Zazzle Blog

We’d like to thank everyone who made it to the Zazzle Open House / Lunch 2.0 on November 9th. We had over 300 people attend and the team really enjoyed showing everyone around the office. If you weren’t able to make it, check out some photos that were taken from around the office. A number of folks also took pics during the event (links below).

• Flickr set from Rob Greenleaf
• Flickr set from Stuart Liroff
• Flickr set from Eric Gonzalez

If you enjoyed your visit and would like to spend more time at Zazzle, check out our jobs page. We’re hiring for a number of positions! You can read more about what we’re up to, our culture and why we’re excited about the future in our recently updated About Us section.

We are very proud to launch a partnership with edun LIVE, an ethical t-shirt company launched in 2005 by Ali Hewson and Bono with a mission to drive sustainable employment in sub-Saharan Africa. Many of you might have noticed the five new edun LIVE shirt styles while browsing the site and this means you can:

• Purchase designs from the marketplace on edun LIVE shirt styles (available under the “sustainable” category on every product page)
• Create and buy your own shirt designs on an edun LIVE shirt
• Create and post for sale your shirt designs on an edun LIVE shirt for othes to buy

Whenever a design is purchased on an edun LIVE shirt, a portion of the sale proceeds go directly to edun LIVE so they can create more jobs and grow their business. In addition, the shirts are very high quality and incredibly soft … many of us here in the office are now wearing them.

Sell designs on edun LIVE shirts

If you’d like to help support edun LIVE, make sure that you select an edun LIVE shirt as the default shirt style. Then, potential buyers will see your shirt design on an edun LIVE shirt when they first view the page. In addition, you can spotlight the meaning behind the edun LIVE shirts in your product description and include a link to the edun LIVE info page on Zazzle as a way to give your buyers more background on the organization.

Lastly, we’re excited to spotlight the new edun LIVE shirts in the recently launched Merch Store application on Facebook. To show your designs on edun LIVE shirts within your merch store, you’ll need to:

1. Add the merch store application on Facebook
2. Make sure you’re Zazzle username is listed on the settings page
3. Select the edun LIVE shirts as the default shirt style (either when publishing your product or on the “edit product” page)

Learn more about the edun LIVE and Zazzle partnership

- Josh Reeves

P.S. Show your support for edun LIVE by visiting the edun LIVE gallery on Zazzle and also becoming a fan of the edun LIVE profile page on Facebook.

It’s been over a year since our Summer 2006 BBQ at Zazzle HQ (photos) and we figured it was time for another lunch, especially since we’re in a new office! If you’re in the Silicon Valley area on November 9th, feel free to stop by for a good meal and the chance to meet the Zazzle team. Here are the details:

• Location: 1900 Seaport Blvd, 4th Floor, Redwood City, CA 94063
• Date: Friday, November 9th, 12-2 PM
• Food: We’ll have plenty!
• Who: Open to everyone, feel free to invite your friends!
• RSVP on Facebook or by leaving a comment to this blog post.

We look forward to seeing you!

We’re excited to be releasing some gallery updates today and stay tuned because we’re going to be making some big improvements in the next weeks and months.

It was just last summer when we launched revamped contributor galleries and we’ve seen some wonderful galleries created over the past year. In that time, we also made updates such as the introduction of fan clubs and improvements to the gallery wall.

With this release, we’ve now revised the galleries to significantly improve product browsing (see screenshot below and here for an example). Your actual products are shown at a larger size and the design is displayed when the user mouses over the product. This impacts the products shown on the gallery homepage as well as the browsing experience when users click “Products” to view all products in the gallery.

Based on what we’ve learned from changes in the marketplace, the change will make it easier for visitors to find products they like (increasing conversion) and best of all, the products now blend much better into the gallery theme that you’ve selected or created. In addition, the overall gallery experience (buttons, header, etc.) now fits with the new Zazzle style guide and you’ll notice that there is no longer a green strip across the top of every gallery.

Keep visiting the Zazzle blog and forum to stay updated on the upcoming gallery changes. Your feedback and input are a very important part of our development efforts!

- Josh Reeves, Product Team

P.S. We’ve also made a small change in MyZazzle to move the royalty and referral earnings links from the “My Accounts” section to the “My Earnings” section.

Updated Gallery:

Old Version:

For all you Bebo lovers out there, it’s time to get excited! We’ve teamed up with Bebo to launch a “Back 2 School T-shirt Contest”! The submission deadline is September 28th at midnight and the only rule is that the design must include the Bebo logo. The Grand Prize winner will receive 10 free t-shirts with their design on them and a $200.00 gift certificate on Zazzle. The Honorable Mention Winners will receive $100 gift certificates on Zazzle.

• Learn how to enter at http://www.bebo.com/tshirts
• Browse and rate the submissions at http://www.zazzle.com/bebocontest

P.S. Don’t forget that the deadline to enter the Talk Like a Pirate Contest is September 16th at Midnight.

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Sweepstakes:

Dancing with the Stars just finished a great third season and we know many of you don’t want the dancing to stop. The Dancing with the Stars tour is kicking off in a few weeks and one lucky person is going to win a free trip to the July 6th performance in Atlantic City! Performers include Joey Fatone and Kym Johnson, Drew Lachey and Cheryl Burke, and more!

Visit the contest page to learn more and enter.
The submission deadline is 11:59 PM (PST) on June 24, 2007.

Contest:

In addition to the sweepstakes, we also wanted to give all of you creative folks out there a chance to make some awesome designs!

• Theme: Products that make you want to cut a rug, drop it likes it’s hot, get down, and basically just scream “YEAH!” So put on your dancing shoes and lace ‘em up tight like John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever” because the competition is tight and you gotta get going now to do the Charleston with class. Some examples for inspiration include breakdance, Move My Body, Disco Queen, dance macabre and ice princess.
• Contest Prize! $1,000.00 USD – COLD HARD CASH: whatever you want to do with it

Visit the contest page to learn more and enter. View Entries »
The submission deadline is 11:59 PM (PST) on July 1st, 2007.

Gallery comment wall with two new tabs

We’re constantly working to improve your experience on Zazzle and this often times includes a lot of iteration. We’re always excited to launch big new features and changes on the site and we also like to make small tweaks that sometimes can go unnoticed. Recently, the gallery wall was changed to include two new tabs, shown in the screenshot below.

We launched the gallery wall last summer and we’ve seen many users using it as a way to share feedback and also leave notes for their fellow users. The comment wall has existed on product pages for a few years and it’s been great to see the frequency and types of comments changing over time. What was lacking, however, was an easy way to understand what was being said across all of your products. With the two new tabs, we hope you will find it easier to share your thoughts, provide feedback and inspire others.

Updating your profile

The Zazzle Inzider wanted to give everyone the tip that they should update their “about” pages. This page is a great way to introduce yourself to the Zazzle community and also put a face to your name. More updates to come over the next several weeks … stay tuned! For some example about pages that look really good, check out Alejandro and yanmos.

Drum roll please … and we have a winner!! Two actually!! A Crown for Dad t-shirt by SBCSTUDIO from Connecticut, USA was the winner in the Father’s Day category and Class of 2007 Graduation t-shirt by Mariah (buttonZup) from USA was the winner in the Graduation category. Congrats to both of you! We had 100+ submissions to the contest and you can check out more details at the contest center.

Winners!

• A Crown for Dad t-shirt by Darien (SBCSTUDIO) from Connecticut, USA will be receiving $500.00 cash and a Zazzle tie of her own creation.

• Class of 2007 Graduation t-shirt by Mariah (buttonZup) from USA will be receiving $500.00 and a Zazzle framed print up to $250.00 in value!