’m sure you’re here because you don’t want to experience anything like that with Zazzle.com. Right?

When you go to Zazzle.com, there’s the opportunity to sell your ideas, so many products to customize into your own, and you might be wondering, “Is this actually a legit place to buy or sell personalized items online?”.  If that’s the case, this review is for you!

In this review, I’ll be sharing:

• What Zazzle is with a little backstory?
• How Zazzle works for buyers and sellers?
• Do they reward their creators fairly?
• What others are saying?
• and more…

Plus, I even have a video playlist with the reviews of others!

And, if I haven’t answered all of the questions you need in order to make an informed buying decision, you can leave your questions in the comments section below.  If you’re antsy, and you want to go ahead and give zazzle a go, you can CHECK ZAZZLE OUT NOW.

What is Zazzle.com? An Overview

In 2005, three men: Robert Beaver, Bobby Beaver, and Jeffrey Beaver pondered a business idea from their garage.  Now, nearly 15 years later, there’s a gigantic marketplace with over 300 million products listed that’s brought opportunities for artists, creators, and custom product enthusiasts to help one another–even from different parts of the world!  Zazzle is an example of the power of entrepreneurship to take an idea and turn it into a world-changing enterprise.

Zazzle has become one of the largest online marketplaces for custom print items like:

• T-Shirts and Apparel (for men, women, and children)
• Business cards, flyers, invitations, and print materials
• Home decor using a multitude of media (wood, metal, glass, etc.)
• Electronics and office supplies
• Baby and kids toys
• Artwork
• and accessories for weddings, baby showers, and events

What I really like about Zazzle is how they have very low minimums in comparison to other custom product companies.  Most items can be bought individually, whereas, many other retailers require you to have a minimum order of 10, 25, 50, 100, or more!  For small business owners or those who only need small quantities of personalized items, Zazzle is the perfect solution.

Neat Facts about Zazzle

As another Silicon Valley startup story, Zazzle was able to get equity finding early on. In fact, they were given $16 million in 2005 by John Doerr and Ram Shirar, two of the same investors that funded Google! Then, later, they were given $30 million by other investors in 2007.

They’ve been recognized in 2007 as the “Best Business Model by TechCrunch

and in 2011, they were recognized as “One of the Hottest Silicon Valley Companies”

How Does Zazzle.com Work?

Zazzle for Buyers

For buyers, Zazzle is very user friendly and simple. As of this writing, the goods are categorized by:

• Invitations and cards
• Clothing and accessories
• Home & Living
• Electronics
• Office
• Baby & Kids
• Art
• and Wedding

Once you choose one of the top-listed items (as listed above), then you’ll see several items within that category or things that are directly relevant.  For example, When I choose Home & Living, there are dozens of items in the dropdown that fall within that category.  When I choose one like “Baked Goods”, then it will take me to an even more relevant screen like this…

As you can see, there are several baked goods I can choose from.  When I choose one, it gives me the options to “add my own image”, or “choose from images of Zazzle”, and I can customize my baked goods!  Similarly, you can customize any of the 300 million Zazzle products with artwork of your own, or artwork from their pool of freelance artists and product creators.

Zazzle for Artists

As an artist, you’re able to take artwork that you create and upload it so the customers on Zazzle can use it to customize their products. For example, let’s say I’m a photographer that captures landscapes. I can add my images to Zazzle, so consumers who are buying shirts, bags, product boxes, and other items can use my image, add their own customization (maybe text, icons, etc.), and purchase the customized product!  Once, customers purchase the products with my image on them, I’m able to get a commission from each product that’s sold with my image.  How cool is that? SEE MORE FEATURES OF BEING A ZAZZLE ARTIST

Zazzle for Product Creators

Whether you bake cakes, create jewelry, or do woodworking, Zazzle has room for you to sell your products online.  In their Zazzle Maker program, you can list your products and sell them on Zazzle SEE MORE FEATURES OF BEING A ZAZZLE MAKER!

Here’s a video from a Pro Seller on Zazzle with tips for being successful as a seller:

If you watched the video, you’d hear her say she made $672 in 1.5 years on Zazzle, but she learned afterwards she needed to optimize her listings for search results.  If you’re unfamiliar with how to optimize listings for search results but you want to be successful on Zazzle, CHECK OUT THIS FREE TRAINING ON SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION.

Zazzle for Affiliates

As a Zazzle Affiliate, you can earn money by referring others to buy from Zazzle!  If you’ve never heard of affiliate marketing, then let me give you a brief synopsis.

Affiliate marketing is when the merchant (Zazzle) pays others (you) to promote their products rather than paying all of their advertising dollars to ad companies and media.  In this case, Zazzle pays affiliates 15% of the total sale for referring a sale to them.  If you’d like to learn more about how to make money with affiliate marketing, you can check out my post here or CHECK OUT THIS FREE VIDEO TRAINING HERE.

JOIN SHAREASALE AND BECOME A ZAZZLE AFFILIATE TODAY or if you’re uncertain about ShareaSale, you can CHECK OUT MY FULL SHAREASALE REVIEW!

How Do You Make Money with Zazzle.com?

There are three ways to make money with Zazzle:

• by selling artwork
• by selling products
• and by referring Zazzle to others

How Much Can you Make with Zazzle.com?

The amount you can make on Zazzle ranges drastically, but it is possible to earn a full-time living with Zazzle. The most successsful artists, products creators, and affiliates make money because they:

• Choose an interest
• Get traffic and rankings
• Build their store (and a personal website)
• and, Earn Revenue

The process looks something like this:

(Image source: Wealthy Affiliate Online Entrepreneur Certification – Get Started Free!)

