Zazzle

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Marketplace In The U.S

title: "Zazzle" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["2005-establishments-in-california", "american-companies-established-in-2005", "companies-based-in-redwood-city,-california", "companies-formerly-listed-on-the-nasdaq", "online-marketplaces-of-the-united-states", "internet-properties-established-in-2005", "retail-companies-established-in-2005", "self-publishing-online-stores"] description: "Marketplace In The U.S" topic_path: "geography/united-states" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zazzle" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Marketplace In The U.S ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox company"]

Field	Value
name	Zazzle Inc.
logo	Zazzle company logo.png
logo_size	100px
type	Private
industry	Internet, online retailing
founded
founders	Robert Beaver
Bobby Beaver
Jeff Beaver
hq_location_city	Redwood City, California
hq_location_country	United States
area_served	Worldwide
key_people	Robert Beaver (CEO)
website
::

Zazzle is an American online marketplace that allows designers and customers to create their own products with independent manufacturers (clothing, posters, etc.), as well as use images from participating companies. Zazzle has partnered with many brands to amass a collection of digital images from companies like Disney, Warner Brothers and NCAA sports teams.

History

Zazzle was launched in 2005. It is based in Redwood City, California. The company received an initial investment of US$16 million in July 2005 from Google investors John Doerr and Ram Shriram, and an additional investment of US$30 million in October 2007.

The site was recognized by TechCrunch as 2007's "best business model" in its first annual Crunchies awards,

Zazzle.com offers digital printing, and embroidered decoration on their retail apparel items, as well as other personalization techniques and items.

In 2022, Zazzle engaged Citigroup Inc. and Barclays Plc to facilitate preparations for a potential initial public offering (IPO) this year.

Custom postage stamp printing

Starting in 2005, Zazzle offered custom postage stamp printing in a partnership with the United States Post Office (USPS). However, on May 15, 2018, Zazzle stopped the custom stamp printing due to new regulations by the USPS.

Controversy

Pi trademark incident

In May 2014, Zazzle removed thousands of products containing the Greek letter pi (π) from being offered for sale on its website. This was done in response to a cease-and-desist letter sent on behalf of Brooklyn-based artist Paul Ingrisano, who holds the trademark (U.S. Reg. No. 4473631) for the symbol 'π.' (pi followed by a period). Zazzle's content management team initially defended its ban on Zazzle's user forums, despite complaints from Zazzle sellers that Ingrisano's specific trademark did not appear to apply to their designs. Following the backlash from users, however, Zazzle reversed course on May 30 and began restoring products featuring the letter pi that had been initially removed.

Font lawsuit

In August 2022, graphic designer Nicky Laatz sued Zazzle, saying that the company had secretly purchased a one-user license for her trademarked and copyright-protected fonts and then made them available to all of its hundreds of thousands of designers and tens of millions of users, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of profits for Zazzle from products that incorporated her fonts. The lawsuit claims that Zazzle had recommended her font as their second most popular font, and that five of Zazzle's twelve most-popular business cards, as well as several of its most-popular wedding invitations used her fonts.

Zazzle responded by stating that Zazzle had asked to purchase a server license from Laatz, but that Laatz never responded. Zazzle responded in court by asking for the lawsuit to be dismissed based on the fact that fonts cannot be copyrighted in the US. Software to create fonts can be copyrighted, and Laatz said that she hand-coded designs in the font-creation software, but Zazzle's lawyers contend that she deceived the copyright office about this and created the font with a font program.

References

"zazzle.com Traffic Statistics".
"About Us". zazzle.ca.
Olsen, Stefanie. (2005-07-18). "Google investors find new project".
Dishman, Lydia. (2013-10-18). "How Two Companies Partnered To Turn Design-On-Demand Into High Growth Retail".
Michael, Arrington. (2007-07-27). "Zazzle rumor: big hedge fund investment". [[TechCrunch]].
(2008-01-19). "2007 Crunchies: The Winners".
(2022-02-18). "Ecommerce Firm Zazzle Is Said to Tap Citi, Barclays for IPO". Bloomberg.com.
"Zazzle It".
"What Happened to Zazzle Custom Postage?".
Poulsen, Kevin. (2014-05-31). "This Guy Trademarked the Symbol for Pi and Took Away Our Geeky T-Shirts". Wired.
Wicksell, Dustin. (2014-06-07). "Man Trademarks Pi, Internet Furious".
O'Neil, Lauren. (2014-06-02). "Artist trademarks 'Pi' symbol, enrages the web".
(August 25, 2022). "Zazzle Sued for Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for Stealing Intellectual Property, Says Bartko Law Firm".
Murphy, Heather Tal. (2023-01-24). "Into the Sparkly Heart of Zazzle's Font War". Slate.
Baron, Ethan. (2022-08-25). "Redwood City e-commerce firm run by family of Stanford grads accused of making fortune off stolen fonts - Trickery made Zazzle hundreds of millions of dollars, lawsuit claims". [[San Jose Mercury News]].
"Laatz v. Zazzle, Inc., 22-cv-04844-BLF {{!}} Casetext Search + Citator".
(2024-01-10). "Zazzle Avoids Summary Judgment on Some Printing-Font Suit Claims".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::