Company: Zazzle
Launched: 1999 (zazzle.com launched 2003)
Status: Announced $16m Series A on July 18, 2005
What is it?
Zazzle let’s customers create customized products, ranging from tshirts to stamps, and sell them on the zazzle website.
In their own words, “Zazzle is the leading customized products marketplace for consumer enthusiasts to share and celebrate their interests by creating apparel, posters, cards, stamps and more. We combine on-demand manufacturing, a robust community, the largest online collection of customizable digital images and unmatched personalization tools to empower you to create your own products. In addition, you can choose to become a contributor by sharing your unique creations in Zazzle’s public galleries. Within these galleries, you can browse, comment and connect with others who share your interests. Contributors also earn royalties every time their creations are purchased by others. For anyone who wishes to create, wear, display, sell or celebrate their interests, Zazzle provides a compelling interactive marketplace to a worldwide audience.” Link
Creating Products:
Creating products is a relatively straightforward process of choosing prodcuts (apparel, posters, stamps, etc.), uploading images, and pricing the items. Zazzle claims that they have “over 500,000 totally unique, user-created products, available in billions of variations”. Link
Zazzle Stamps:
Zazzle Stamps is really interesting. Within certain parameters, users can upload their own images, or use stock zazzle images (like disney images), and create actual postage stamps. A sheet of 20 first-class stamps will sell for $16.99, 130% more than “normal” stamps. Zazzle Stamps is possible via a partnership with Pitney Bowes.
FYI, Stamps.com has a similar program and will be partnering with cafepress, a zazzle competitor.
Relevant Links:
About, News, Blog, B2Day, New Persuasion Blog, Alarm:Clock, New Media Musings, Somewhat Frank, RSSWay, Traders Trade, CNET, Ben Barren, Alarm:Clock
Tags: zazzle, , zazzle.com, pitneybowes, cafepress, stamps.com, stamps, ecommerce, techcrunch, web2.0
I have had a major problem with Zazzle. They promote themselves as a business oportunity, but their service falls short. I had a total of over 200 designs with they lost due to their mistake! I had spent hundreds of hours, but it was all wasted. I love the concept behind Zazzle and even love the products I had previously ordered. What did they do to try to make things right with me? NOTHING!!! They did not even offer me a discount on my next order after wasting hundreds os hours of my time!
Thanks Michael for a nice profile – if you haven’t been back to Zazzle recently, you should check out all of the new features we’ve added including dark-colored t-shirts (black, navy blue, red…), great new design tools for apparel and cards, and new special collections content from Star Wars, Marvel, Warner Brothers (Scooby-Doo), and more!
To Jennings-
I’m surprised to hear that we lost your designs and I’ll have the team look into this right away. We take this very seriously since we know how much time everyone puts in creating great products. And I’ll look into the response you received – this doesn’t sound like what I normally hear from our great customer support team!
Josh Elman
Product Manager, Zazzle
As for Mr. Elman’s surprise, I am rather surprised! In a rather lengthy email to Zazzle, I specifically requested that it be forwarded to the CEO’s of Zazzle and Google. In Zazzle’s reply dated 15 November 2005, it was stated by an individual named Bill that “our senior staff is well aware of your situation.” Either the product manager is not senior staff or someone is lying! I wonder which it is!
Zazzle is a disapointment. I placed a simple order for a t-shirt. Within 20 minutes of placing my order I thought of a change I would like to make. According to the Zazzle site – this would be posted at the appropriate place for the change to be made – no problem. Well – ha ha! I never heard a word – after 2 e-mails to a couple of different links on their site returned nothing to me I received the shirt in the mail – no change made. Stay away from Zazzle!
Thanks for the great comments here. We take everyone’s feedback to Zazzle very seriously. The best way to reach us is through our awesome customer service team at
http://www.zazzle.com/support
To Diane – at Zazzle, we aim to produce the best quality products within 24 hours. Sometimes an order goes into manufacturing right after it is placed, but we are working on ways to make sure you can cancel or change an order within a time window. Additionally, we stand by our “Zazzle Promise†where anyone can return their product for a replacement or refund within 30 days if they are not satisfied for any reason. Feel free to contact us for a replacement.
To Jennings – I’m glad we were able to get in touch and address your concerns as well.
Thank you for taking the time to address my problems with your site.
But, as I stated, I tried a couple of different links on your site to try for some customer assistance. NO ONE ever got back to me. As for the time frame between ordering and making a change – I placed my order on a Sunday evening and also placed my change around 20 minutes later that same nite.
Besides the pricing scale being far above any scale that would promote substantial sales beyond the person who created the product to begin with… I would never place anything beyond something I just slapped together in 10 minutes in Photoshop up on Zazzle. Why?
“Licensor hereby grants to Zazzle a nonexclusive, worldwide, transferable, perpetual, irrevocable license to copy, crop, reproduce, publicly display, sell, and distribute the Work and a Changed Work (if applicable) in various sizes and in any manner including, without limitation, via the Website, other websites, and/or through multiple levels of distributors and through retail and wholesale channels, in, on, or as part of Products made by or for Zazzle (the “License”). Zazzle shall not have the right to sublicense third parties to include part or all of the Work as part of Products to be manufactured by or for the third party for sale under the third party’s name.
