I have updated this article to reflect new policies by both Etsy and Zazzle – please see HERE for the new article.
AchillesPortfolio
The Illustrations and Blog of Pat Achilles
I have updated this article to reflect new policies by both Etsy and Zazzle – please see HERE for the new article.
AchillesPortfolio 
I have been selling on Etsy for about 5 years now. Nothing huge but enough to make a few hundred bucks a year. Something I recently noticed is that unless I promote my own items I get few sales. Once I repost them to Twitter and Pinterest along with other sites then I start getting sales again. Etsy does offer the ability to pay for promotions but I opt not to do that since I have only a few items.
On the other hand, I’ve only recently started setting up shop with Zazzle after hearing of a few who are turning six figures after only 4+ years on Zazzle. I’m going to give it a try since I won’t have to send my items out for printing, I can have a huge variety of items for one design and now they have it so you can choose to give the customer the opportunity to change the text. I opt NOT to so the customer will only be able to change the color of their fabric or style and size in which they want.
Also, since Zazzle makes a profit only if you do, they do all the promoting for you! Also, you can promote other’s items on your own site and receive a referral amount from those sales as well.
We’ll see how it goes. I don’t plan to go live with my stores until just before Black Friday! That way my items will show up on the new items and hopefully get better recognition and sales.
Hi Debra, thanks for your input – I can certainly understand your comments. I’ve read great success stories with Zazzle as well, and it might just be the type of images I create, or the amount of time I have (or have not) devoted to my Zazzle store that makes the difference. Great point that Zazzle has some investment in your success because they make money on their production end of it. And yes, around Black Friday is the optimum time to push for sales, I’m looking toward that as well. Best of luck in your business this year!
Debra, if you’d like to mention your Zazzle site address, I’d love to take a look.