We have rock star engineering talent at Zazzle, and we accomplish some pretty phenomenal things. The tech blog is our place to toot our own horn from time to time, and your place to learn about some of the interesting innovations that may not be so obvious on first look. Expect a range of posts, from the brief did-you-know-that… variety to full blown and deep technical tutorials of the tips, tricks, and techniques variety.
You will see an array of different personalities showing up on this blog, representing our venerable technical staff.
March 27, 2007 at 11:25 am |
Nice blog — you show your bona fides by working with WordPress!
Over at Irregular Times, we have worked with CafePress for years, and just now we’ve decided to start transitioning over to Zazzle because of some of the offerings you have — including organic and American Apparel shirts for men, women AND kids. That is a huge attraction. We have a lot of designs we’re looking to migrate over…
But unfortunately, I’ve just been informed by Zazzle help folks that it is not currently possible to limit sales to particular apparel items. For the liberal/progressive community we work with, it’s really important to know about ethical sourcing of shirts, and for that reason we’d like to be able to limit sales of our designs to American Apparel shirts.
On the tech end, would it be at all possible to allow Zazzle Contributors to choose which shirt types they’d like to make available for sale (ex. organic men’s shirt, organic women’s shirt, but not baby onesie)? Such a tech innovation wouldn’t cut any sellers’ options — they would only increase the ability of sellers to market to particular niches if they chose to. The innovation would help me feel comfortable bringing our shirt designs over to Zazzle. Without that possibility, right now we just can’t do that.
What do you think?
March 29, 2007 at 8:09 am |
Jim-
This is a great idea – and something we definitely hope to offer in the future. Right now on Zazzle, all of the styles are available to buyers — which gives the buyer a lot of choise – and we don’t offer any way for contributors to limit the selection. The cool part is that with a very large majority of sales, the buyer actually does changes either the style or color before making their purchase.
However, I definitely understand your specific concerns and you have some great reasons why this makes sense for every contributor to have the choice to limit styles available. We definitely plan to offer this in the future. In the meantime, you can choose the proper American Apparel styles as default when you publish the product so those will be pre-selected.
For your community, you can be assured that we take the ethical sourcing of shirts very seriously and only use brands and/or specific t-shirt products that meet those guidelines. But in any case, we plan that in the future you would be able to choose the selection of products available yourself.
Thanks,
Josh
March 30, 2007 at 9:03 am |
Josh,
Thank you so much for writing back. I really, really, sincerely appreciate it.
I notice that over in the blog area describing various shirts that the branding, certification and sourcing of the shirts is not disclosed — except for the American Apparel shirts, whose sourcing American Apparel talks directly about.
Would it be possible to get information on that?
I am glad to hear you’ll be adding that option in the future. When that happens, we’ll start offering shirts. Until then, we’ll stick to other items.
Best,
Jim
Irregular Times
March 31, 2007 at 8:27 am |
Having lived abroad, I know first hand how few choices there can be for families trying to survive in a third-world economy. Sometimes changes in working conditions that seem very small to us can make a very big difference in their lives. A small amount of pressure from American consumers can make those changes happen.
I appreciate the effort Jim over at Irregular Times has made to provide information about ethical choices for online sales. Right now I am using two of the companies he has written about, and am satisfied that the products I offer are produced without sweatshop labor. I will be interested to see what Zazzle will be able to offer in the future.
April 11, 2007 at 3:44 am |
Just a follow-up here. Do you have information on the sourcing and certification of your non-American-Apparel shirts? It would be helpful to make that available if you’re doing the good job you say you are on ethical sourcing. Could you pass that information on, or point to a place where it is available?
April 14, 2007 at 7:05 am |
Hi Jim-
We realized we don’t have the information all in one place so we are trying to pull it together to share on the website. Our primary brands are American Apparel, Bella, Hanes, Anvil, Next Level Apparel and Vapor Apparel, and you can check through the details for each of these brands. Sorry for the delay – the Tech Blog isn’t the best way to reach me, please send me a note at community at zazzle dot com.
Thanks,
Josh
June 3, 2007 at 8:39 pm |
You guys do a great job. Think this is a great idea.
July 25, 2007 at 4:27 pm |
Funny Shirts
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September 29, 2008 at 8:02 am |
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January 7, 2009 at 5:26 am |
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