Want An Online Store? Here’s How to Build One Using Zazzle.

If you're creative and you are pretty good at making or coming up with your own artwork and designs, you may be able to earn some money on the side selling on Zazzle.

This site reminds me a lot of Cafe Press actually, it is basically the same thing. If you aren't creative but you do have your own blog or website, you can still earn a little bit of money through Zazzle by referring others there to buy products you like.

Setting Up a Store

If you have some designs you'd like to start selling on Zazzle (something you drew either by hand that you can send to your computer or something you made with Photoshop or GIMP), you can set up your own online store for free with Zazzle. It does not cost you anything to do this! Just pick out a name for your store, and follow the steps to get your products listed.

Zazzle has over 350 retail quality products that you can choose from to have your designs/logos printed out on. Here are just a few examples:

Naming Your Price

Zazzle takes a cut of the sale price for actually manufacturing the product for you, but you earn royalties. The royalties are 10 percent of the sales price.

However, you're free to mark prices up 99 percent if you know how much you need to make. But obviously you don't want to mark things up too high or you might have trouble getting sales.

Promoting Your Stuff

Getting the word out about your products is up to you, but Zazzle has some guides and tips to aid you. One idea is to stay on top of current trends and newsworthy events and create relevant designs. These are more likely to sell fast.

Dealing With Customers

Zazzle pretty much handles everything for you. They take care of manufacturing the items and also order processing. So just upload your designs, set up your store, and spread the word.

Making Money as a Zazzle Affiliate

As I mentioned above, you can still make money selling on Zazzle even if you don't know a thing about designing or care that much about setting up your own store.

You can sign up to be an affiliate for Zazzle if you have your own blog or website and then direct people to whatever products on Zazzle that you like. If someone who visits your site sees the Zazzle products you are promoting and decides to buy something, you'll get a 15 percent referral payment from the sale plus a possible 17 percent in volume bonuses.

You can also create products from logos/images you already have on your website through the Zazzle API integration. So for example, if I wanted to, I could sign up with Zazzle and then set up a store with products that have my Real Ways to Earn Money Online logo on them 🙂

That's an idea for you if you already have a website with logos and images in place and you think you could sell products promoting your logo.

Is selling on Zazzle going to replace your income?

I certainly would be afraid to give up my main income sources and concentrate fully on Zazzle, however that's just me.

Also, I think that since there is no risk to you with signing up and it's all free, there is no harm whatsoever in setting up a store (or becoming an affiliate for Zazzle) and just seeing how it does.

For example, even if it doesn't become your full-time income, it could possibly turn into a separate income stream that might come in handy to have on occasion.

  • To learn about setting up a Zazzle store, click here.
  • To learn about becoming a Zazzle Associate (affiliate) and promoting existing products on your blog or website, click here.
  • To learn about Zazzle API integration (creating products off your existing website designs), click here.

BONUS – Interested in a Digital Item You Can Sell On Etsy?

If you are interested in online sales but the idea of heading to the post office to ship out products feels like a massive and time-consuming pain, you may want to consider selling digital products instead.

There are lots of digital products you can sell and you may be thinking e-books and e-courses. Those are great, but they take a great deal of time to put together.

Digital printables are another idea for you! They can be made quickly, and you don't have to have any graphic design experience. Plus, people snatch them up like crazy on sites like Etsy.

Also, there's never any shipping. The people who purchase them will just get a downloadable file to their email, and you get paid. These digital printables can sell over and over once they are made!

For more info, you can sign up for this FREE online workshop hosted by my friend Julie of Gold City Ventures. She made $10,000 in her first year of selling printables on the side.

digital printables workshop

4 thoughts on “Want An Online Store? Here’s How to Build One Using Zazzle.”

  1. I currently have my own Zazzle store and finally became a pro seller. I really enjoy this website and setting up your own store is extremely easy. I show off my designs on FB, Pinterest, Wanelo, and Twitter

  2. I am rather disgruntled with Cafe Press. I’ve had designs (over 100 of them) with them for a long time. Always had the royalties set a $2.00 in my shop but recently, none of my products have been selling in my shop but only in the Cafe Press “market place” and my royalties are dropping to as low as $0.96 on a shirt that sold for $27.00. Really feel I am being cheated and I’m contemplating closing my account.

  3. I’m so, so happy I stumbled across your blog post today, Anna! I was just talking with my mom last night about selling my designs on clothing and such. This is definitely a venue I’m going to be checking into. Thanks for your post! 🙂

    • Be sure to read the Cafe Press post I did last year, too. I think the link for that is in the article above.

      I’m not sure which of those two would be best to use … maybe both?

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