If Licensor checked the “customizable” box when entering a given Work into Zazzle’s Website, then, in addition to the License, Licensor grants to Zazzle and to members of the public a nonexclusive, worldwide, transferable, perpetual, irrevocable license to make changes to the Work (creating a “Changed Work”) including but not limited to adding, changing, or removing images from the Work, adding, changing, or removing text from the Work. A Changed Work can not be entered into Zazzle’s Website for resale to the public.”
It is suggested here:
http://urlgreyh...hirts_on_zazzle
… that not only does Zazzle state this in its Nonexclusive Rights Agreement, but it tends to take advantage of it. I would never use a service that didn’t stop using my images once I decided I’d rather not use their service anymore.
Dramatically lower the pricing scale so someone can do a decent volume of sales and remove this exploitative policy, and I’d be the first to sign up. Till then, I may have a couple mugs up at CafePress.
I placed a $500.00 order with Zazzle over a week ago. When I check on the order with my zazzle designated order ID number, I receive an ‘invalid order ID’ error. I have repeatedly tried to contact Zazzle through different Zazzle contact avenues. I have not received any reply. This company sells Mickey Mouse? This is more like a Mickey Mouse company.
I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it. – Voltaire
Well, even though I received a Southern education, I know Voltaire was French and lived a long time ago. He is long dead, and his ideas obviously did not influence management at Zazzle. One would think that a company such as theirs would be all about Freedom of Expression, but they are not. The citizens of America, and the world for that matter, do not need to be protected from ideas! THEY TO BE PROTECTED FROM PEOPLE WHO WISH TO PROTECT THEM FROM IDEAS! My philosophy is that the people at Zazzle should let people say what they want. If their views are enlightened, they might influence people who actually bother to think! If they are stupid, they will only expose the designer/contributer/purchaser for what he is. If for example, someone wants to design a tee shirt that says “I hate niggers,” “I hate Jews,” or “I hate queers,” SO WHAT? It only exposes him for what he truly is! If he wants to go around wearing such a tee shirt, everyone will know he is an idiot of the worse sort. If I were black, Jewish, or gay, I would take the position that Zazzle was actually providing a service by exposing his ignorance and intolerance!
After losing over 200 of my products, the “content management team” routinely removes my products for content violations. What are these violations? The vast majority of my products fall into the following catagories:
1) Religious works of art by classic artists
2) Depictions of historical figures
3) Old Southern (and sometimes archaic) expressions
4) Political expression/art
5) Quotes
Works of art that have been removed have generally involved some sort of nudity or act of violence. Examples include Biblical David and Goliath, the crucifixion, and even the baptism of Christ! The depiction of the baptism of Christ included a seated figure of a man showing his upper buttocks, but not very much because he was seated. Thank you for protecting us, Zazzle! I can only say that if Zazzle was in control of the rest of the country, the artwork in most Catholic and Orthodox churches would not be safe! If it is something I might see at a religious service, I probably don’t need Zazzle to protect me from it. I have seen other products on Zazzle depicting one man performing fellatio on another man, but I need to be protected from a picture of the Baptism of Christ!
As a child, I loved to visit little old ladies and made a habit of remembering expressions they would use. I found them hilarious although I would probably
not use some of them at a church social. Two examples are “That went over like a fart in church” and “It’s so hot I’m sweating like a whore in church.” The first means something is unpopular or deemed inappropriate, and the second means that whores are so uncomfortable in church that they sweat profusely, but neither shows actual disrespect for the church. Both products were removed. I did a search on Zazzle and found other products saying “I fart in Church” and “I fart in Temple” which do actually show an attitude of disrespect for the church/temple. I asked why those products had not been removed, but they are still there. One product that did actually offend me was the use of the term “Czar Ruler” with the symbol of the people who killed the last czar who is now a cannonized saint. I emailed Zazzle and told them that it was about like combining the word “Jew” with a swasticka, but that product is still listed on Zazzle as well. It is obviously better to foster ignorance than have someone exposed to old Southern expressions which might actually be funny.
In the arena of political commetary more censorship takes place at Zazzle. I designed one tee shirt that had a picture of Osama on the front with the caption “This man killed thousands of innocent Americans.” The back of the shirt had a picture of George Bush and the caption “This man killed thosands of innocent Iraqis and thousands of innocent Americans.” I feel this is valid political commentary. I emailed Zazzle and asked why the product had been removed and was informed that Zazzle did not allow portrayals of criminals. A search of products for the term “Osama” yielded pages of results including three with pictures of Osama and the caption “Death to America.” Another product featured a wanted poster for Osama beside a wanted poster for George Bush.
I know that Zazzle is in business to make money, but they provide a valuable service by providing a forum for the expression of ideas or at least ideas before they get around to censoring them. The design features at Zazzle are so much better than those at other sites such as Cafe Press that I’ll have to stick to using Zazzle, but in a free society open to competion, sooner or later someone will see the need and will provide that service that provides both a forum for more free and open expression and Zazzle’s excellent design features if it means they can make a dollar. I suspect they will make plenty of dollars! At that point, I’ll switch to the new service! For the time being, it is Zazzle’s game, and one must play by their rules. In the interest of fairness, those rules should be enforced uniformly. While I can spot many improvements that could be made, they are still the best game in town.
