Even if you’re not tech-savvy, this teaches you the best tips and ideas for selling art online that the professionals use. I’m so thankful that selling art online has become easy and simple, it’s now a great way to increase your art sales and if you’re smart, you’re wondering how best to utilize this option. As an artist myself, I have found the easiest ways to promote and sell my work online and now present them here, all the best selling online options at your fingertips!
It’s great you’re exploring selling art online, it’s such an exciting option for your art career! But, if you’re like me, you’re old school and trying to find the easiest options out there. Being an artist myself who has dived into the online world, I’m giving you only the easiest and best online options for your artwork.
You are going to learn all about how to sell art online and make money, selling art online best sites, selling art online for free, sell art online auction, selling art from home, selling art online for beginners, selling art online, selling art online tips, selling art online websites, selling art online for beginners and more!
As an artist myself with a strong online presence, I can tell you first hand the best ideas, tips and hacks for selling art online that are guaranteed to catapult your sales!
This post is all about the very best ideas for selling art online.
1.How to sell art online and make money:
Selling your own art online means you can take charge of your art sales. The downside is that it may be hard to attract an audience and you have to deal with many unpleasant things by yourself such as shipping, budgeting, inventory and audience communications.
There are several online options for selling your work. We will go through the most popular ones here.
These popular options are selling through an online auction, an online store – your own or a preexisting marketplace – via large marketplaces or galleries, and social media.
Let’s go through all these options.
2.Sell art online auction:
I’m going to focus on the online auction Ebay as it’s the most popular.
Here are the basic steps for succeeding with Ebay:
- Begin by making a list of keywords you think might accurately describe your art. Find keywords that bring up art similar to yours, especially high priced art similar to yours. Refined keyword list assures that serious buyers will see your work.
- Choose your title line carefully. These words are what drive lookers, bidders and buyers to your art. Pack the title with your list of the most popular keywords that accurately describe your art and essentially becomes your online auction title line.
- Avoid use of space-wasters like your name, “rare,” “fantastic,” “important,” or “famous” in your title line. They may look great but serious bidders and buyers hardly ever search with those words. Avoid words like “the,” “and,” and other connectors that only waste space and don’t help people locate your art.
- Set prices carefully. Study completed sales as well as current ongoing sales to see what sold and what didn’t. Locate the “Show only” option towards the bottom of the “Categories” column to the left of the listings and clicking “Completed listings” (sold prices appear in green; unsold prices in black). Completed sales give you the most accurate idea of what your art will likely sell for.
- Set your minimum opening bids and “reserves” (the lowest price you’re willing to sell for) at somewhat less than the amounts you see for comparable art, but not so low as to compromise how seriously people take our work. Setting minimum opening bids or reserve prices too high often discourages bidding and scares bidders away.
- Time the end of your auction so that bidding closes when most people are at home and available such as Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday during the early to mid-evening hours.
You can get started selling on ebay by clicking here
- Use good clear accurate images to show your art. Bidders want to see details. Show the entire piece, a detail and any other important or standout or special areas of your work. If it’s framed or comes with other display options, show everything– frames, stands, pedestals, etc.
- Accurately describe your work in the most enticing ways possible. Keep the tone upbeat, call readers attention to the what your buyers generally like the most about your work, and don’t talk down to bidders. In other words, be as open, welcoming and accessible as possible.
- Facts about yourself, your career and your art are always good to include. Provide brief information about what galleries or shows you’ve participated in, what part or parts of the country you’ve shown in, any awards or distinctions you’ve received, how much your art typically sells for, how much of it you sell, and so on. This information is especially important if you’re less well-known,
- Include all dimensions, mediums, weights, and other relevant significant physical characteristics of your art in your descriptions.
- Explain how you pack and ship. Know how much your art will cost to ship and include those dollar amounts in your descriptions. Remember that most shippers charge by distance shipped as well as by size and weight so do your shipping research in advance.
- Allow winning bidders a certain time period, usually three to ten days, during which they can inspect your art after they receive it, and allow them to return it for any reason. Sellers who offer moneyback guarantees like this tend to put bidders at ease.