Choose an Interest

If you go onto Zazzle (or anywhere else on the internet) as a supplier, it’s likely you’ll be competing with a global audience of other suppliers. Rather than the simple competitions you may have experienced in high school where there were hundreds or thousands of people, in the online space, the competition is much more fierce.  You don’t want to be like the person who thought they could compete in the running competition in every area.

Instead, it’s important to go from being a generalist, and choose a specialty.  As a specialist on an area, it lowers the competition. Zazzle offers artists, affiliates, and product creators to sell a multitude of things, but it’s most important that you establish a reputation, and focus on selling within that area of expertise.

Get Traffic and Rankings

Zazzle is a platform that can rank in the search engines like most other sites online, however, you won’t know how to earn these rankings unless you’ve studied SEO or worked with someone that has.  Google, Youtube, and Facebook are the highest traffic websites online, so it’s important that people can search for keywords that would specify items you sell, and your products pop up in the search results.  Since Zazzle is a high authority website, you can leverage the traffic and sales to benefit your Zazzle store, but it’s not sufficient to describe your item or artwork. Instead, you’d also need to:

• Do keyword research to ensure you’re listing items based on a highly searched term with low competition
• Place the keyword within your listing
• and use the tag, hyperlink, and image upload functions to add relevant images and links

When you’re getting traffic from Google to your Zazzle listing and you make it easy for Zazzle searchers to find your products, you’d be able to get more sales.

Build a Website

While Zazzle is a great marketplace to leverage, it’s still important to create your own brand and establish your own online real estate. With marketplaces like Fiverr, Zazzle, or Amazon, you can leverage them for benefits to your business, however, they also do the same thing with you.  If Zazzle ever thought your business broke the terms of service, created something that dissatisfied their customers, or you violated something (even if you didn’t know), you could be banned.  If you grow a viable business and your banned, it can be like getting the rug pulled from under you.

It’s important to diversify your efforts between building visibility on “rented land” (like Zazzle) and building on “owned land” like your own website.  Successful artists, product creators, and affiliates secure a business on their own land and use places like Zazzle as a distribution channel. YOU CAN BEGIN WITH TWO FREE WEBSITES BY CLICKING HERE.

When and How Does Zazzle.com Pay?

For Artists and Sellers

According to the Zazzle Help Center, they pay monthly. Each earning cycle is one month long, so once a sale is made, it takes 30 days to “clear”. Once the payment is cleared, it can be deposited in your account within 15 days (as long as you’ve exceeded the payment threshold.

You can choose to be paid by Zazzle in check, thru Paypal, or you can use your credit balance to buy something at Zazzle.

For Affiliates

Affiliate payment is taken care of thru ShareaSale. You can read all of the details about payment, pros and cons of ShareaSale, and how to make money with them in my post HERE.

The Good & the Bad

As with any good things, there’s pros and cons.  Here’s a few of the good and bad things about Zazzle.

The Good:

PRO #1: Helps you to validate your business and creative ideas

PRO #2: Helps creators to build a customer base

PRO #3: Let’s buyers purchase personalized items without high minimums (like what’s common for other promotional retailers or custom product shops)

The Bad:

CON #1: It’s not high earnings for creators unless they treat it like a business (which it is)

CON #2: Lots of competition as an artist or product creator, so it’s not likely to make a full-time income without marketing 

CON#3: Additional training on market research and SEO will be required to get max exposure on Zazzle (or online)

CON#4: Very competitive for sellers and artists, and requires the Full 10-Step System to Build a Full-Time Income <== Get my Free Guide Now!

CON#5: The product quality varies since it’s an open marketplace of art and product sellers

Who is Zazzle.com For?

Zazzle is perfect for:

• Artists and product creators looking for another opportunity to distribute their creativity
• Entrepreneurs who want to validate a design idea
• Custom product enthusiasts who need low minimums
• Entrepreneurs who like using custom products from advertising, giveaways, and business promotion

Zazzle.com Tools & Training

Zazzle has a huge help center on their website that helps customers to learn how to use the platform.  You can check out the help center on their site here.

Zazzle.com Support

Zazzle is well-known for having outstanding support. They offer live chat and phone support to help answer questions, solve problems with orders, and more.

What’s The BBB Saying About Zazzle.com?

Zazzle has an A+ rating from the BBB, and a 2-star customer review on the BBB website…

Zazzle.com Review Playlist

For those of you who prefer to see what others are saying about Zazzle.com in video form, here’s a playlist I’ve compiled:

Zazzle.com Price

There are literally thousands of products on Zazzle that range in price.  You’ll have to check out the pricing for more information on Zazzle. CHECK OUT THE PRICING HERE.

My Final Opinion of Zazzle.com

Overall, Zazzle is a great platform to find millions of customizable products for various occasions: for business promotion or personal life situations (birthdays, weddings, baby showers, etc.).  If you’re looking for custom items or an opportunity to sell your products or validate an idea, you should definitely check out Zazzle.

VERDICT: Recommend

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Looking to Do Zazzle as a Business or Make a Full-Time Income Online?

Check out Our Free 10-Step Guide to Start a Business and Grow an Enterprise!

Zazzle.com | Custom Product Marketplace

9.7

Budget Friendly

10.0/10

Ease of Use

9.5/10

Good Suite of Custom Merchandise

9.8/10

Good Customer Support

9.5/10

Pros

• Lots of merchandise - over 300 million products to customize
• Opportunity to make money online as an artist, affiliate, or product seller
• A full-time income opportunity
• Great customer support
• Ease of use

Cons

• Very competitive platform for artists and product creators
• Artists and product creators would need additional training in SEO to get optimal listings to be found online
• The quality of products may vary since it's an open marketplace

Shop Zazzle Now!