If Zazzle wants to be the guardians of morality and good taste, they need to do a better job at it. They have products that say “I hump my pillow,” and “I believe in human sacrifice,” but they are going to protect us from artwork by great artists like Michelangelo that are easily available in every library and on hosts of websites and from criticism of George Bush? In their recent sweepstakes they even promoted a product with a cartoon dog and the caption “I just want a leg to hump on.” Another old Southern expression comes to mind: “Sweep in front of your own door before you sweep in front of someone else.”
I recently placed an order on Zazzle for some custom t-shirts, which I was planning on giving as gifts for XMAS. I chose Zazzle, even though I have a few friends who work for CafePress…primarily because the Web site boasts about their ability to turn around product within 24 hours. I placed my order on 12/13/05, and I ordered 2 day shipping. It is now 12/17/05, and my order is still being “processed”. I have never received an email confirmation from them, nor have they responded to 3 different emails that I have sent to their Customer Service team. I am extremely disappointed with Zazzle, and plan on using CafePress from now on. The saddest part about this, is that they just raised $16 million in VC funds, and they still haven’t been able to directly apply that to their service teams (they are a service-oriented company, correct?)…
I placed two seperate orders on 12/8/05 for a total of three shirts. I figured that I didn’t need to spend the extra on 2-day shipping so I chose ground shipment. I received the second order about a week later and still haven’t received the first order. Two emails have gone unanswered and I am leaving town Wednesday. Now I have to buy my sister another gift which isn’t bad, but I wanted to see her expression when she saw the shirt. It may be a long time before I use Zazzle again. What was that address to CafeExpress?
The stupidity and censorship at Zazzle continues! Now I have had short quotes (generally one sentence) removed as copyright violations. Short quotes are permitable under US copyright laws, and I am fairly sure that anything that would fit on the front of a tee shirt in print would qualify as a sort quote! (Of course, this would not apply to images.) Perhaps it would be a good idea for the people who are placed in charge of deciding whether a product is removed for copyright violations to receive some training in what is actually a copyright violation. I have seen hundreds of other designs that are actual copyright violations. I have to wonder if anyone at Zazzle has actually read a book or newspaper. Books and newspapers are full of short quotations, and books and newspapers are sold for a profit. Somehow I suspect that publishers of books and newspapers might actually know what copyright laws are! I don’t think the folks at Zazzle do!
This is all sad. Zazzle offers the best features for design of any similar website I have found, and I have always been delighted with the quality of anything I have ordered from them although I have ordered only tee shirts.
My advice to any designer is never to publish a design you are planning t order until immediately before ordering it. Otherwise, when you go back to place the order, it may not be there.
If anyone knows of another website, that offers Zazzle’s superb design features, please email me at JustJennings@yahoo.com. I would be very grateful.
Stop the insanity!
Go to http://www.spreadshirt.com, make what you want, find God, get love, and enjoy your design experience.
I am both a contributor and a buyer at Zazzle.
Very pleased am I with this company and have always received my products promptly and in excellent condition.
Whenever I wrote to Zazzle with a question, someone replied within 48 hours and were very helpful.
Zazzle even showcased a few of my products and this helped to promote sales.
Thank you Zazzle!
Best,
Nancy Deer With Horns
Deer With Horns Native American Indian Site
http://www.ange.../ct/deerwhorns/
I want to say that we here at Zazzle appreciate everyone’s comments here. We strive to give every user a great experience, and anytime that isn’t the case, we see it as a chance to learn and improve.
The best way to contact us is through our Customer Support at http://www.zazzle.com/support . Our goal is to respond within 12-24 hours to every message, and even through the heavy volume over the holidays, we got back to everyone who wrote in.
We had corresponded with everyone who has posted comments here and worked with them on the issues. If you ever feel like you aren’t satisfied with your response, please work with us so we can do whatever we can to rectify the situation. We guarantee your satisfaction and will gladly accept any product back for a full replacement or refund within 30 days.
Also, we do take everyone’s feedback seriously. For example, in the case that Diane mentions above, she was concerned because she couldn’t change or cancel her order just a few minutes after she placed it. Because of our made-to-order manufacturing within 24 hours, we were Sometimes processing orders so quickly it was difficult to change. Thanks to feedback like this, we have launched a new system that gives any user up to 1 hour to modify or cancel your order online (without contacting us) prior to the order going into production.
Finally, want to thank you all for your interest and support of Zazzle. We’ve made it through a really exciting holiday season, shipping a great number of customized gifts to people around the world. All of this feedback helps us to make the service better and faster for everyone.
If you have any questions or additional feedback, please share it with us at http://www.zazzle.com/support
Thanks!
Josh Elman
Product Manager, Zazzle
I still have “censorship” issues with Zazzle, but they are the best site from a designer’s point of view that I have found. Cafepress does offer some products such as wall clocks, buttons, and bumper stickers that Zazzle does not offer, but their design process is not nearly as good. The selection of designs at Cafe Press only seems larger because each design must be entered separately for each type of shirt. The same design on ten different types of shirts would be ten different products. From a designer’s end, this means ten times as much work for him to offer the same design on a variety of shirts. Some of the other sites require the designer to submit the design the exact size as it will appear on the product while Zazzle allows the designer greater flexiblity on sizing the design after submitting it.
