Zazzle

A friend of mine recommended that I research this website www.Zazzle.com for my blog. I had never heard of it before but he said that they were pretty big and getting bigger. He also said that there was a way to make money through the site without having to do much work. That got my interest! After checking out the site I decided it was worth investigating the money making opportunity(MMO) and sharing my findings with you.

Release Your Inner Graphic Artist

Have you ever been walking down the street and saw someone wearing a cool T-shirt with a cool design and thought to yourself, “I could come up with a better design than that”?. Or, do have a favorite expression that you think would look good on your boss’ coffee mug (something like “D’OH”). Well imagine that you could take these creative aspects of your personality and turn them into profit without having invest any money to start up! That’s what Zazzle offers to it’s members-the ability to customize popluar creative outlets like: T-shirts, hats, bags, coffee mugs, buttons, keychains, and other items. These items can be posted for sale at no cost to the creator and if sold the creator receives a royalty payment (which the creator of the product can set).

Here’s a to gallery to give you an idea of what some people are selling on Zazzle, Queenie’s Creations.

In Their Own Words

Here’s what Zazzle says about its service:
Infinite and Instant, Zazzle is the only on-demand retail platform for consumers and major brands, offering billions of retail quality, one-of-a-kind products shipped within 24 hours. Offering the largest library of customizable digital images from world-class brands, Zazzle enables content owners to unlock their entire libraries of content, making them available for purchase and customization by consumers. Through Zazzle’s innovative on-demand retail and technology platform, users can instantly create, customize to fit their personal style, purchase and sell a near infinite array of products online.

Here’s an interview I found with the founder of Zazzle.com explaining why he feels his company is so unique:

What People Are Saying About Zazzle

I’ve checked several forums and message boards to find out what others are saying about Zazzle and it’s mostly positive. Anyone that has used Zazzle, either as a buyer or seller, reported being satisfied with the service and quality of the product(s). I did come across a couple a posts that debated whether Zazzle was better than it’s competitors and it seems that is mostly a matter of personal prefence. For the record some of Zazzle’s competitors are CafePress and Artscafe (I haven’t looked at these sites so I don’t what kind of MMO they offer.) I was hoping to find someone who discussed what kind of money they were making with Zazzle but I didn’t find a lot of information on this. Here’s what I did find:

“well, I get a payment every month, but I couldn’t live off of it, even if I didn’t have a family. Some people do very well, but I think it is the very rare case that someone can actually live off of this kind of thing.”
-Posted in the Zazzle forums

Also, I came across a Zazzle Squidoo lens that had poll about how much money people were making monthly on Zazzle. Of the 188 people that voted here’s what they claim to be making:
$0-$49 68.1%
$50-$99 6.4%
$100-$199 3.7%
$200-$299 5.3%
$300-$399 0.5%
$400-$499 2.7%
Over $500 3.7%
Over $1000 9.6%

Not a lot of money but keep in mind that there is no setup fees, no maintainence fees, no web design or programming knowledge required, and no back office administration needed. All you do is come up with the design, upload it to a gallery, market your stuff (recommended), and collect a check (they offer Paypal too). I see little downside.

Any Compliants

No investigation is complete without checking into the company’s reputation. Zazzle.com is listed in Better Business Bureau (BBB) and this what they have to say about them:

Based on BBB files, this company has a satisfactory record with the BBB. A satisfactory record means a company has been in business for at least 12 months, and properly addressed matters referred by the BBB. The company does not have an unusual volume of complaints, or any government actions involving its marketplace conduct. The BBB understands and has no concerns about the company’s products, services and type of business

But no one is perfect. There have been 56 compliants filed against Zazzle in the last 36 months. These compliants were in various areas such as: Advertising, Customer Service, Contract, Service, Refunds, Warranties, and others. All of the issues have been resolved to the satisifation on the BBB, which is good sign. You can read the full report here.

Final Say

Zazzle.com presents an interesting and fun way to make some extra cash. While I don’t think you will retire on what you make from Zazzle it does seem provide another stream of income that takes little time to setup and maintain. Zazzle also provides an opportunity to do some low cost market testing for other products. If come up with a good product that is popular on Zazzle, you can then tale that concept, tweak it, and mass produce for your own store keeping all of the profits for yourself. You can start building your T-shirt empire here