Hello everyone! The past few days have been exciting for my store, Hawke and Bloom. I took care of my Pinterest referral issues and also redesigned/reorganized Hawke and Bloom. It's important to keep the storefront as professional and organized as possible, because it could be the difference between your customer staying and browsing around or leaving your store altogether.
I felt my old storefront was too dark due to the graphics I had chosen for my category images. I had chosen a dark gray border with some simple floral embellishments, but the more I saw it, the more I felt lighter graphics would be more beneficial. The saying "less is more" really does matter when it comes to your storefront.
I decided that since I am a newbie Zazzler who learned some of these lessons the hard way, why not help other newbies avoid some of these mistakes. Here are 3 quick tips to help your Zazzle store stand out from the rest. It's important to make your store stand out from the others. Feel free to share this and comment with your tips as well!
1. Keep It Simple
When I first created my storefront, my aim was to make my store look awesome. What really happened was...it was too busy and too dark. As I looked at other Zazzle stores, I saw a pattern. The more successful stores kept their storefronts light, simple, and clean. I needed to reorganize my store anyway, so I decided to go with a minimal design for my category images. Here's how it looks now:
2. Determining Store Categories
It's really up to you if you decide to organize your store the way I have. You don't have to use images for your store categories to make your store look awesome. I have even seen some stores who don't even organize by categories. Though that would be a lot simpler and less time consuming, I think that there are some cons to that approach.Zazzle customers can always look to the left sidebar and see the product categories Zazzle automatically selects, but what if they are looking for something more specific than "Clothing". For instance, if your customer is looking for a "St. Patrick's Day" t-shirt, do they really want to browse through all of your "Clothing" items for it? Probably not. If they found it through searching Zazzle, that's great, but it's important to make things easier for your potential customers.
If someone were to be at my storefront looking for a "St. Patrick's Day" t-shirt, they would be able to click on my "Holiday Shop" and find it. I have also provided them with a subcategory called "St. Patrick's Day", so they don't have to sift through all of the other holiday items I have.
Another way some Zazzlers like to organize their stores are by design. Here are a couple of stores who use this kind of store organization:
vol.25
Summer Mixtape
There are quite a few pros to organizing by design. Utilizing Zazzle's quick product feature becomes less of a headache when you organize this way. I am a very visual person, so seeing the designs in a larger format makes me more likely to click on them.
Bottom line, how you organize your store is up to you. Do whatever makes sense to you. Before you start adding hundreds of products, write down how you would like to organize your store. When I did my last store overhaul, I jotted down notes and everything went much smoother.
3. Keep At It
The worst thing that can happen is...you've added hundreds or thousands of products and now...it's MESSY! Growing pains can be avoided if you create and stick to your plan. Pick a day every week to go through and check your store's organization. Are their products that are out of place? This is your time to fix it. I guarantee that if you do this regularly, you won't be having a panic attack months down the road due to the shape of your store. While you are at it, check and make sure your Pinterest, Facebook, blog, and/or other social media outlets are organized as well. Pinterest especially can get out of hand.Conclusion
Keeping your store organized and professional doesn't have to be a full-time job. By coming up with a game plan, it allows you to focus more on creating products for your customers. Feel free to share this post with others and comment below with your tips for keeping your Zazzle store in order.Jess
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