Zazzle Blog

Just about a month ago we released a new version of search to make the marketplace easier to browse, much more dynamic and even more community powered. With all new features, it’s sometimes hard to predict how users will like it and how they’ll use it, so we decided to test the new search out in beta mode. We’re really glad we did that because we got great feedback from the community and were even able to watch people use it which resulted in new ideas.

In summary, most users loved the new search so much that we’ve decided to switch the site over completely. Starting from today, beta search is not so beta anymore.

Based on the feedback, we’ve added a couple of tweaks that we thought would make the experience better:

1. Share It / Favorite It – You can easily share products through IM or email and add products to your Favorites on every search result page. Pretty cool huh?

2. Shortcuts – One day we noticed in our search logs that a lot of people were searching for “Tinkerbell” but we didn’t do a great job of surfacing all our great Disney content. To solve the problem, we came up with the idea of introducing search shortcuts for certain keywords like Tinkerbell, Tweety Bird, and even where is my order?. There’s a bunch more shortcuts on the site. Maybe you can type in random search terms and try to find them all if you’re bored at work!

3. Awards - Did you know that we give out a lot of awards everyday to the best products? For example, there’s Today’s Best which is chosen by our editors every morning. Every day, we award 10 products with the most views that day per product type. We’ve integrated this right into the search results – now you can check out all the past winners by going to the awards tab and clicking on the calendar to view day by day results. Congrats to all the winners!

PS – Keep watching for more updates. Coming up next there is going to be a new easier way to rate your favorite products.

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Election time is coming and Zazzle is more prepared for it than McCain on a stroll through an Indiana Farmer’s Market. Check out all the sweet election gear that has been compiled into the brand new Zazzle Election Center 2008. We’ve got everything: election t-shirts, Barack Obama t-shirts, Anti-Bush t-shirts, and more! There are so many topics in this thing that it’s better than reading the newspaper (in the mornings I just check the new products to find out what is going on in the world). Basically, if you’ve got an opinion, there’s a product for it… and hey, if you don’t see your point of view represented then make something and we’ll add it to the Election Center. Just design your product, publish it and tag it with “showcaseelections2008” and it will get it in there. Here are two of my personal favorites of Condi, of course these don’t reflect the views of Zazzle.com and insert legal copy here, blah, blah, blah:

Of course this begs the question, if Condoleezza Rice took on the Mr Tyzik (the OG Head Crusher), who would win? my money is on Mr. T, he’s got spunk (and sexy glasses)!

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As you may have heard, on May 14, the USPS is introducing new postage rates. The good ‘ol 39-cent first class stamp that we have loved for the past 1.5 years is being retired. In it’s place, we get the newer and fresher 41-cent stamp. Check out all the rate changes.

As of today, you can get the new 41-cent first-class, 26-cent postcard, and $4.60 priority rates right here on your own Zazzle Custom Stamps. And even better, for a limited time, you can get the new 41-cent Zazzle Custom Stamps for the same price as the old 39-cent ones!! (and same for the 26-cent postcard rates, up from 24-cents).

Start creating Zazzle Custom Stamps now!

Uncle Sam
by
smileycentral

Get this custom postage at Zazzle

For more info, see the news release from the US Postal Service. Other new rates (outside first-class, postcard, and priority) are being reduced! These will be updated prior to the official postage rate change on May 14.

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The new Zazzle Contests (beta) program is alive and kickin’! It’s here to bring you fun and exciting contests that will hook you up with prizes from awesome (like the new Adobe Creative Suite 3) to purely insane (I can’t talk about these… yet… hehe) to reward you for your creative genius.

Our current contest is the “Save the World!”, which started yesterday (runs till 4/20). It’s a contest to design the best Earth Day t-shirt, so strap on your designing shoes and get to work! The winner gets the brand spankin’ new Adobe Creative Suite 3.

Check out the Zazzle Contests section for more info.

Got your own contest idea for Zazzle? Send it to us!

For a long time now, we’ve been selecting products from the marketplace to be showcased on the homepage in Today’s Best. The process for selecting these products is somewhat magical but I can say that it’s strongly dependent on community activity (# of views, sales, favorites, comments, etc).

Starting today, we have a new email alert based off of Today’s Best! Whenever one of your products is added to the list, you’ll be immediately notified so that you can notify your friends and fans of your newfound supremacy! In addition, we have also created a Today’s Best Archive that showcases all of the products that have ever received this prestigious designation.