From the customer’s end, I have located some shirt designs I really liked on CafePress, but they were not available on the style of shirt I wanted. As a male, no matter how much I like a design, I am unlikey to order it when it is only available on a spaghetti strap shirt! If this had been Zazzle, I could have picked the design and decided what type of shirt I wanted. Zazzle offers greater flexiblity from the customer’s point of view as well!
I have placed numerous orders with Zazzle, and the quality has been great. The service has almost always been as prompt as advertised. Once an order was shipped one day later than it was supposed to be, but anyone who has ever worked in any business knows that sometimes these things are going to happen in spite of the best efforts. It really didn’t matter that much if I received those particular tee shirt one day earlier anyway. If it had been one week instead of one day, I would be the first to complain. I have had more trouble getting a prescription from a drugstore than I have ever had getting tee shirts from Zazzle!
Also, I have offered Zazzle some suggestions for improvements. They have implemented some of them. How often does that happen with a large corporation? They might even implement some more when they get around to it. I know everything can’t be done at once.
Are there things that could be improved at Zazzle? Yes! They are still the best option out there as far as I am concerned, and I have checked out every site I could find!
Don’t forget Zazzle actually physically destroyed artist Clinton Fein’s prints that were not even available on their public web site. I find this kind of behavior from Zazzle disgusting and unforgivable. Unfortunately for Zazzle they received tons of negative publicity from South Africa to the Middle East.
My friends just opened a shop on Zazzle to sell merchandise related to their dark fantasy/horror audio series. All their designs were original — produced by a paid graphic designer — and all were rated what they believed should be PG-13.
Less than a week after the shop opened, Zazzle closed it down and deleted all the files WITHOUT warning or inquiry, because one item was not rated Adult as they believed it should be. The producers of the series have since made several attempts to communicate with Zazzle and work out the situation, but there has not been a single personal response.
(What I want to know is: Why pick on these designs? There are numerous items more disturbing and gruesome than any of the ones submitted by the project’s designer that remain in Zazzle shops, even though they are clearly misrated.)
They are now having to pay their designer to go through the whole process again and start the shop up with another service. Self-starter audio theater productions are not known for their unlimited budgets and this fiasco will likely cause a delay in their next release.
I was appalled at the treatment my friends received, so I deleted my own audio series’ designs, closed my shop, and sent Zazzle a letter stating exactly why I did done so. I will not do business with a company that practices capricious censorship.
Zazzle needs to shape up, develop and enforce a consistent policy, and overhaul its member relations methods.
Censorship issues should be a top priority at Zazzle. I have had an email from some chick named Susan at Zazzle that a product did not meet their acceptable content guidelines. Why? I guess because it shows a man without a shirt. He had a pants, but that didn’t matter. I wonder if this Susan chick has ever been to the beach! I doubt anyone would want to see her in a bathing suit anyway! Another product was deleted because it contained a quote by John Kerry saying that Osama would die of kidney failure before Rove and his cronies killed him. Was this violation because it mentioned Osama? Thank God this Susan chick can’t censor the evening news! Of course, other anti-Kerry products remain uncensored since April, 2004 that mention or depict Osama. Is that fair? The good folks at Zazzle can continue pissing off their customers and deigners. Without customers, they’ll make no profit. Without designers, they’ll have no products to sell.
The Susan chick’s insanity continues. Products that are not copyright/trademark violations are removed as well as items covered in the mainstream news media for ratings violations. I suggest contacting Michael Karns at Michael.Karns@zazzle.com. From what I understand he is the Susan chick’s boss. It remains to see if he will take action.
I placed an order of $1300 for personalized stamps from zazzle.com on 1/19. I not only have not received the stamps but after two e-mails have not received a reply either (it has been well past the 12 to 48 hour mark).
I am considering filing a complaint with the appropriate government agency, as they are selling an item on the internet and for all I know I may never receive my product, yet they have my money (for 22 days).
When you have no phone number to talk to someone and you try their suggested method of emailing and yet receive no response, What else is one to think, I have never used this company before. I can’t speak for others but $1300 is quite a bit of money.
As a buyer and contributor at zazzle i am very satisfied
I ordered t-shirts and cards and received them quickly and i was amazed by the quality of printing and colors .
I never ordered posters or framed prints but i know by a friend that they are beautiful, excellent quality .
I have been posting designs at zazzle for a year and i never have been desapointed , zazzle team answers every mail and really listen to suggestions we send .
Zazzle does have a telephone number listed on their website, but you have to really look for it! It is 800-980-9890.
i was thinking of starting up a store with zazzle.com. but the censoring problem disturbs me greatly and is stopping me from signing up.
my artwork is morbid and dark. while not involving graphic blood gushes and gut spillage like a cannibal corpse cover, it does/will involve dead/undead things and/or dismembered body parts drawn in black and white comic/illustration fashion. sometimes in a humourous way.
these are the kind of works that people aged 8-80 can like. i know because every summer, i set up displays and sell original artwork right out on a busy street where other artists gather and i’ve received compliments and admiration from everyone in that age range. parents and grandparents with babies and grand kids point it out to the children as they watch me draw such things and they think it’s great.
so unless i decide to release some artwork involving a bowl of fruit or a vase of roses, i think i’ll be looking at alternative options. anyone know of another site that would fit me perfectly?
