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Hi, Does anyone have an opinion on deleting products? I have a few questions.
1. Could deleting about 1000 products from one store affect MP placing or affiliates?
2. I hear that if affiliates find many broken links they may drop you, is this true?
3. How many is too many to delete?
4. Would it be better to get rid of 200 a week over 5 weeks?
5. Is it affected by the number of products deleted or the proportion compared to the store as a whole?
The store has over 100,000 products so it would be less than 1%
6. Could deleting them have an affect on the rest of the store?
Info...
- Deleting is preferable to 'direct only' , as they are sub-standard designs with errors (eg. poor fit of image on product).
- About 99% of the products were made over a year ago, there have been about 3 sales from these designs.
- None of the designs have reviews.
- They are abstract, not niche (eg wedding).
Has anyone had experience of the affect of deleting products?
Many thanks for any help or opinions.
Anna
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Groups: ProSeller
Joined: 12/3/2010
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You could initially set them as direct only and keep an eye on them for a few weeks or so, you will be able to tell any which are being promoted or are just popular.
If you put them all together in a single category and make that hidden, then it will be easier to check them all. If any of them have not even been viewed the you could safely get rid of them, likewise if they've only had a single view and you know that was you checking them when you made them.
I've done this with some of my earlier designs which I'm no longer happy with.
Steve.
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Steve Crompton wrote:You could initially set them as direct only and keep an eye on them for a few weeks or so, you will be able to tell any which are being promoted or are just popular.
If you put them all together in a single category and make that hidden, then it will be easier to check them all. If any of them have not even been viewed the you could safely get rid of them, likewise if they've only had a single view and you know that was you checking them when you made them.
I've done this with some of my earlier designs which I'm no longer happy with.
Steve. Thanks for the reply. How many did you delete at once? Did you notice any effect?
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Quote:How many did you delete at once? Did you notice any effect? I didn't have a large number I actually wanted to get rid of, and I suppose I was deleting them in ones and twos - most though are still there in the hidden category and getting some views. With many of the things I was unhappy with or discovered mistakes, I've customised them into new versions, or made completely new ones from scratch. I suppose it's difficult to know if deleting them will have any effect, as once you've deleted them you can't know whether it would have been different had you left them (if you follow me!). Steve.
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Steve Crompton wrote:...
I suppose it's difficult to know if deleting them will have any effect, as once you've deleted them you can't know whether it would have been different had you left them (if you follow me!).
Steve. Yup I follow you. It is difficult to know what to do. About 600 of the 1000 products had zero views. Those 600 have been deleted. Of the 400 remaining products 53 have had views in the past month. There have been about 3 sales from the products in total. Wonder if anyone noticed an overall change in the store / referrals after having whole ranges of products removed for another reason, eg. a change in rules, or removed for possibly infringing copyright. The effect on the store overall might be similar. If affiliates drop a store because of dead links, do they drop the seller's other stores to? If a store is dropped from an affiliate list, is it sometimes done by software, do they tend to check what happened? Just trying to judge the risk of loosing referrals if blocks of products are deleted.
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I think a lot of Affiliates use RSS feeds to get the products and in that case they are unlikely to even notice any changes.
Any affiliates who hand pick products from stores or the MP to add to a website etc are more likely to notice, but I think from threads I've seen in the forums it's unlikely that a single broken link would lead a promoter to completely drop everything by a particular artist.
With the viewing/sales figures you've quoted it seems you could quite safely delete all but the 53 which have had views in the past month.
One thing that this conversation has me thinking about is whether zero viewed products in a store have any detrimental effect on the store itself and all its products, whether there is a rating system for stores at all - or is it just products?...hmmm
Steve.
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Steve Crompton wrote:I think a lot of Affiliates use RSS feeds to get the products ... Would that create a 'view' on the product? Steve Crompton wrote:Any affiliates who hand pick products from stores or the MP to add to a website etc are more likely to notice, but I think from threads I've seen in the forums it's unlikely that a single broken link would lead a promoter to completely drop everything by a particular artist. Agree. I think it is unlikely that someone hand picking items would choose more than 1 or 2 of these products as they are very similar. So I think it would only be a couple of items at most and would not affect them much. Steve Crompton wrote:With the viewing/sales figures you've quoted it seems you could quite safely delete all but the 53 which have had views in the past month. Thanks for your opinion, I might do that. Steve Crompton wrote:One thing that this conversation has me thinking about is whether zero viewed products in a store have any detrimental effect on the store itself and all its products, whether there is a rating system for stores at all - or is it just products?...hmmm
Steve. I was wondering that also... I think we'll never know. PS. I like the photographs in your sc0001 store, especially the nature photography.
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OK, I can't find the thread, but there was one a few weeks ago where zazzlers were sharing tips on either improving their store or increasing sales and one person said that they saw an improvement in sales after they deleted a ton of old non-selling/low quality/low view stuff...
I did wonder then if that means our stores are ranked down in the marketplace if we've got tons of low/no view stuff..
It's not something I want to risk doing, as it's zazzling legend that you never delete old stuff because you never know when someone might come along and want it. And also that you put designs on all products as again you never know when someone might want it.
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TabbyGun wrote:(...) And also that you put designs on all products as again you never know when someone might want it.
Not wanting to get off topic here, but I do just the opposite, and viewing my numbers of sales, I must be doing something right.
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@Anna, Quote:Would that create a 'view' on the product? Only when someone clicks on a product link from the feed, and thanks for your comment on my stuff! And I've got to agree with Aapshop; I don't put my designs on every product, the vast majority are on very few - that's not to say some won't appear on other items, if I try them out and feel they work then they will be added, just not via massive QC binges. Steve.
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From what I understand when you delete products it's the search engines like Google that really don't like it. That's probably why Zazzle told us that if we need to correct a product (because of misspelled text or whatever) that we should set the original to direct only instead of deleting it, because deleting them not only hurts your store with the search engines, but all of Zazzle.
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Quote:Google that really don't like it If the pages / products are not getting views anyway, it's highly unlikely to matter to Google - they're just going to sink into oblivion there anyway. And I doubt Google would like every page ever created to never be deleted. Googles concern is more likely to be dead links caused by deleting pages when links still exist, and that is exactly what Anna is trying to avoid. Steve.
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