Welcome back to my 2 part series on Selling your Art on POD Websites: Zazzle vs Society6!
I hope you’ve had a chance to read Part 1, but if not you can do so here.
Now, carrying on from where we left off….
Payment
On Zazzle you will get paid once your balance clears $50. You can request a payout to Paypal, or reach $100 to request a cheque.
Society6 pays automatically to Paypal, any balance on the 1st of the month following the 30 day clearance period. I am not sure if any other payment methods are available from them.
Product Quality
As you can see, I have ordered a few items for myself from both stores. Overall, I have been happy with my purchases from Zazzle and Society6.
It’s hard to compare the quality of items since I’ve purchased different types of items from each store. However, I think the products on Society6 look slightly nicer.
Society6 carries American Apparel brand, so their apparel is consistent quality but not *the best* in my opinion (shirts are a little thin). The cell phone case I purchased from them was OK, but didn’t provide much in the way of protection for my phone. The design looked quite nice and crisp however.
I ordered a biker tank from Society6 which has a nice image, but is very large (granted, it was unisex).
Zazzle’s t-shirts are nice quality but the print fades after awhile (after several washes), which is to be expected. Some mugs I received looked OK but the image was little fuzzy. This may have been my fault due to not uploading high enough quality images).
Another point about Zazzle is that there are A LOT of products to choose from, and new items are added on a regular basis. This can be a little overwhelming. But, since there are so many options you can create niche stores for things like just t-shirts or baked goods or only home decor products for example. Personally, I am a little haphazard in my store and just make whatever my designs look the best on!
Society6 has a more refined list of products available in their store but they do add new products quite often. Their recently added throw blankets look really nice and cozy.
Marketing of Products
Zazzle takes the cake in this regard, for having the simplest marketing options available. They have an easy “sharing” section on the product page where you can copy and paste different links, share to social media, or select a nicely laid out clickable product image with options for both HTML or BBCode. You don’t need to know any coding or even have an image editing software in order to advertise your products.
Under Zazzle‘s Affiliates section you will find various sized banners which you can use to generate referral traffic. If someone makes a purchase through those links you will receive referral income. Keep in mind — you can also received referral income on your own products ON TOP of your regular royalty!
Society6 has a curator link (similar to an affiliate link) on each product page. You can receive royalty on your own products or anyone else’s using this link.
One marketing initiative that Society6 does well is they will send an email before a big sale, such as Black Friday for example. In this email they provide you with templates overlays to help you create ads for your store so they look nice and consistent.
Shipping Costs
Unfortunately the shipping costs to Canada on Zazzle can be pretty high. If you are in the U.S. however, then their shipping rates are more affordable. They even have free shipping promotions (only one time in a year did I see this promotion though).
Society6, on the other hand, often has FREE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE promotions. Sometimes the promotion is site-wide, while other times they give you a special link for just your friends and customers. However, not ALL products qualify for free shipping, like the framed prints. They do a promotion like this just about once a month though which is awesome.
Summary of Zazzle vs. Society6
So which one of these websites is better?
I think that is something you have to decide for yourself! There are a lot of factors to take into consideration such as your art style, how comfortable you are with HTML coding, and how much time you have to put the work in for designing and advertising your products.
In my opinion, if you’re trying to sell prints of your fine art then Society6 might be better for you. If you like design and making text-based graphic t-shirts and invitations then Zazzle will be your thing. Try both and see what works for you!
For me, having stores on both websites is great for maximizing exposure. I also sell on a few other websites like Redbubble, Teepublic and Amazon Merch.
I hope you have found this guide detailing the differences between Zazzle vs Society6 useful. Feel free to leave any questions or comments below, and follow my blog if you like what you’ve seen here!
You may also like these posts:
- Selling your art on POD websites: Redbubble vs. Society6
- Selling your art on POD websites: Redbubble Edition
- Selling your art on POD websites: Teepublic Edition
- Where to Sell your Art Online
Cheers,
Another great comparisonpost. Thanks a lot, Julie!
You’re very welcome! Glad you found it helpful :)
My experience with S6… I’ve had my Society6 tee for over a year and there has been no fading from washing. I wear it at least once per month and got it a bit small (medium fits snug, I usually wear large to fit loose) and I haven’t seen any gaps in the seams (I see that a lot with cheaper shirts I’ve gotten). I also got a tote bag that I use a LOT (abuse really). Super well made and the image is still super crisp and I washed it in hot water at least three times over the past year.
