POD News: zazzle tips

Showing posts with label zazzle tips. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

How To Design for Cups

Zazzle put out a great little video on how to design thier new paper cups. This is the first product with a conical backgroup image, so it's important to know how designing for that is different than designing for other full bleed images.

Learn how to design our new custom paper cups.
You'll be ready to party in no time!

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Hic-ups As Zazzle Transitions to the New Craft Category

Zazzle is adding a craft category...you probably already will see it in your shop. But in the meantime, some of the items in your shop that would go in that category may be hard to find.

If you're like me, and need to, for instance, be able to direct people to the ribbon or favor boxes or whatever in your shop (and it's not showing up in crafts yet, and you can't find it in another single category) you can do what I did and make a Zazzle flash panel to point to that, and post it on your website or blog.

But before I tried that I contacted support, and got someone who didn't know what was happening and they gave me some spectacularly bad advice I'm glad I didn't take. I was freaking out because I was promoting my ribbon through a blog post (I'd sent someone a sample to do a Valentines craft with and she was featuring it on her blog, but the link to my ribbon I had given her wasn't working). Zazzle support said they couldn't find my ribbon in my shop and that maybe I should remake it. I happened to know that at least one of my ribbon was there (I found it in a categor) so I thought of the flash panel idea and that showed me that all the ribbon (even the ones I couldn't find in the category it was supposed to be in) was still there and I didn't need to waste my time remaking it.

When I wrote them back someone got me the right answer which was that things were in the process of transfering and the direct links would work if I couldn't find the section with the products in it. So, heads up to anyone else having this trouble.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Possible Price Tweaking Trick

I was playing around with some of the prices on my posters at Zazzle, and I noticed that you can sometimes UP your earnings without changing your price. Like I had one poster selling for $14.75 at 10%--and I was making $1.48 off of it. When I changed it to 11% it still showed it at $14.75 but it showed my profit as $1.62. I don't think this has to do with having to wait until the 20th of the month to see the changes, because this was the preview of what the price would be. I will check back after the 20th and see if the $14.75 price holds though. (I checked...they did).

Not going to make a big difference or be worth your time if you sell small amounts, but if you sell a lot of a certain item this could add up.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

How to Link to Your International Zazzle Shops on Squidoo

In addition to it's US shop, Zazzle has many different international storefronts where people can browse Zazzle in their language and make orders using their native currency.

If you have a blog or website and would like to link to these shops from it, Zazzle has an easy way to make banners which link to all your international storefronts there. You can click here to try it out.

Unfortunately, this code does not work well on Squidoo. Below I talk about how to change the code to make a nice line of country flags which link to your shop...like this:

The code below is what you will want to use on your page, but first you will need to swop out my shop ID and affiliate ID for your shop name and affiliate ID. You can do this manually, but I suggest doing the following:

Copy paste the code below into a notepad.

Use the search/replace tool in notepad to replace my shop ID, scribbleprints, with your shop ID. Your shop ID is the last part of your store URL. For instance, in http://www.zazzle.com/scribbleprints the part in bold, scribbleprints, is my store ID.

Copy paste the code into the Squidoo module where you want it. There are some modules on Squidoo which will not accept this code, but you’re always safe putting it in a text module.

THE CODE:

<a href="http://www.zazzle.ca/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/ca.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.co.uk/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/gb.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.de/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/de.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.es/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/es.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.fr/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/fr.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.pt/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/pt.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.se/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/se.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.nl/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/nl.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.at/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/at.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.ch/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/ch.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.be/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/be.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.com.au/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/au.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.co.nz/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/nz.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.co.jp/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/jp.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.co.kr/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/kr.png" width="27" /></a><a href="http://www.zazzle.com.br/scribbleprints*" style="border: 0pt none; margin: 0 10px 3px 0;"><img src="//asset.zcache.com/assets/graphics/_zletter/2009/banners/2011_international/flags/br.png" width="27" /></a>

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

FREE GRAPHIC: Add "Water" To Your AquaVista Clock, Front View

Zazzle has recently added the Aquavisa Clock, a clock that is designed to double as a fish-bowl for bettas. They do not, however, have any pictures of these clocks with an actual fish in it. (UPDATE: They have added a view with water and a beta fish! Yeah! It's an angled view, so you still might want to use this one, especially if you are adding alternative contents, like I mention below, since those are easier to add from a straight on view). When I made a comment on the Zazzle forum about that, I started a firestorm of backlash against this clock/bowl, which many said was too small to keep a fish in (I researched...Bettas can be kept in a bowl this small, though a good environment is harder to maintain and a larger bowl is better for them). That aside, you COULD use this for a number of other things, such as a indoor water garden or terrarium, displaying flowers, showing off your marble collection, etc.. Personally, I'd like to try this out with a ROBOTIC fish (yes, there is such a thing, and they're not that expensive even)....