If you’re worried about censorship you might try creating an online store using:
http://www.printfection.com
They won’t censor artistic nudity, artistic violence, etc. Plus it’s more like your own store, rather than just a “gallery”. (you can customize the look and feel of the store completely including custom CSS and HTML to make it look just like your existing website)
I checked out Printfection.com, and it seems to be a nice site, but limited from a designer’s point of view. There are no options for sizing images and no means of adding text. It would be fine for someone who had the design perfectly sized to fit the product. Another limitation is that one must submit the entire process for each differnt type of shirt, such as tee shirt, sweatshirt, baseball jersey, etc. There are problems at Zazzle, but they are still the best as far as I am concerned.
add embroidered products to your quiver at corporatecasuals.com. we’re the only site offering online embroidery shops and design online services
“The best way to contact us is through our Customer Support at http://www.zazzle.com/support . Our goal is to respond within 12-24 hours to every message, and even through the heavy volume over the holidays, we got back to everyone who wrote in.”
Yeah, right. I just sent my third email in three weeks to request an RMA number. The first two (sent two weeks and one week ago, respectively) have yet to generate a reply. Snappy service, eh?
wow – I just found this site – I have been frustrated with Zazzle for some time and thought I was the only one! Yes – they pick and choose what they want to censor. Yes – they decide what is copyright infringement – even if it is not! Yes – they do NOT respond in a timely manner! Yes – they do NOT supply RMA #’s as promised when product is incorrect! My last interaction with them was so horrible, I have never purchased again (a year and a half ago) and they do not care — now with big companies in their pocket (Disney) etc – they are terrified to make a mistake with THEM.
Zazzle is a great idea, as long as things run smoothly. If you have a problem – any kind of problem – good luck speaking with someone in so called customer service!
I agree with most, if not all, of what I have read here. Zazzle is the best place I have found to post my work. However, they are a little bit over priced, and they are impossible to talk to regarding what they view as inappropriate. The lady in charge of deciding what is inappropriate seems to think she is the internet’s version of God. And I think she makes up the rules as she goes. I have always, however, received mail from her days or even weeks before they take down any of my stuff they disagree with.
Their problem with me is that I think a female in a swimsuit (on a book cover that is sold in book stores the world over)is G rated. My problem with them is that if I rate my book cover posters anything but G, when people see my zazzle stuff on the www, there is a message that tells them that my stuff us not available because it is inappropriate. I am offended by this much more than I am that they think a woman in a swimsuit might offend someone.
One last thing. Do not give them any information you don’t want posted to the www. I filed out the age and address information on the profile page. I was a bit surprised to see this information plastered around the web. I mean, if you want to know how old I am, just type my name into a search engine. Zazzle will be happy to tell you. When I contacted zazzle customer service about it, they responded in about two days saying that they didn’t post anyting, I did when I filled out their form.
Cheers,
Wilbert
Zazzle is still the best from a design point of view. Their censorship policies seem out of line. I have used images of the KKK in political commentary (against the positions of the KKK) and they were removed. It seems odd they have products seeming to glorify the KKK that have been out there for years and not removed! What does that say about Zazzle’s political positions? To be honest, I believe what happened here is that policies changed after the really offensive products were posted and they never went back to remove the earlier products. They are in the business of publishing products, and one would think they would support Freedom of Speech. You can say only what they like! Of course, this is not a real violation of the First Admendment as they are a private business and can run their business as they see fit. (Your local newspaper has no obligation to publish a letter to the editor, for example, if they do not wish to.) It still goes against the American concept of free speech! I would question the judgement of any company that woul allow pro-Klan products, but not anti-Klan products. I would also question the patriotism of a company that would allow tee shirts with Osama bid Ladin’s picture and the slogan “Death to America” while removing products that encourage change with the things that are wrong with our government. I have reported this particular product to those in charge of censorship, but they leave it there. I posted notice of it here in December hoping that bringing it to public attention would affect change, but to no avail. Although I really support Freedom of Expression and allowing people to say whatever they wish, if a company wants to censor what people are allowed to say, I think products wishing “Death to America” and glorifying the Klan would be higher on the list than pictures of a woman in a swimsuit or a man without a shirt! I understand that copyrights are the law and are needed to protect the profits of the artistic work of individuals, but copyrights do not cover short quotes and mentions of a person. If an individual wants to use their celebrity status to say something, other individuals have the right to say they said it!
As I mentioned, I still think Zazzle has the best design features. That does not mean that will always be the case. Printfection.com has added features that allow the designer to place a design on multiple products at the same time. They still do not allow the additon of text and multiple images,yet, but I understand that is coming! When everything gets worked out at Printfection, they will give Zazzle a run for the money. They have good customer response and are constantly making huge strides in improving things. To be honest, Zazzle also works on making improvements, and I have noticed a number of them. The problem is they are not fixing many basic issues that should have never been a problem in the first place! Another issue with Printfection is image sizing. They may work that out as well.
As far as quality of products, Zazzle and Printfection both do a good job. In fact Printfection’s high standards for image quality ensure any kind of problem with image quality will not occur. Personally, I think they are too strict, and the image enlargement issues greatly limit design capabilty as they might be a bit of overkill.