I’m glad that you are having success with the sites! I think my issue is self-promotion. I have quite a few profiles and never really knew which one would be best to tell people about.
I was directed to deviantART by a friend about 10yrs ago or so. Then later another friend suggested CafePress. I don’t even remember how I found Society6 (probably just a generic Google search for POD art sites). The other site I have a profile on but don’t use is imagekind which is JUST for wall prints but puts the images into these wonderful images (walls of differet kinds of rooms). I think I had heard of Fina Art America but haven’t looked into it. No sales on anything but Society6 and even then only one or two since 2012. :-/
I like the Zazzle referral thing! I tried to do the curator thing on Society6 but it wasn’t very user friendly in my opinion. Thanks for telling what you did! I may have to try this. I’m using free WP.com but I’ll see if I can make it work.
Thanks for a great post! ^_^
Thank you for sharing your experience with us Niccolea! You should be able to use Zazzle promotional tools on your blog too, I am also using free wp.com I just paid to be able to use my own domain name :)
As for promoting on social media I use the ones I use the most myself. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter mostly. Also Pinterest.
I have a Pinterest just to collect my things I like, but I don’t know how to use it for promotion. Have you written a post about promoting yourself?
No actually, not yet! I don’t have a huge following on there yet and am still learning how to use it for promotion. Finding your way onto group boards seems to be the best bet for me so far!
Cool! Well I’ll be looking forward to your new posts of your art and things! :-)
This was incredibly helpful! I agree you have to find what works best for yourself but your opinions were a great point of reference. Thanks!
I’m so glad you found it helpful! Thanks for your comment :)
Hi Julie, I used too many POD sites for my artwork. After a while, I crashed and deleted all but two accounts. Now, I have RedBubble and I just began Society6. I have sold work through RedBubble and I like to quality of their products. However, Society6’s website design is much better (except for the apparel). RedBubble presents your work on apparel better and it’s easier to place work on items precisely the way you want it. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for your input Eric! I also found that I stretched myself thin having too many stores. I have now cut it back to the top 3 on which I have had the most success, those being Zazzle, S6 and Redbubble. I think it’s better to focus on a few so you can spend more time making art instead of uploading to all these different websites! That said, I think it’s also important to try different sites to find which ones work best for you and your style.
I have just started thinking about getting some prints made of my artwork, but I’m not sure if either of these options are good for me just yet. I am still doing some investigating. Thank you for your post.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you found some good info here to help you decide! If you have any questions I can try to help :) Cheers ~
Thank you so much for writing this! I’m just getting started with Zazzle (as an art student anything to make money creatively while still having time for school is super appealing haha) and this has been really helpful in understanding how it works as well as seeing there are other potential opportunities as well :) This may be a silly question but do you sell the same designs on Zazzle and Society6? Are there any rules about that?
Hey Rose, that’s a great question actually! You are free to use the same images on Society6 and Zazzle as they are your own art work. I use some of the same designs on both. For me it depends on the products and what looks good. Also on Zazzle I find typographic designs and different styles sell better than on S6 so that will dictate what designs I use. Hope that makes some sense!
Thanks a lot Julie. Planning to start selling my designs online and needed something like this to help me decide. Really helpful!!
I’m so glad you found it helpful Julian! Thanks for stopping by ~
Thanks for this, Julie. I’ve not come across Zazzle. Looks like Society6 is better choice for me anyway.
Hey! I’m glad you found it useful. Thanks for stopping by :)
I’ve been using Zazzle and have been quite satisfied with the products as well as the design options. I signed on with Society6 with the intention of adding referral links to my blog, and then I was considering running both but not sure it will be worth the extra work for me at this time. Have you started with DeviantART yet? I need to go to bed instead of further researching right now. Can I share my zazzle link here so you can see what I did? I’m happy to answer questions if anyone has them. https://www.zazzle.com/debnation
Hi Debora, your artwork looks really cool! I would just keep adding to your store. You might still consider opening a Society6 store since they have a different audience than Zazzle. I used to have DeviantArt a long time ago but never used them to sell anything.