I also posted about this on Zazzlers on Facebook, mentioning the lack of a "with fish" example. And in response promptly had someone add a fish for me (thanks Maria) and that prompted me to get busy and see if I could figure out how to add some water.

The following graphic should fit the 499 pixel wide graphic of a fishtank. If you want to know how to save a Zazzle image at this size, click here for my tutorial. This should be added as a layer on top of the fish tank graphic, with an opacity of around 33% (play around with it to see what works for your design). Then just merge the layers and you should have a tank that looks like it has water in it.

TERMS OF USE
I got the waterline from this Creative Commons picture from by Dean McCoy. While it is free for alteration and commercial use, attribution is required (not to me, but to Dean McCoy...though if you want to mention PODNews I'd be pleased). I'm going to ask if it's ok to use this without attribution if we are using this on a banner ad or advertisement where attribution would be difficult. But I haven't heard back yet, so for now, please attribute. Otherwise, this is free for you to use.

You will have to find your own fish or plants or whatever you want to add to your "water" as I don't know where Maria got her fish and if I have permission to distribute it. I looked on the Aquavista website and they also show their "example fish" smaller, so this fish is not to scale.

How to Link, Resize, and Save Zazzle Images

Zazzle makes it very easy to link to images. Here's how...

First, go to the product you want to link to. To the right (or sometimes underneath) the product, you will see a "Share" button. Click it. Then click the "Link To This" button or tab. That should bring up the following screen...

You can see, there is HTML code you can add to your blog or website, and BBC code you can add to many forums, including the Zazzle forum. You can select a large or small image. The large will be 325 pixels and the small 125 pixels. You can simply highlight the code and paste it in the HTML editor of your blog. If you want to save a picture of the product, you can right click on it from this screen and save it.

But what if you need it in another size? All Zazzle image URLS can be tweaked to create a different size.
I'll show you how, but first, lets look at the different parts of the code so you can tell which part does what.

<div style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"> <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/heart_of_flowers_ornaments-175357796143474991?rf=238984407003792011"> <img src="http://rlv.zcache.com/heart_of_flowers_ornaments-rfaa50f5381ee4a78b3df1aa6421ed9c1_x7s21_8byvr_325.jpg" alt="Heart of Flowers Ornaments" style="border:0;" /> </a> <br /> <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/heart_of_flowers_ornaments-175357796143474991?rf=238984407003792011">Heart of Flowers Ornaments</a> by <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/scribbleprints*">scribbleprints</a> <br /> <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/custom/ornaments?rf=238984407003792011">Make your own Christmas ornaments</a> online. </div>

Here is what all the sections do:

The orange section sets the style...it makes it centered, etc.
The pink and purple section is what makes the image and links it to the page. The pink is the part that creates the link. The purple is what makes the picture show up.
The green is what makes all the links and text at the bottom show up.
The black <br/> tags mark a new line...without them this would all be on the same line.

OK, now that that's covered, lets just look at the image URL....

<div style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"> <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/heart_of_flowers_ornaments-175357796143474991?rf=238984407003792011"> <img src="http://rlv.zcache.com/heart_of_flowers_ornaments-rfaa50f5381ee4a78b3df1aa6421ed9c1_x7s21_8byvr_325.jpg" alt="Heart of Flowers Ornaments" style="border:0;" /> </a> <br /> <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/heart_of_flowers_ornaments-175357796143474991?rf=238984407003792011">Heart of Flowers Ornaments</a> by <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/scribbleprints*">scribbleprints</a> <br /> <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/custom/ornaments?rf=238984407003792011">Make your own Christmas ornaments</a> online. </div>

There is a number in it. Changing that number will make the image a different size. For example....

If I change the image URL to http://rlv.zcache.com/heart_of_flowers_ornaments-rfaa50f5381ee4a78b3df1aa6421ed9c1_x7s21_8byvr_200.jpg (changes in bold purple), it will look like this....

Heart of Flowers Ornaments by scribbleprints
Make your own Christmas ornaments online.