If you know what you’re doing and do it well, selling online auction options can work for you.
[Related post: The Best Watercolor Painting Ideas – Condensed and Simplified]
3.Selling art online:
Beside selling online auction, there are other ways to sell your art online. They include selling through your own store on your own website, your own store on your own website from a website builder, someone else’s store and on social media
If you choose to sell your art through your own online store, it means you’ll be controlling your own business even after the point of sale- handling the actual packaging and shipping of your artwork. Using an online store gives you more control over the whole process.
If you want all the control, create your own store. You’ll have full control of the look, the art displayed but you’ll also have the hassle of shipping, customers, inventorying and budgeting.
Website builders give you a little less control over the look of your site and store but simplify many steps.
Social media is a great way to get your work in front of more people, but you still need a website to show your work, describe who you are and for contact information.
4.Sell Art Online Best Sites| Selling Art Online Websites:
If you choose to sell your art via an online marketplace like Amazon or Etsy, you won’t be able to design the layout or pages, but they’ll assist with shipping, customer complaints/problems and setting prices/budgeting.
Another option is to set up your own store on your own website from a website builder. These website builders have templates to assist in displaying your work, setting up a store, and letting you build and customize your gallery without any coding.
You can’t control everything with these templates, but they typically allow you to control the layout, color scheme, fonts, pricing and information. This is because they come with x.
The benefits of using a website builder to sell art online are you won’t be competing with other artists’ work, won’t have to pay high commission fees and have many design decisions made for you, and won’t have to pay the large commissions on the big platforms such as Sachi or Etsy.
The downside of using website builders are you will have to get traffic to your site, may pay minimal (typically 2%) transaction fees, and have to deal with setting prices, customer service and other decisions alone.
The best website builders are:
- SquareSpace-easy but hard to set prices.
- Wix-can’t customize and difficulty connecting to paysite.
- Shopify seems like best option but more expensive than the rest.
SquareSpace for artists can be found by clicking here.
In sum, selling art online websites have come a long way and you can’t go wrong with any of these choices.
5.Selling Art From Home:
If you want another option for selling art from home beside the website builders above, consider creating your own website with its own store.
WordPress.org is a powerful content management system, meaning it’s more advanced and scalable than the website builders.
One of WordPress’s best features is the widely popular free ecommerce plugin called WooCommerce, which makes it easy to sell online. You don’t need to work within a template like with the website builders but many of the templates offered by wordpress are stunning.
A downside is you’ll need to pay for your own web hosting provider. A web hosting provider is in charge of the server where all of your website’s data will be stored, so it’s important to choose one that you trust! One of the best and most affordable out there is Bluehost and it works really well with WooCommerce.
Click here to get started on WordPress.org.
While WordPress and WooCommerce have been hard at work simplifying their setup- they are still a bit more difficult to use that the website builders. So, you may need patience and a tech-savvy friend to get this all up and running smoothly.
In sum, selling art from home has never been easier with all these options!
[Related post: 12 Wowza Ways Markers Can Improve Your Artwork]
6.Selling Art Online Free
Online marketplaces and galleries – like Etsy, Artsy, and Saatchi Art – are also popular places to start for free, because these platforms already have millions of visitors looking to purchase products.
It’s extremely easy to get started with these online marketplaces: create an account, list your products, set up a delivery method, and accept payments. Unlike with website builders and WordPress, you won’t need to spend any time creating a website or worrying about design, prices or customer communication.
It’s true that online marketplaces are attractive for their ease of use, quick setup, and huge preexisting customer bases. However there is also a ton of competition – Etsy alone had over 2.5 million active sellers in 2019, which means you’ll have to fight hard to gain customers’ attention and stand out from the crowd.
You’ll also have to sacrifice design freedom when you use an online marketplace. If you place a lot of value in the creativity of your website or in building a great brand, you may be disappointed by the lack of personalization afforded by online marketplaces, where the website itself is already built and shared by a lot of other sellers.
Selling art online via the online marketplace and galleries is certainly a viable option if you’re okay giving up some control and confortable with the huge competition.
