“FREE Jen and Elke’s “150 Trending Zazzle Niches and Designs” Guide”
In this post, I (Elke) discuss how you can expand your current business using the versatile Zazzle platform.
The long and short of it is that there are so many opportunities that exist in Zazzle Platform. It’s a very customizable platform where you can sell in two different ways.
The first way is to sell publicly, allowing any shopper to find your products in the Zazzle marketplace. The second way is privately, and it’s referred to as indirect sales where you have a private link that allows you to drive traffic to that site that looks like your own store, but it’s actually the Zazzle platform.
You can even make money on purchases you make for your own business if you leverage Zazzle Platform as a fulfillment center. All of this and more is explained below so that you can understand how you can start using Zazzle Platform to make more money.
But before we dive right in, let us introduce ourselves in case this is your first visit. Welcome to The Creative and Ambitious Entrepreneur Podcast. We’re your hosts, Jen and Elke Clarke. We are a mother and daughter team that started Zazzle e-commerce businesses over 10 years ago and have sold over 15 million dollars worth and counting of products on Zazzle Platform.
The Creative and Ambitious Entrepreneur Podcast is for you, the creative. We share actionable steps that you can take to make money in your e-commerce business.
ccIn each episode, we will take you one step closer to achieving freedom with your time, location, and finances.
We believe that a profitable e-commerce business is what opens the doors for you to start living your dream life if you work smarter, not harder, use the right tools and follow the proven roadmap. We’re here to give you the tools you need to make your dream life happen. Let’s get started!
You may think that there’s no way to leverage Zazzle Platform for your brick and mortar store. But, there is! Especially since the pandemic hit, it can be tough for physical stores to make the sales they once were. So why not tap into the Zazzle marketplace to help you transition to an online space? Even if you don’t have the ability or desire to head up your own manufacturing, you can still sell online thanks to Zazzle Platform.
Zazzle sources products and takes the onus of manufacturing off of you as the business owner. You can put your designs or logos on products. Here are some examples of businesses with brick and mortar stores in how they can leverage Zazzle Platform for supplemental income.
The first example is a photographer whose bread and butter is portrait photos. As a subset to this focus, a photographer can create extra income on Zazzle Platform by selling items with their landscape or wildlife photos on the products of the customer’s choosing on the platform. This can be on anything – a calendar, mug, printed canvas – you name it. That’s the beauty of Zazzle Platform – there’s so much flexibility.
Another way a photographer can leverage Zazzle Platform is by creating digital designs for things like photo holiday cards. When they have clients that have portraits taken, they can upsell these items, sending them the link to their card designs, allowing customers to customize cards with the photo of their choice. Once a customer purchases cards using one of your designs, you receive commission or a royalty, so that’s extra money in your pocket.
A bakery is another example of a brick and mortar store that can use Zazzle Platform in unexpected ways to generate income. Your bakery likely uses paper products like labels, stickers, flyers, and so on. Instead of printing these items through a graphic designer or using a different service to do so, set up an indirect Zazzle store to print your supplies. This allows you to receive a referral payment and royalty payment every time you order your branded, printed products.
Finally, a restaurant can use Zazzle Platform to its advantage. Restaurant owners can use Zazzle Platform to create swag for their customers, utilizing the platform as their manufacturer. Either order items to use as giveaways or to sell to your customers to make more money.
Your online business can also benefit from the use of Zazzle Platform. In this scenario, it works similarly to how it does to a brick and mortar store. In this case, though, since the business is already online, there’s less of a transition to this space.
The first example I have for this is from a personal experience. I work with a company called Profitable Podcast Productions to produce this podcast. While working with them, they gave me some branded swag. However, they weren’t happy with how their swag turned out, so I introduced them to all that Zazzle can do for them for needs like these, and they can now order all of their swag there to give to their clients.
Not only can they get better quality items and design them the way they want at no extra graphic design cost, they will receive a royalty and referral payout from Zazzle when they order the products from their store to send out to clients. Plus Zazzle ships to specific addresses so the items can be shipped directly to the clients or you can first ship it to yourself and then create welcome packages if you want to add additional items or information. The main point is you earn money from purchasing your own items from your store on Zazzle.
Another example I have for online business owners is from Amy Porterfield where I am a student of her signature course, The Digital Course Academy. She had a branded mug created as a giveaway. This is something they could have done on Zazzle, likely at a lower price thanks to their volume discounts. Plus, they’d be able to create a wealth of other products with their logo with just a few clicks on the platform and even have the option to let her loyal fans purchase additional swag just because they love her and her course, like I do.
