Today there was an interesting and valuable discussion in the Zazzle Forum on limiting product creation to only those product types that are included in Zazzle's directory of departments/product types found in the MarketPlace. (In the Basic ProDesigner forum).
To save you the click through, a designer was disappointed to discover that lapel pins were not included in the directory and the only way to find any was to type those two words into the search window. She has decided to only design for product types that are in the directory.
A similar approach has worked well for us in phone/electronics cases.
Yes, we could design one case to represent all because the customer can easily change the phone model and even change to iPads and iPods. But that isn't really how these sales work. If I am looking for a case for my iPhone 6, I would find the iPhone 6 category and start looking from there rather than simply paging through designs regardless of phone.
You can sometimes get a glimpse of what a customer has customized and bought when you click through to the product page from your historical royalties. The color of a cap or shirt style for example. The same is true on phone cases and it is a rare instance in which someone customized one case model for another.
So we create for each new model, even to individual styles of the same model if they are listed as separate categories (Tough and Barely There for example). It is also important because there are descriptive categories such as protective and slim along with brands.
As part of this process, we have started a first-in-first-out cycle in retiring products. It keeps the store tidy. (No one would be buying an iPhone 3 cases from us anyways.)
We are in that process now, turning Galaxy S6s into S7s. We have about 1,500 designs so it is not a pretty sight, especially with reCAPTCHA.
At a minimum, this type of new product creation gives your old product a new view, giving it another 180 days in the MarketPlace plus an MP boost along with the new product.
I have been taking these 1,500 opportunities to get a new product that is superior to the old in either design, title or tags. Sometimes in all three.
To save you the click through, a designer was disappointed to discover that lapel pins were not included in the directory and the only way to find any was to type those two words into the search window. She has decided to only design for product types that are in the directory.
A similar approach has worked well for us in phone/electronics cases.
Yes, we could design one case to represent all because the customer can easily change the phone model and even change to iPads and iPods. But that isn't really how these sales work. If I am looking for a case for my iPhone 6, I would find the iPhone 6 category and start looking from there rather than simply paging through designs regardless of phone.
You can sometimes get a glimpse of what a customer has customized and bought when you click through to the product page from your historical royalties. The color of a cap or shirt style for example. The same is true on phone cases and it is a rare instance in which someone customized one case model for another.
So we create for each new model, even to individual styles of the same model if they are listed as separate categories (Tough and Barely There for example). It is also important because there are descriptive categories such as protective and slim along with brands.
As part of this process, we have started a first-in-first-out cycle in retiring products. It keeps the store tidy. (No one would be buying an iPhone 3 cases from us anyways.)
We are in that process now, turning Galaxy S6s into S7s. We have about 1,500 designs so it is not a pretty sight, especially with reCAPTCHA.
At a minimum, this type of new product creation gives your old product a new view, giving it another 180 days in the MarketPlace plus an MP boost along with the new product.
I have been taking these 1,500 opportunities to get a new product that is superior to the old in either design, title or tags. Sometimes in all three.
From a Galaxy S6 to a much more interesting Galaxy S7.
The plaid was enlarged and turned 45 degrees.
The plaid was enlarged and turned 45 degrees.
Same design, different title and Power Tags.
To make the changes took us about 15 - 30 seconds per new phone case. That is a lot if you add it all up, but were are doing this over the course of a couple of weeks, so it is not so noticeable. And we hope these improvements will generate sales.
If a product has sales or many views, we rarely make any change.
Some cases did not get re-created. If we hated the design and it did not have any views, it is out. So we are not re-creating every design. Maybe 10% are being dropped this time.
When this re-creation cycle is done, we will retired the S4s. All those except those having sold will be set to "Direct Only".
We would never have the time to review the titles and tags of 1,500 S6s. But this sequential approach to improving our products will eventually get us where we want to be. And we are learning along the way. We will use this process on S8s.
We hope it is a helpful idea. It is another tortoise and hare approach which we initially recommended on Passing Thru.
By the time we are done creating for Galaxy S83 we should have a pretty small but powerful line. ;-)
If a product has sales or many views, we rarely make any change.
Some cases did not get re-created. If we hated the design and it did not have any views, it is out. So we are not re-creating every design. Maybe 10% are being dropped this time.
When this re-creation cycle is done, we will retired the S4s. All those except those having sold will be set to "Direct Only".
We would never have the time to review the titles and tags of 1,500 S6s. But this sequential approach to improving our products will eventually get us where we want to be. And we are learning along the way. We will use this process on S8s.
We hope it is a helpful idea. It is another tortoise and hare approach which we initially recommended on Passing Thru.
By the time we are done creating for Galaxy S83 we should have a pretty small but powerful line. ;-)
RSS Feed