It is true there are other companies out there. CafePress is the largest and offers the greatest selection of products, but I do not like their design process. That said, they do offer greater freeedom of expression than Zazzle – I have seen products on CafePress that Zazzle would never allow!
I suspect they are the largest because they were the earliest and people do not like change.
Speadshirt seems bizarre as it did not even offer search options that I could find.
Zazzle and Printfection seem to be the ones to watch. Both score high marks on the product quality standard. Zazzle scores very high marks on design capability, both I think Printfection may catch up in time and even surpass them. The speed at which the customer receives his products is good at both although a recent order from Zazzle was overly delayed through the fault of the delivery service,not Zazzle. Customer Response is second to none at Printfection. (Josh at Zazzle gives good response, but nobody else at the company does)If Printfection can resolve certain design issues such as text and image sizing, they will be the industry leader in time.
I signed up at Spreadshirt and still can’t log in. I have emailed them about this twice without a response. It has been three days now. Can’t say I would recommend them to anyone.
Zazzle is still up to the old tricks. I tried to make stamps of my book covers. They made one from Jacy’s Girl but rejected Pulp Graffiti because “it could be construed as advertising.” Duh. Show me a stamp that isn’t. The whole purpose of posting an image of something is to make it visible to the public. With logic aside, why would one be okay but not the other. It just doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t the first time Zazzle has rejected a stamp design I sent in. And every time I submit it elsewhere and get my stamp. Again, this is sad because Zazzle has the best layout. My book covers fit perfectly in their stamp field. Everywhere else, I have gaps down the sides to make the length fit the page. But, oh well, what can you do when the flunkies in charge think they know everything?
Cheers,
Wilbert
I have been informed by Zazzle staff that they give 24 hours notice before removing a design. THEY DO NOT! They don’t even follow their own rules!
As for being a business oportunity, I want to laugh! I still have not received my royalty commissions on the products that they lost due to their error. They certainly have their profits they made off of selling my products but where are mine? This has been going on since October, and it is now April.
As for Wilbert’s concern about stamps, we all know the stupidity of the Federal government, and this does ivolve them. I designed some stamps for Christmas, and Zazzle would not produce them because they contained religous imagery. What a joke! I have bought thousands of stamps from the post office of the Holy Mother and the Christ Child similar to the ones I designed.
I am sure that thousands of customers never have any problem with Zazzle, but when a customer does he can expect the worse service possible. A concept of customer service is that if a customer has a problem, and it is handled properly and quickly, he ends up being a more loyal customer than if he never had a problem. Zazzle breeds no loyalty. When I finds another site that can match their design features, I will not even mess with Zazzle anymore.
The censorship policy seems rather un-American to me. My anti-KKK and anti-Nazi products are removed while pro-KKK and Pro-Nazi products as well as the Osama product with the slogan “Death to America” remain. I would attend a KKK or Nazi rally just to see if any Zazzle employees are there except I wouldn’t recognize them!
The reason we get such bad service is that so few people speak up! Only when they can see their profits being affected will change come.
There are still many improvements that could be made at Printfection, but they are still a very young company, and it will take time, but they already have some features in place that would put Zazzle to shame! Let’s wait and see.
I heard about this site after I purchased products from zazzle. I can’t speak for the main 2 people on this posting who have a beef with the company, but I’ve had nothing but great experiences with zazzle. I’ve bought shirts, stamps and my xmas cards from them. They were easy to design and came out great. There was a slight problem with one of my shirts, but their support center responded quickly and got me a replacement quicker than I expected. I’ve recommended zazzle to friends, and I’ve heard nothing but good things back from them.
I’m not saying don’t use zazzle. Please do. I do. But I am very frustrated by their inconsistent policy making, and I want people like Jennings Roundtree to know there are others who are frustrated too. I saw a poster there awhile back with two naked men embracing and kissing passionately. It was G rated. I reported this and asked why that was G rated when my book cover with a beautiful woman in a tasteful swimsuit posed as Venus de Milo is not G rated. I never received a reply from anyone about this, and the poster with the two naked men remained G rated.
Having my poster pg rated may not seem like a big deal to anyone but me, but it really is a big deal because search engines pick up these things from Zazzle and spread them all over the www. When anyone clicks on that link, there is a message from zazzle that says this product cannot be viewed because it has inappropriate content. I really don’t want people to see my name associated with such a warning lable. It makes it sound as if I have posted porn to a kiddie site.
I am simply saying that Zazzle takes this pg rating thing a bit too seriously. I see women in bikinis sunbathing by the kiddie pool all the time and no one yanks their kids out and runs home in shock.
Make stuff at Zazzle and have fun doing it, but don’t be surprised if they lose your work, yank your stuff, or make unfair and inconsistent decisions sometimes.
Hang in there Jennings, we hear you buddy.
Cheers,
Wilbert
I need help!!!!!!!
I am having navigation problems and trying to understand how the site works.
A company your size should have a customer service phone to help it’s customers.
Here is my latest email from a Zazzle staff member. As a customer and designer, I find this attitude from anyone in the business community much more offensive than any idea or design a designer could post. It basicly says that we do not appreciate you as a customer or a designer. I have spent about $1500 with Zazzle and designed over 3,000 products and this is how I am treated?
