What is de-listing?
If a design for sale in the Marketplace is at least two years old, has not sold in the past two years, and has less than 50 favorites, the design may be removed from sale by Spoonflower (“de-listed”). De-listing is not deleting. A de-listed design will be made private and maintain all data associated with it (number of favorites, who favorited it, whose collections it was in, etc).
Why is Spoonflower de-listing designs?
We hear over and over from many shoppers that they feel overwhelmed by the number of search results, often receiving hundreds of pages and thousands of results to wade through. We made this decision to condense search results, make new designs more discoverable, and encourage more design diversity. While it would be easy to assume that a higher volume of designs would equate to more success on the site, it turns out that the average number of designs uploaded per week by the top 10% earning artists on our site is 12. Knowing that the overall average of new uploads by all artists was 15, we brought up the number a little to 50 to accommodate for change. Successful designs become trendy for a number of reasons (outside of volume) and we think this is the perfect time for all of our artists to consider how they curate their own collections and hone in on their personal aesthetics. It not only makes it more appealing for our customers but elevates your individual shops as well.
Will I be notified before a design is de-listed?
You will not be notified ahead of time. However, one way to see which designs could be at risk for de-listing would be to sort your design library from “oldest to newest”. While the exact date of upload is not shown, you can still evaluate which of your older designs may need a little love in terms of title, tags, description, etc.
How can I tell which designs were de-listed?
You will be notified via your Spoonflower messages when you have designs that have been de-listed. To see which designs have been de-listed, you will visit your Design Library and filter with a new “Previously for Sale” filter.
How often will designs be de-listed?
We will de-list designs that meet the de-listing criteria in early 2024. The efficacy of the first sweep will determine how many and in what frequency will happen thereafter. (3 months, 6 months, 12 months, etc.)
Can I re-list a design?
Yes! You are welcome to re-list any of your de-listed designs by marking it available for sale again. Remember that more is not always better when it comes to designs, so when choosing which older designs to re-list, some questions to ask yourself are: Do I think this is a strong design? Is there something I could improve about the design before re-listing? Can I better optimize my title, description, and tags for improved findability?
What are the listing limitations and when are they in place?
Starting on February 12, 2024, all designers may only list 50 designs per week in the Marketplace. You can find more information in Proofing Your Design. This 50 weekly limit includes any brand new designs as well as de-listed designs that you have chosen to re-list. A re-listed design will not be eligible for involuntary de-listing for two more years.
What if my designs are part of the colorway feature?
Designs included in the colorway feature on our site will not be de-listed. We have rolled out the colorways feature on the product page for thousands of designs. This is driven by image analysis technology which finds different color versions of the same design within an artist’s catalog and groups them together. This is based partially on a visually similar distant score. This means that you will potentially see slightly different colorways as you navigate between them. Having consistent titles and tags between your colorway designs will help improve our ability to detect them as well. Starting in 2024, we will be detecting colorways for all newly made for sale designs on an ongoing basis.
What if a customer reaches out to request a custom color or scale of an existing design?
If an unexpected client or customer contacts you with a customization request and you have met the 50 weekly listing quota, we recommend determining if the request will result in a purchase and whether or not it would be appealing to more than just the one client or customer. If so, please work with the customer or client on the expectations surrounding a date in which you are able to make a design available for sale for them. Some artists have found the limit alerts in the banner to be helpful with creating a buffer and setting aside the remaining 5 in case an unexpected request comes through.
