Zazzle: Personalizing Merchandise For Fun and Profit
This is the first review in our series of printing applications. For an introduction to this category please check out: Printing Online: Customizing Merchandise With Web 2.0.
Zazzle is a print-on-demand solution for the individual, but don’t let that dissuade you from considering the potential for business and marketing. With several unique customizable products and a rating system to make it fun for the Zazzle community, Zazzle is an application that could make more people aware of your brand.
The folks at Zazzle have created their interface in a way that might seem familiar to users - it looks and acts like a shopping site. There’s a reason for this, which is that Zazzle wants to be the marketplace for your merchandise and has created directories and incentives to make that happen. From royalties for referred products to an easy drop down list of products, Zazzle has created a space where it’s not only easy to sell your product, but also peruse the hundreds of tagged, searchable products users have created. Users can comment, rate, share products or create their own customized merchandise.
Zazzle also understands that everybody doesn’t have the time or resources to create their own graphics, so they’ve included a design tool along with the ability to upload your own image. Change text, color, backgrounds, and placement to make the product to your liking - and there are a lot of merchandise options to choose from. In addition to the stationary and clothing that they offer, they have made shoes and skateboards available for customizing.
The real advantage of Zazzle is how searchable it is; in addition to the search bar and lengthy category lists, you can tag your products, as well as use widgets and embeddable Flash in your sites. For site owners, there is also an API that is available for download, though Zazzle operates with cURL and php, so only users with a hosted site will be able to take advantage of it.
Zazzle is cleary designed with Zazzle in mind, which is to say that the company wants to handle the transactions for your creations. Incentives, hosted widgets, and strong Zazzle branding on your hosted page may not entice business users, but for users that are looking to personalize merchandise (and maybe make some cash), Zazzle is good place to start. To find applications like Zazzle, there is the Listio search: customize+merchandise.
Previously in this series: Printing Online: Customizing Merchandise With Web 2.0
Next in this series: VistaPrint: Online Printing With Paper
Application: ZazzleListio Profile: http://www.listio.com/web20/app/Zazzle/
Website: http://www.zazzle.com
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Tags: business, create, customize, merchandise, personal, personalize
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