As far as copyrights, I understand and respect them. I had posted a very small number of products that were actual copyright violations, and I repect the decision to remove them. I have even reported some of my own products as copyright violations and asked that they be removed! That said, mention of someone’s work such as a title or a character from a literary work in a product that can be classified as commentry or a short quote is not a violation of copyright law. For example, one has the right to say I hate “The Cat in the Hat” if that is how he feels. As far as the rating system, I do try to adhere to it although when a designer creates over 3,000 products, he is bound to make a mistake once in a while! It is also far to say that it is sometimes impossible to guess what Zazzle staff would consider a rating violation. The solution to this would be quite simple – have the Zazzle employees change the rating on the product rather that delete it or at the very least move the product to the designer’s personal products section. I s this done? NO! Note that in the following email, it is said that a designer can repost a product if the Zazzle staff removes something they should not have. What kind of customer service is that? Why does Zazzle not repost it? Some designs are complicated and involve a great deal of time, and Zazzle maintains an archive of deleted products or so they say.
Zazzle is a privately operated company and, as such, has every right to run its business any way they see fit. They have the right to set whatever rules they like, but they should follow the rules they set!
Dear Jennings,
Thanks. We too are tired of this nonsense. Zazzle is committed to the values of self-_expression and open creativity. Zazzle is also committed to keeping our website a place where anyone of any age can view, explore, and personalize amazing content. Furthermore, we are committed to protecting artists’ digital rights, including with respect to copyright and trademark.
In order to ensure that we are properly paying owners of content for their products, we sometimes have to remove or restrict content that we believe is a violation of copyright, unless we can prove otherwise. Additionally, in order to ensure that our public “G” gallery is appropriate for viewing for people of any age, including children, we do sometimes determine that a piece of content is inappropriate and should have instead been placed in our PG-13 or R galleries. Given this, we do ask that our contributors and participants in Zazzle do their best to help us maintain these standards. If we find or hear about something that does not fit within our standards, we will have to remove that content or ask that it be reposted in an appropriate gallery. We ask for everyone’s help to appropriately rate and consider these standards when posting their content.
We are constantly working to improve our customer service and policies to make this even easier and smoother. Since you and I have been working together, we have discussed our policies in depth, as well as making many significant changes, for example launching notification systems to let people know when their content may be in question.
However, it seems clear that you continue to refuse to respect our guidelines, our employees, and our mission, as exhibited by both your private messages to people on our team as well as your public comments about our company.
If you feel it will be necessary to broadcast your frustration in public forums, then I obviously can’t prevent that. I will be happy to respond publicly as well. If this behavior continues, we will ask you to look elsewhere for a place to display and sell your work.
Thanks,
Josh Elman
Yet again I have had a product removed without 24 hours notice. Zazzle was supposed to have the ability to rerate products months ago but they continue to delete them with no regard for the designer’s time or their own rules!
By the way, I still have not received my commissions from my account deleted by their mistake in October or November. I lost over 200 products which is a pretty serious error on their part. These products could have probably been easily recovered if they had handled it promptly. Instead they took their time and waited until the backups containing the products had been overwriten!
Can you count on receiving your commissions or your products being secure? Even if the censorship-happy individuals don’t delete your products, it is readily apparent secure backup procedures are not followed.
Wow! Zazzle is a gem! I’ve been looking for a place to create personalized stamps for my daughter’s college graduation announcement. I found the perfect site. I simply cropped a digital photo of my daughter and easily formatted it into the Zazzle site. I sent the photo in and had two sheets of the perfect announcement stamp with her portrait within two days! Your company is amazing. This was so easy, user friendly and fast. Thanks Zazzle. By the way, what’s up with that Jennings guy anyway?
I’ll tell Ted what’s with that Jennings guy. I am tired of companies abusing and showing no regard for their customers! The reason things have reached such a low point in America is that enough people don’t bother to speak up. This applies not only to companies, but to our government. Ted, when is the last time you had a problem? Did it ever occur to you that if the person who had had the same problem before had reported it, you might not have had the problem? Things that are morally wrong upset me. I consider a company that does not follow its own rules after putting the out there for others to follow to be morally wrong. I consider a company that allows products that support hatred while censoring products that speak against it to be morally wrong. Ted, what is your position on those points?
That said, I still think that Zazzle is currently the best option for the consumer, but I would still like to see it better. Internet shopping may be the way of the future. Zazzle stands to reap huge profits if they get a few things straightened out. The product quality is outstanding, and most things are generally as promised – delivery time, etc. Many policies and customer response could be improved. On the bright side, Zazzle is making many constant improvements and are now offering customized cups/mugs/drinkware. The reason I have spent so much time in reporting problems at Zazzle is that I would like for it to be the kind of company it ought to be!
As for the commissions on my lost account, they are supposed to be on the way. They may only total $47, but that is my $47! If I had not raised hell, I would have never gotten them. To be honest, I had to spend far more than $47’s worth of time to get them.
In closing, I would like to say that Zazzle is a great concept and has many wonderful features. I hope that lots of people will use it to expres their ideas, etc., but they need to know the problems they might encounter. Zazzle is a good company, but it could be a great company! Other than my problems with censorship, I think all the problems I have had with Zazzle are things that slipped through the cracks and not really deliberate. That said, they were not handled well once I had the problems. Guess what? I still use Zazzle and will continue to do so. Sure, things could be better, but they aren’t going to get better if no one speaks up!
