As you may or may not know, I've been working all year preparing items for my Zazzle store front. I've been excited about this project and have indeed been working for months on merchandise. So far I have eight departments. Art, Home, Cards, Clothing, Jewelry, etc with close to two hundred items in my store.
Oh, I've had so much fun, some days flew by, I worked well into the night, actually the wee small hours of the morning.
I've slacked off some working at my store the last few weeks because there have been other summer projects going on in my life. So, when I did finally check on my store I discovered that Zazzle had been busily at work as well. They completely changed my store front. I was shocked beyond belief. I was in a tizzy. My daughter and I had worked sooo hard, and just like that (imagine me snapping my fingers) poof, my store front was gone, Zazzle had replaced it with a bland, boring, black and white substitute. My logo was gone, my department tabs were gone. My color scheme was gone.
Boy, did I ever need my anxiety medication...where the heck did I put it?
This week my daughter and I have been working to get back my familiar Zazzle look. We've discovered that's not going to happen. As near as we can figure out Zazzle is adapting their site to accommodate the small electronic, hand held devices rather that laptops and home computers, and (I'm not an Einstein here) apparently the buzz words are, simplify, simplify, simplify. The web site needs to be crisp, clean, easy to maneuver, and above all quick, to accommodate the short attention span everyone seems to have these days, and the fact they must do things as they are dashing between appointments, driving down the freeway, going through fast-food driveways or sitting at their son's/daughter's soccer game.
Isn't it nice to know so much thought is being put into your wedding, birthday and Christmas present? Yes, I know, I know this sounds like sour grapes. You're right it is.
However, I also know, we can't stop progress. I'm going to have to get my store on board, or get out of Dodge. Will Zazzle care if it loses one store front? Heck no. Do I want to leave Zazzle? Heck no. But I do regret that my store front is now going to look like everybody else's. Heck yeah. Every one's store will have the same fonts, the same backgrounds, the same layout...the uniqueness of each store front already gone.
It's sad, I'm disappointed. I've been trying to come up with new tabs for my store departments to give my store front a little pzazz...so far I've made six styles...I don't like any of them...I'm disillusioned. This morning I went to my store, looked around, and left...the spark is gone.
My daughter and I have decided that perhaps Zazzle has not completed their changes and with time will bring some of the old features back, or at least make the new features more friendly to small shop keepers like myself and allow for more individualization. We're going to give them six months. In the mean time I'm going to concentrate on making new merchandise, and hope that my bland store front will not put customers into a stupor.
You got yourself one chance, Zazzle...do me proud.
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