ZAZZLE Custom T-shirts and Products Review 2021
I Started Selling On ZAZZLE for a church.
In 2009 I started designing and selling t-shirts, stickers, decals and other items for resale using Zazzle. At the time, I had recently designed a logo for a church and signed up on Zazzle to make it easy for the church to make custom T-shirts, Round Die Cut Stickers and Hoodies. All of the commissions went 100% to the church.Later I decided to open a personal account and design products for sale, and sold quite a few. I wasn't looking to get rich, especially at a tiny 10% commission, but some coffee money would have been nice.
I had an original phrase that sold quite well, but somewhere along the line, Zazzle changed a few of its policies and I somehow missed seeing them. That was pre-pandemic. So post-pandemic, I decided to log in and see how my commissions were doing. I had $178 in sales which all went to Zazzle, the commission was only $16.
Zazzle at some point had added a with drawl limit, the minimum being $50 if you deposit into a PayPal account. That was not a problem. I'd eventually hit that $50.
But then I was reviewing the payment history and it wasn't adding up. Upon closer inspection, it turns out, Zazzle had previously implemented another anti-seller policy which say's they will take your commission each month until it is gone, if you haven't logged into your account, designed new products or had sales within the recent 15 months. What a let down! My commission was now $0.00 and Zazzle walked away with $190.00.
I had been having trouble logging into my account for a while, I had two accounts which had been merged together and the main address was a Yahoo account that I no longer had access to. So apparently, all the months I had wasted trying to work with Zazzle to get into my account, they were sending e-mails to the account I didn't have access to.
I eventually did find a way into my account. (NOTE, even when I messaged Zazzle for support in 2021, they sent me a response stating they wouldn't help me, because it wasn't my registered e-mail account for the one I was trying to access).
Fortunately however, after five hours of trying to get in, I discovered that the merged account's e-mail still worked, if I changed the store name during login to the merged account. (It was all on a whim, I wasn't expecting it to work, but I was real happy when it did, but my happiness ended quickly when I viewed my account balance.
Selling Custom T-Shirt's Is Big Business.
In 2021, There are tons of custom print T-shirt companies that allow you to sell, resell, design and print single products, even ones that you can connect to your social media. So there is no reason to stick with a company who steal commissions from the designers. All of them have different policies, so you'll want to read their terms of service, reviews, designer policies. But don't ever use a custom T-shirt or print company who gives you a threshold over $10, and never use one that gives itself the right to steal your commissions if you can't login or haven't logged in for any length of time.
One Zazzle alternative I have been looking at is Spring. Spring is unique because it can be used by YouTube channels and other Social Media services with a direct integration. This is important if you have a strong and larger Social Media presence, because people who already like you, see it where they already follow you. Unlike Zazzle, (at the time of this review) Spring has a very low withdrawal amount and no time restrictions for when you can do it. That means, if I had been selling and reselling using Spring, instead of Zazzle, Spring would have gotten their $176 and I'd have gotten my $16, whether I wanted it now, or later, and that makes sense.
I've sold on other kinds of marketplaces where they hold your money until you withdrawal it. Can you imagine for example selling something on Mercari and coming back a year and a half latter, only to find that not only did the customer get their product, Mercari got their commission on the sales price, but Mercari also took your profit? How ludicrous would that be? We'll that is exactly what Zazzle does, so why would you use them when you can choose competitor who delivers just as good quality, but you always get your commissions.
Any Custom Online T-Shirt company that forgets designers are its best assets, like Zazzle has; should be avoided.
One thing I did not like about Spring's policies is that they do have a statement I do not agree with in their terms of service, that states they are the legal and official owner of any designs you make using their service. I'm not even sure that's legal under US copyright law. Legally, you are granting the right to reuse whatever you design on any service and can use it anywhere else. You always own the original copyright the second you create it under US Copyright unless you transfer release. So that concerns me about Spring, especially if I design the graphics or the logo.
Another Zazzle replacement I looked into is RedBubble. Similar to Spring you can withdrawl your commissions when you want. Reading through the RedBubble Terms of Service, I didn't see any mention of a time limit for withdrawing your commissions. I also didn't see any mention of RedBubble asserting ownership and copyright possession of products you create. (At the time of this 2021 article). So out of just the three customizable t-shirt companies mentioned in this article. RedBubble is my current choice. If you decide to consider RedBubble.
Why I am leaning towards RedBubble.
One more reason I am leaning towards RedBubble is the reviews I read about it by others who already sell and design on it. It has a good reputation (at the time of this article).
That being said, just to be clear. This article and it's associated video are not sponsored by anyone. I received no compensation for mentioning Spring and RedBubble. The links connected to their website provide no benefit to me, they are the actual web address that appears in a search engine.
All of my views are personal, based on my experience and research. They are for reference only, and are not an official endorsement for Spring or RedBubble.
Bottom line, there are to many online custom screenprint services in 2021 to give away your commissions, copyright, become locked into a single service or tolerate any policies or terms of service that restrict you. So shop around, read the policies and find one that your comfortable using.