We’re tremendously excited by the increasing number of products being contributed and we want to leverage the community’s recommendations as much as possible to spotlight the best designs. Stay tuned for many more features and updates related to how products are featured on Zazzle.

I’ve always thought of Zazzle as a great place to buy gifts. With all the user generated products in our marketplace (more being added every single second by awesome designers from around the world!) you’re sure to find something that will even delight those hard-to-shop-for type of people like my dad who pretty much returns everything I buy for him. And if you can’t find something in the marketplace, why not use our design tools and create something from scratch instead?

Ahhh, so many more gift giving possibilities than ever before – don’t you just love the magic of The Long Tail and the democratization of the tools of production.

Since so many people use Zazzle to buy gifts for others, we’re always looking for ways to improve the gift giving experience. Now when you check “My cart contains a gift item” during checkout, we’ll include a gift packing sheet in the box. You’ll definitely earn some brownie points with your friends and family since they’ll know you just bought them a one-of-a-kind product that you helped make.

Here’s a preview of the packing sheet that we’re going to include in every gift shipment. It’s going to be in color too!

So people sometimes wonder if we listen when requests are made for new Zazzle features… Well, let me be the first to tell you that we do! The number one request for Zazzle Custom Stamps has always been new sizes – you asked for ‘em, now you got ‘em. In addition to the original Large size, I would like to introduce you to Medium and Small. These three sizes make up the new collection of Zazzle Custom Stamps, ready for you to stick on your envelopes, on your postcards, on your walls, on your chairs, on your… well you get the idea.

What I love about this is that now I have a stamp that fits even the smallest envelope, so that when I mail invitations for the wedding of myself and Anne Hathaway (…someday…) I know that I can use the Small size, which is just right (we received *lots* of feedback that the Large was too big for invitations specifically). Or, for our business customers who use their logos on Zazzle Custom Stamps, they can choose the Medium or Large sizes, to maximize the impact of their brand on outgoing mailings.

Check below for more detailed sizing information or get started creating now:

Large:

Medium:

Small:

Welcome to the new Zazzle Blog. zNews has been recycled into this great new Zazzle destination, that will actually be updated often *GASP* and I’m here from now on to inform you of all the happenings. So where do we start? It’s been about six months since the last post (ya, lots of heads-down coding)… so, basically I’m going to try and braindump all of the Zazzle updates for the past six months in action-movie-montage-style, or as it’s called in the online world, a blogtage. Here we go, deep breath…

After the release of our Create-a-Product API, we released 12 new product lines (now over 250 styles and colors in apparel), a PayPal earnings integration, a major partnership with The Picture People, thousands of incredible and historically significant images from Getty Image’s Hulton Archive, lots of pet-loving API partners (Purina, Dogster & Catster), classic song lyrics from Authentic Stars (from the Beatles to Skynyrd), Jessica Alba and others supporting the HSUS in our Sealed with a Kiss program, new gallery templates for those who contribute (which should be you!), waaaay better image management in MyZazzle, a Gift Center to help for those special occasions, design tool optimization for even speedier drag-and-drop ajax customization, a new feedback email address to capture your input (feedback@zazzle.com) and other stuff that the last episode of “Heroes” just evicted from my head…. Wow, that was a lot of typing, feeling light headed….room spinning….

(2 minutes later…)

Well, now that the floor and I have been properly introduced, let me also fill you in on what is happening around the Zazzle office. We’ve grown pretty dramatically since that last post… in fact, as I’m writing this, I’m wedged tightly in between Darren and Jan (two of our black belt UI developers) on a coffee table. Darren smells especially good today (he must’ve actually showered… nice!).

Anyhew, when meetings started happening in our lobby, the shower room, and even on the street, we knew it was finally time to upgrade. So we’re in the process of moving to a glorious new building at the Pacific Shores Center. It’s bigger, brighter and has lots of incredible shared amenities, including a huge gym with a rock climbing wall, a basketball court, swimming pool (we’re holding out until spring on that one), a 20-person jacuzzi (we’re there), softball, volleyball, and even a bocce ball court. It’s glorious. We’re never going home. I will have pictures from the move soon so that you can see the happy Zazzlers in their natural environment (please don’t feed them, it’s not wise).

So that is really it, and from now on I, the Zazzle Blogger (er Zlogger?), promise to deliver relevant and interesting posts at least once a week to ensure you’re up to date on what’s going on at Zazzle. And, hey, if you’ve got a great Zazzle story to share, send it my way and I will get it up here for everyone else to read.

That is all for now…be ready for more soon…