CartoonizeMyPet

Your name or Shopid *	CartoonizeMyPet
How long did it take you to become a proseller? *	6-12 months
What advice can you give to someone who wants to become a proseller? *	Find a niche, love what you do and work hard. Zazzle is by no means a "great rich quick" scheme but if your work is marketable and you persist, you really can work from home, doing what you love. It's awesome! :)
How many stores do you have? *	2-5
What benefits do you see for choosing this number of stores? and what do you recommend for others who are just starting out on whether to choose 1 store or multiple stores? *
My husband and I started out with a superstore (SugarVsSpice) which we worked on for over a year. Most of my stuff ended up being pet-related so I made the tough decision to start over with a new store; CartoonizeMyPet. The move wasn't easy, and took several months to recreate everything and set up a new dedicated website... but in the end I'm pleased I did. Now I have a much more marketable brand, a website design to match AND I can make use of Zazzle's excellent API to change the color of my pets and earn additional money from referrals. Choosing between one store and several can be very tricky. It really depends on your target audience and how much of a single category you have (or think you'll have.) If you have a little bit of everything, then maybe think about creating a superstore... but if you have say, a lot of cute designs and a lot sports car ones, you might consider making them 2 separate stores. That way you can really focus on marketing them to their different audiences.
What types of advertising do you do? *	Off-Zazzle websites Blogs (blogspot, wordpress, etc.) Microblogs (twitter, plurk, etc.) SNS (facebook, myspace, etc.) Paid Ads (facebook, google, etc.)
What types of advertising do you recommend for someone just starting out and why? *
Definitely set up a Facebook page, Twitter account, Squidoo page(s) and blog. I'm not really in to social network stuff personally, but it's served me well for my store. As well as building up some great free advertising from people spreading the word about you, it will also help your ranking with Google. The more often Google sees links and mention of your site, the higher up you go! I'm always surprised how quickly Google spots my new blog articles. I recommend using a lot of "buzz" words in your blogs, esp in the "ALT" tag for pictures, because Google eats them up. Eg rather than "Dog Shoes" say "Pink Love Heart Long Coat Chihuahua Womens Slip-on Shoes." You'll be amazed at how often people will arrive at your site from random Google searches that picked up words in your blog. Oh that reminds me! Set up Statcounter and/or Google Analytics for your store too. They'll give you so much valuable information about where people are coming from, which will help you see how effective your advertising is. As far as paid advertising; I'd recommend Facebook, esp if you have a niche store. It's easy to set up and you can be really specific about who you want to target. You can also set how much you'd like to spend per day and it will not, under any circumstances, go over, which is great. It's a wonderful way to build up fans to your Facebook page too!
Not talking dollar wise, just volume & frequency of sales do you... (select all that apply, some answer may be contradictory based on seasonal sales) *	have 1-5 days per month with no sale have 2+ days per week with no sale sell under 5 products per day on most days sell more then 5 products per day most days sell a good mix of all items regardless of price have great seasons/months and horrible seasons/months do well January-March do well October-December
What product in your store are you most proud of or what product in your store is your favorite? Include link to product page and why it is your favorite. *	Hmmm that's hard, it changes all the time! Zazzle has really helped my drawing improve, so every new thing I draw feels like a new conquest! I guess one thing that's stayed a favorite through it all, is my SugarVsSpice chameleons. More recently I gave them a rainbow makeover and was so pleased with the results I treated myself to an iPhone case! http://www.zazzle.com/rainbow_chameleon_disco_speckcase-176576683161145997
List your stores: *	http://www.zazzle.com/CartoonizeMyPet http://www.zazzle.com/SugarVsSpice http://www.zazzle.com/LovesMeSome http://www.zazzle.com/MwahaMart http://www.zazzle.com/PaperCat Happy Zazzling! :)