You can start selling your art online with artsy by clicking here.
7.Selling Art Online For Beginners
While social media is an easy and popular way to share your art with a huge audience, you will still need a website to display your work, connect with people and give information about yourself.
However you can, and should, integrate various social media channels with your website. For example, it’s easy to display a live Instagram feed on your site, or to include “share” buttons for customers to repost your website content on Twitter or Facebook.
Many social media channels allow you to sell on their platform, which is great for attracting even more customers to your products. Billions and billions of people use social media daily, so it’s a great way to bring attention to your work.
Facebook, despite all it’s recent problems, is still a very popular, perhaps the most popular platform for artists. Pinterest and Instagram are also contenders and growing in popularity.
Whichever site you choose connect to your website and use, keep these rules in mind to get the most out of the platforms:
- Post regularly: Posting updates once or twice a day
- Use high-quality images: Photos are a great way to keep people engaged with your page, but blurry images look unprofessional and will do more harm than good. Try using 2048px wide or smaller.
- Don’t be afraid of experimenting! promotions: run promotions, tell stories about your work, give a variety of titles and see what works best for your art and audience.
Selling art online for beginners should include social media in addition to your own wordpress website or your own website builder site.
[Related post: Killer Guide To Painting For Beginners In Only 9 Steps]
8.Selling Art Online Tips:
So, no matter if you’re selling your work on your own site, a website builder site, an auction or social media, keep these selling art online tips in mind:
- Categorize your work by type, theme or period to keep it from looking disorganized or overwhelming.
- Keep a regular balance of works for sale as well as new and old works to keep your site from looking unattended or cheap.
- Add alt tags and meta descriptions so google understands your site and better ranks you.
- Make sure all your writing is good whether it’s about you or your work, make sure it reads like a story. Tell people what inspires you, what’s unique about you or your work, what does your work mean to you and how does it all work together. Triple check for mistakes and misspellings.
- Also, get your facts straight, let the viewers know the dimensions, materials, price, delivery, and packaging details of your products.
- Price your work properly. Most artists just slap on a price but you should do some research into other similar products and consider your career history, previous sales and your niche in the marketplace, length of time and materials to create, and your typical buyer. In other words, give your prices a lot of thought.
- Make sure your prices are consistent. If you show your work on multiple online sites, in physical galleries and online or in auctions and online. Your customers will lose trust in you if they find out you’ve sold your work cheaper elsewhere.
Facebook’s group for artists can be found here
9.Selling Art Online For Beginners:
Here are tips many beginners don’t think about when selling art online.
Shipping And Packaging Your Orders
Website builders and WordPress’s WooCommerce connect to the big shippers and all you have to do is plug in dimensions and weight and they automatically calculate the price to ship.
Don’t forget to include the weight of the packaging material itself and insurance, especially for more expensive products!
To get the product to the purchaser safely:
Cardboard mailing tubes for prints and posters
Rigid cardboard mailing envelopes for smaller prints
Padding or bubble wrap for items needing extra protection.
Sending a canvas off the wooden frame, to be re-stretched by the purchaser, which is cheaper.
Promote Your Art Store via email marketing:
Connect your online gallery to an email platform like MailChimp.
Have a subscribe button on your site or a form that captures email addresses with permission to contact them. Sending personal emails to your list is a great way to stay on your fans’ minds.
Create a blog to grow your fan base:
This is essentially an online journal and your story helps you connect with customers. If customers feel they know like and trust you they are more likely to recommend you or buy from you.
10.Selling Art Online Business:
In sum, how to sell art online and make money, sell art online free, selling art online best sites, sell art online auction, selling art from home, and selling art online for beginners are all about selling art online business.
And successful businesses are all about checks and balances.
So while there’s a lot to love about selling art online, don’t give up on your offline selling.
If done right, your online and offline selling can balance and support each other.
Continue to sell at galleries, second hand shops, local events, from your studio one weekend, and neighborhood yard sales etc. But don’t forget to pass out cards or flyers promoting your online site.
Similarly, don’t forget to announce your offline sales on your online website.
Having an online and offline presence lends credibility to you as an artist.
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