And if I change the image URL to http://rlv.zcache.com/heart_of_flowers_ornaments-rfaa50f5381ee4a78b3df1aa6421ed9c1_x7s21_8byvr_500.jpg it will look like this...

Heart of Flowers Ornaments by scribbleprints
Make your own Christmas ornaments online.

Images 500 pixels or over will sometimes show a Zazzle watermark.

If you want to save an image at any size, just copy the image URL to your browser window, right click on the image, and save it.

Friday, October 25, 2013

New Ability to Create Collections On Zazzle

You can now create custom collections at Zazzle, and it doesn't use tagging. You can pick whatever products you want to include. Find the full details here.

Friday, December 28, 2012

New Squid-Rules for Sizing Zazzle Images

Hello! I know a lot of Zazzlers also use Squidoo, so I thought I'd share a squidoo tip for posting Zazzle products on Squidoo today. For those who aren't travelling here by blog hop and don't know what Squidoo is, it's just a place where you can make nifty little web pages about any topic you choose, and maybe earn a little money for yourself or a charity in the process.

As you know if you've been reading this blog, you can easily grab Zazzle product images and resize them as you please. (Click here to learn how to do this.) In Squidoo the <DIV> attributes (in red in my article) are automatically removed. I usually remove them before hand so I can line everything up.

If you happen to want to put these images on Squidoo, module sizes have recently changed, and this sizing guide may help:

New Text Module Size: 714 pixels

1 Product Picture - While you can go up to 714 pixels, I suggest 499 pixels to avoid getting a watermark.

2 Product Pictures - 357 pixels each

3 Product Pictures - 238 pixels each

4 Product Pictures - 178 pixels each

Note...if you would like to center these you can use the following code in Squidoo:

<p align="center>
(Your product code here)
</p>

Rows of 1, 2, and 3 products fit the width exactly though, so centering should not be necessary.

Another way to ad Zazzle products to Squidoo is with the following widgets. I don't know whether these still work well with the recent changes, but they do have some nice features like adding a "buy" button.

Zazzle to Squidoo Tool: A handy tool to help make adding multiple squidoo items to your lens easier and quicker.
Zazzle to Squidoo Tool | J32design.com: Integrate your Zazzle products quick and easy with the Zazzle to Squidoo Tool.

Grabbing Zazzle Images, and Resizing Them

Zazzle makes it very easy to grab images from their site. There's a link button on each product page that lets you grab code to paste on your website or blog (on some pages it's under "Share This").

Here is an image I grabbed without changing the code...

Scribbleprint Clover Sticker by scribbleprints
See more Clover Stickers

Below is what that code looks like. I've colored it for clarity. The red code is what makes this centered (and does some other formatting which I haven't figured out the importance of). The purple code is what turns the picture into a link. The green code is the image code, and the bolded part is the image URL. The code in blue is the text under the sticker.

<div style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"> <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/scribbleprint_clover_sticker-217936943026651546?gl=scribbleprints&rf=238984407003792011"> <img src="http://rlv.zcache.com/scribbleprint_clover_sticker-p217936943026651546en8ct_325.jpg" alt="Scribbleprint Clover Sticker" style="border:0;" /> </a> <br /> <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/scribbleprint_clover_sticker-217936943026651546?gl=scribbleprints&rf=238984407003792011">Scribbleprint Clover Sticker</a> by <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/scribbleprints*">scribbleprints</a> <br /> See more <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/clover+stickers?rf=238984407003792011">Clover Stickers</a> </div>

Now lets look at just the image URL.

http://rlv.zcache.com/scribbleprint_clover_sticker-p217936943026651546en8ct_325.jpg

Notice the number right before the jpg. This is the pixel size. Below, I've changed that pixel size to 200.

Now, you can make any Zazzle image as big as 499 (after 500 they put a watermark over it) or as small as you want.

POD News

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

How To Design for Cups

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Hic-ups As Zazzle Transitions to the New Craft Category

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Possible Price Tweaking Trick

Thursday, August 28, 2014

How to Link to Your International Zazzle Shops on Squidoo

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Zazzle Special Days Categories

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

FREE GRAPHIC: Add "Water" To Your AquaVista Clock, Front View

How to Link, Resize, and Save Zazzle Images

Friday, October 25, 2013

New Ability to Create Collections On Zazzle

Friday, December 28, 2012

New Squid-Rules for Sizing Zazzle Images

Grabbing Zazzle Images, and Resizing Them

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