I am sure that thousands of people (the vast majority)use Zazzle and never experience any problem. I hope that by speaking up, I will help change that to all customers. Zazzle is much better than when I started using it and will probably continue to improve!
The Ted post, “Ted — April 17, 2006 @ 5:24 pm” looks like it is a Zazzle employee or buddy of some sort.
Are they trying to stop bad press rather than fixing problems with their service?
They haven’t been paying people either, on their form of click referals.
We found this out using a DNS redirection that counts the clicks before the client is passed to the special zazzle URL. We also looked at when they did pay and what amount of clicks, on average, generated a sale for them. Fraud? Yeah it looks that way.
We are now working on finding out what the scale of this underpayment is, in terms of $ and numbers of people ripped off.
The Zazzle Team is team up to its old tricks! My products that are anti-Nazi are removed while the pro-Nazi and pro-Klan items remain. That should tell where their sympathies lie! They continue not to follow their own rules.
Truth Seeker’s allegations are troubling if founded. The whole basis of the business is the designer having trust they will be paid the commissions on products they have designed. I would hope that Zazzle is not guilty of fraud as Truth Seeker alledges, but we have no real way to check up on them. The question remains should a person trust a company with pro-Nazi positions. I can only say I won’t be going to take any showers at Zazzle headquarters!
I have had something odd happen. An order was placed for 7 of my products 4/27. Somehow, it is now cancelled on 4/30. How? The products are supposed to be shipped within 24 hours, and the order can’t be cancelled after reaching the processed stage. Zazzle does have a 30 return policy, but there is now way the customer received and returned this order for credit within three days. Since Trut Seeker raised the issue of Zazzle’s honesty and integrity, it makes me wonder!
I find stupidity and inconsideration irritating, so I am going to vent. With all the design advantages Zazzle has a real weakness is that you cannot modify or delete a product after submitting it. Actually you can delete it for about 24 hours or so after submitting but you can’t modify. How stupid is this? If you notice an erro such as a typo, YOU HAVE TO EMAIL SUPPORT and ask for it to be removed. Sometimes the do it and sometimes they don’t. If you think of an improvement to a design, too bad! You have to start over, ask the old product be removed, etc. You have the capabilities at CafePress and Printfection. Why not Zazzle?
Now I have had an order canceled because a product contained a negative message! Of course they did not tell me the order was canceled until after the 24 had passed when they were supposed to have it already shipped. They did not tell me which product so I could resubmit the order while the free shipping special was running even though I asked. All the products are still listed out there so this could happen to someone else. I will continue to speak out until they get things fixed. By the way, the pro-Klan and pro-Nazi items are still listed as well! If you want a tee shirt with the slogan “Mrs. Hitler, Run Jew Run” or a tee shirt that says “Hitler is my homeboy” you can still order that from Zazzle. If you want a shirt saying you are a life member of the KKK, you can order that. Three products are still listed with a picture of Bin Ladin and wishing death to America! Of course, you can’t say anything against the Klan of Nazism! I will continue my protest until these products are removed. Zazzle staff are either incompetent or liars and hypocrits. They don’t follow their own rules and enforce them selectively. They often don’t do what they say they will. I guess they don’t have to follow the rules any more than George Bush has to follow the law!
Thanks to everyone for the great and constructive comments here. We take customer feedback at Zazzle very seriously, and always aim to please the customer. We manufacture and ship thousands and thousands of products every day that are meticulously designed by our customers and our contributors and have received many incredible testimonials. But we do sometimes make mistakes and when we do so, we do everything we can to fix them quickly. For one thing, we have a guarantee which we call the “Zazzle Promise” where we will take any product back within 30 days for any reason whatsoever. And we’ll replace it with another version immediately if that’s what the customer wants. And, remember, these are one-of-a-kind products that cannot be resold.
On Zazzle, we take great pride in the kinds of content that people around the world produce and contribute to the Zazzle gallery. We get thrilled at the business and success that our contributors see when their products are sold and they earn money. And it’s important to us that Zazzle is a safe and engaging environment for people of any age, including children, to explore and enjoy the content.
Because we are enabling people to earn money from their content, we have to also take issues such as copyright and content ownership very seriously. We have rigorous standards for what content may be posted to Zazzle and to ensure that proper copyright owners are profiting from their works.
While we do our best to ensure that every customer is happy, sometimes there are mistakes. As soon as we become aware, however, we do whatever it takes to try to make it right. In some unfortunate cases, some people have chosen to flame us publicly rather than work with us on the solutions. For example, we have been working with Mr. Rountree (author of several posts here) for several months, and unfortunately, it looks like we are unable to come to any kind of resolution to work together positively.
I strongly hope that anyone who reads this thread of comments will trust that we do our best to ensure that people have a great experience and receive quality products every time they use Zazzle. And we hope that a couple of individual instances do not negatively affect the perception of how much we do care about delighting each and every customer. A passionate team of Zazzlers is here, every day, committed to that goal.
Thanks,
Josh Elman
Product Manager, Zazzle
I am going to close comments on this post now.