Zazzle can help your online business to create swag for your customers that you can giveaway to them, incentivizing them to buy. You can also create your own store that you can give customers the link to so they can shop your swag on their own.
Bloggers and influencers are other online personalities that can utilize Zazzle to generate further income. For instance, The Bloggess is an influencer who’s done this very well. She has a public Zazzle store and she links to the designs she’s created in each blog post so that if the reader resonates with the blog post they can buy the funny image on products that are for sale in The Blogess’s store on Zazzle. This is a fantastic example of leveraging her readers and social media followers to make more income via Zazzle.
Finally, you can use Zazzle to generate more income for your personal brand. The biggest example of this is for artists. This is a great chance to sell designs in the general Zazzle marketplace for any shopper to find and to send your audience indirect links to your specific and more exclusive store.
Artists can take advantage of Zazzle’s advanced printing technology and utilize them as a fulfillment center for art prints or giclees. For customers that love what you create but maybe don’t have the budget to purchase original pieces, you can sell prints of your designs thanks to Zazzle. Even if you’ve sold the original, you still retain the copyright of your design, so it can be reprinted and sold time and time again. Hello profits!
You’ll make commissions on these sales and not have to maintain any inventory on these items, which is the sheer beauty of Zazzle. This is a very economical way to fill orders and to appeal to customers shopping at every price point, as they can have your art printed on anything from a phone case to a mug.
This same principle applies to authors – whether it’s a comic book, children’s book, or fiction or non-fiction work. Of course, before you pursue creating designs on Zazzle using your published work, always consult your contract with your publisher first.
But once you do that, you can create book swag, using illustrations from your book or items that complement your work. This helps add to your book sales income. In fact, this is a very common marketing practice and can be utilized in order to interact more with your audience and make more money, especially if you self-published your book on Amazon KDP for example.
Finally, course creators can use Zazzle to create and sell swag to go along with their courses. For instance, someone who teaches their audience how to make jam can go to Zazzle to create templates for things like stickers, ribbons, bags, and so on.
Then your students can use your template designs to create their own for what they are making from the course ie. in this case their own jams. Also as a course creator you can make and post for sale on your Zazzle store certain types of designs to boost the morale of the people taking your course, or use slogans or logos on certain products like mugs or t-shirts so that the students feel like they are part of your tribe or community.
ANY business can use Zazzle – whether it be as a fulfillment center or as a method of selling their own designs and products. This is an amazing opportunity to work smarter, not harder. It’s not difficult to utilize Zazzle, and grabbing hold of this passive stream of income can really change your bottom line in a positive way.
Thank you so much for reading!
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See you back here next week!
Official Website: https://jenandelkeclarke.com/
Jen’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msjenclarke/
Elke’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elkeclarke/
CEO PWR (formerly Profitable Podcast Productions): https://ceopwr.com/
The Bloggess:
Zazzle Store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/thebloggess/products
Net worth – $1.1 million as of 2021: https://networthpost.org/net-worth/jenny-lawson-net-worth/
One of her top sellers is a photo statue: https://thebloggess.com/2011/07/13/knock-knock-motherfucker-giant-metal-chickens-revisited/
Which she made famous on her blog: https://thebloggess.com/2011/07/13/knock-knock-motherfucker-giant-metal-chickens-revisited/
The Online Business Starter Pack™: https://bit.ly/OnlineBusinessStarterPack
The Profit by Design Academy® Coaching Program: https://elkeclarke.com/startandscale/
Creative and Ambitious Entrepreneur FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/ElkeClarkeZazzleExpert
Jen and Elke Clarke are a mother-daughter duo that empowers women entrepreneurs to make money online. Through courses and coaching, Jen and Elke help women (and men) become successful creative entrepreneurs on Zazzle and e-commerce. Combined Jen and Elke have sold over 15 million dollars-worth of products, and earned over $1.5 million combined through their businesses on Zazzle. Jen and Elke have influenced and transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide with their free content, paid and private coaching.
They are international, award-winning authors. Click the links to purchase their books through Amazon: Earn Around The World and Create Online and Grow Rich.
Jen and Elke Clarke have been featured in Yahoo Finance as TOP 5 e-commerce coaches.
