Selling art online

How to sell art online

2009-08-21T05:17:00.000-07:00

Today I wanted to write a little something about sending art. By that I mean the parcel the end cusotmer receives through the mail. this links in with my last post in terms of consitance and image. When I order off eBay I expect much of the time to get a parcel which is rapped in newspaper with selotape and string. But when I order from a major its like amazon I know the parcel will be packaged neatly and will not be in dangour of getting broken in the post.

matearals
I thing to do is to find a supplyer of postage materials, one that meet your requirements and can be supplyed at a price that is right.

identity
second thing to do its to push your identity. You have a logo or icon print it onto stickers or get a personal stap made.

keep it simple
Dont over rap the parcel, this will make it look bad and will mean the clint cant get into it. Try and get self selling packaging materials if posible.

Selling art online - meeting a mass market

2009-08-20T05:13:00.000-07:00

While selling one or two pieces of art it does not matter much the sort of website you have or the way its presented. But if you want to make it into the big league selling in larger quantities you need to get in line with corporate theory.

Identity
A logo or image is key to identity, people often don’t read the logo/name but there subconscious with take in the shape and form of a logo/image. You can use a favicon or a logo but make sure they represent you and your website in the way you want.

Exposure
Exposure is key to selling like the big boys, while I don’t want to go into grate detail about how to get exposure here as it’s a big subject and will require another post dedicated to it. But while you get exposure make sure it is correct for you, make sure it is on topic and not spammy. Remember to explore all angles online and off.

Constancy
This is so important, if you start changing something about your website and when people drop by they don’t recognise you then they might not stay. Why do you think that big companies are so ridged about the way their logo is used! Constancy.

Appearance
There is no point have all the other element if the appearance is that of some messy half backed blog/artsite, your customers will expect a minimum quality in the way your website looks.

5 quick tips for selling art online

2009-08-20T04:55:00.000-07:00

Get a web presence
Get a blog or art gallery
Build up followers
Get on twitter
Get on the Social networks

Selling art online

2009-08-10T04:25:00.000-07:00

So you want to start selling your art online?! Well you are not the only one, so before you start consider this there are over a million artist selling there art online and only about 10% of these make a real business out of it.

Still reading? ok so maybe you are up for this. But consider this, getting your art online might now be a quick venture, using the latest technologies but maintaining and promoting your art will be far from easy or quick. Artist find that they end up spending more time on there blog then they do painting/drawing.

Still reading? Well you must be wanting this. So the good news art is a growing market and the internet is a growing medium. Get your art out there and you could have millions of people looking at your site.

Blog/website
These days is seems like every one from the queen to some guy on the street have a blog or website. So why be different, statistics show that more people then ever are going online and that the age range is broadening to so called silver surfers. So the first thing to do is to get yourself a web presence, that way if you are selling on any website then you can link back to your site. It also gives you a web address to put on business cards or on the back of your artwork.

Which blog
There are simply loads of places you can get a web presence these days. I have written an article on the subject here.

SEO
So you have a blog/website now and want to get people to buy your art. Websites are like shops, if a shop is down a back street and none knows its there then no one is going to see your site and in turn no one is going to buy your art. SEO (search engine optimisation) is a huge subject and not one I will cover here but you can read a post I did here.

E-bay
This is an easy choice and one may might good for you, its not a favourite as it does not work well with the way I work. There are fees involved but generally quite low. One plus this the security is very good.

Amazon
You can sell on Amazon although I have not done it myself I believe it involves setting up a selling/trading account. Some people have luck with so don’t rule it out.

Blog
So you have a blog and want sell directly from your blog. This option has advantages in that you wont have to pay cut out the selling site. But on the other side of the coin you don’t have the traffic that e-bay for example has.
Now depending on which blog you are using there are different options. The clear winner is wordpress.org which has a number of plugins that give you a shopping cart functionally. If you don't want to have to find a host for the blog then you can use any blog that will let you add html code. All you have to do is get a paypal button instructions below:

Getting a paypal button
1. Head over to www.paypal.com (and sign in).
2. Click on "Merchant Tools" at the top. From there you can make donate, buy it now buttons etc.
3. Simply fill out all the information and once it gives you the HTML code, head over to blogspot, sign in there. (www.blogspot.com)
4. Under "Dashboard" click on "Layout".
5. Anywhere where it says "Add a Page Element", click on there and from the list select "HTML/JavaScript
Add third-party functionality or other code to your blog." and paste the PayPal button code (and nothing else) in that field.

Gallery websites
So you don’t have a blog but want to get your work out there without all the hard work. Well you are in luck as recently there has been more on-line solutions aimed at selling art. These sites often give you a few portfolio space and some tariff (in theory) but take a cut off the profits. Others charge you a monthly fee. I should recommend to start with go for one that just takes a cut of any art sold then if you find you are selling then you can look at your options again. Bellow are a list of 5 of the best but not the only.
• Imagekind.com
• BoundlessGallery.com
• OriginalArtOnline.com
• Sistino.com
• ArtistRising.com

Pricing
Always a hard topic, you must not over price yourself as you wont sell anything but you must not under price yourself or you could make a loss. The best away to start is to work out how much the painting cost you e.g. materials + time. materials are shop price and time is worked out on an hourly rate. Once you have a figure then start to research what other artists websites are charging. Try and align yourself with other artists that are at the same stage in their career as you.