I exported the sales data from Zazzle and ran the numbers in a spreadsheet.
I set up the Zazzle store in September 2011. Someone bought at least one item every month until 2021, when Zazzle charged the first "non-contributing account fee." After that, someone occasionally bought something, but most months saw no sales. Over the history of the account over those 15 years: * Earned: $134.39 * Debits: $133.08 (all were "non-contributing account fees" since 2021) * Remaining: $1.31 On Thu, Jul 9, 2026 at 6:48 PM Jim Hall via Freedos-devel <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi everyone! > > Zazzle deducts a small "non-contributing account fee" for every month > when we don't have sales. The fee amount changes every month; > sometimes it's $2 and other times it's like 19 cents or some other > small value. I don't know how they calculate the fee, so I don't know > why it changes. > > We have WAY more months without sales than months with sales. I looked > at the history, and no one has ordered anything from our Zazzle > "store" since March (stickers). And that's with me "advertising" a > week ago on the email list, on the Facebook group, and on Mastodon > that this is the LAST CHANCE to buy stuff before I shut down the store > in August. I'll make a separate "news item" post on the > www.freedos.org website. > > Before that, the last time someone bought something was August 2025 > (tshirt). Then you have to go back to 2024 to find someone who bought > something. > > I don't "monetize" FreeDOS so the Zazzle store is just there for > people to buy stuff with the FreeDOS logo on it. I have the "profit" > set to the lowest possible value; I can't make it zero. I have never > transferred any "earnings" from Zazzle to my personal account. Any > earnings have been sitting in the Zazzle account, slowly getting > drained every month from the "non-contributing account fee." > > For example, the "non-contributing account fee" for February was 36 > cents. The "profit" from the stickers someone ordered (March) was 35 > cents. After a few months of no more sales, the next "non-contributing > account fee" in May was 9 cents. > > Right now, the Zazzle account has about $1.30 in it. > > With the constant "non-contributing account fees," eventually the > account funds will fall to zero anyway, probably within a few months. > Since no one is ordering anything, I prefer to shut down the store > before the account has a negative balance and becomes a hassle. I'll > shut it down in mid or late August (probably late Aug, so it's after > the next virtual get-together on Aug 16). > > So if anyone would like to buy stickers, tshirts, or whatever with the > FreeDOS logo on it, this is your LAST CHANCE to order from Zazzle. > > Zazzle makes products on demand; there isn't any inventory sitting > around somewhere. > > > > On Thu, Jul 9, 2026 at 5:02 PM Eric Auer <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Hi Jim, > > > > While I probably do not have the right payment > > methods, the merch looks cute, so we could just > > advertise it more? :-) Is it made on demand or do > > we have piles of those things sitting somewhere? > > How high is that "inactive fee"? > _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
