What's the best way to sell art work online?

Adie

11 years ago

Do keyword research related to your product.
Create a blog and post your product
SEO

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WriterPaul 11 years ago

Thank you, Adie.
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Shannon Tani

11 years ago

Depends on what his art is, but I would also look at Etsy.com

Love,
Shannon

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WriterPaul 11 years ago

Thank you, Shannon.
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Jonathan 2.0

11 years ago

Maybe join YouTube and put his art/painting together with appropriate music.

Just an idea. :-)

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stitchlips

11 years ago

Originally Posted by WriterPaul

Hello,

I have a bit of IM knowledge and have been asked to help a friend get himself set up to sell his artwork online.

Do you think his best bet is listed below or would you suggest something different?

Many thanks,

Paul

1. Ebay
2. A free blog
3. Own domain & hosting
4. One of the many paid services on offer (and if so, which one?)
5. Something else?

All of the above. Spread it out all over the place.

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Jungle123 11 years ago

If you want just 'quickie' - Ebay is the way!
If you have time,patience and will then everything above.
Good Luck!
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WriterPaul

11 years ago

Many thanks, all! :-)

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talfighel

11 years ago

Another thing that your friend can do is to advertise on Google and Yahoo so that when people look for art work, they can be directed to his website.

He can also list his art on Ebay. This is a great place to sell art. But before he sells anything on Ebay, tell him to make sure that he knows what he is doing. There are websites that can teach him how to effectively sell there.

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Shirlyn

11 years ago

Register a domain related to niche or keyword of your website and bookmark your site content over as many bookmarking sites you know.

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nubchai

11 years ago

I think etsy.com is a good market for an artist. Ebay has a lot of visitors but the fees to sellers are getting ridiculous. But if he plans to do this as a business then I think getting a domain that brands either his name or a business name is important. Then setting the site up with products and doing the marketing. Also consider one of the free press release sites.

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corsleymaxwell

11 years ago

I advice you have to hire an SEO or internet marketing expert for that matter. They knows best what to do. I can even help you if you want.

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mygrants

11 years ago

I'd say, start your own blog, facebook page and create a facebook event basically 1st of all, it can be a virtual event something that offers people some cool fun (it can be completely online) .. and from there get people to Like your Page and subscribe to your blog. Show off your art work there and start taking inquiries for sales. That's one better way of doing it in my Opinion.

Because you can get out there into the market and try the Image Selling websites etc, but again there are 1000 other art work to sell, why would you want to waste your time competing them?

Showcase your work at places where people don't expect to see it, and when they see it, it's a pleasant experience for them and at those times and places, people have their DEFENCES off !!!

Try that!

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sodevious

11 years ago

ebay will undervalue handmade goods. To have your own blog/site would take too much work to gain half the exposure you'd get at etsy. Try etsy before anything else!

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jiantastic

11 years ago

from experience. Art is best left to ETSY or use targeted paid media. Do proper keyword research for this, otherwise you'll be flushing money down the toilet.
totally agree with Sodevious. eBay undervalues too much
SEO and Social Media are long term objectives

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pcpupil

11 years ago

I have been selling on ebay for 3 years and i have just recently tried to sell a friends artwork on there.
No sales.But it could be his artwork.

He is a well known artist in AZ,and has his paintings sell at a gallery in Phoenix.
I would not do the Ebay route.Shipping by usps is to expensive,so that leaves you with ups basiclly.
I would start with etsy.Then as suggested,a facebook page with a group.Start his own group.
Next,his own site,and make sure he adds an alt image tag to his images for keywords that people are searching for.
Especially news events,or famous people.
As an example,the marrige in England.If he has any paintings of anything to do with England,make sure the word England is in his alt text.You can get a lot of traffic from Google images.

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richinca

11 years ago

Try emergingartists.com

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Alexa Smith Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by richinca

Try emergingartists.com

^^^^ This. Exactly.

And minigallery.co.uk, and twenty or thirty other sites like those.

To sell artwork online, you need to promote it at the sites where the potential customers go to look at artwork. (It also does no harm to have your own art-site to which you can link back from those sites with the customers, but that's less important). The main technique is to go to where the targeted traffic already is, not to try to bring the traffic to you.
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Leonsroarteam

11 years ago

I would check out Deviantart.com it's a good artwork community and a nice place to try to sell artwork. There are also several job opportunities there

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Steve Forster

11 years ago

Seeings you have to take the photographs anyway you might kill a couple of birds with one stone if you sell the photographs of the art.

There are plenty of places to sell photos and graphic designs on the web. Check out Sell Photos Online — FREE Tips.

Depending on what the art is like you could experiment with taking shots from super closeup to further away of each piece. Even dress a wall so the art on the wall make a good shot. Then you might get 4 or 5 variations of each shot.

It's possibly not much more work that you are going to do anyway and you get a great catalog of shots, and the opportunity to sell the photos and the art.

Just a thought, good luck!

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Cheers, Stev
Products & Services

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herb44

11 years ago

writer paul, sorry i am a little late to the party but i would tell your friend to sell his artwork on alibaba.com-its quick and the marketplace is ripe with hungry buyers from around the whole world!

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Glenn Leader

11 years ago

@ Writer Paul: Is your artist friend in the London area. I'm working with a group
of artists to setup this exact same thing, but concentrating within the M25. It'll
be based on the Amazon payment system, and I hope to have it up and running
by the close of June this year.

Glenn

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JohnMcCabe 11 years ago

How you sell artwork online depends a lot on the nature of the artwork.

On one of our cruises, my wife won a fine-art print and a coffee table art book as door prizes at the onboard art auctions. Checked eBay, and there really wasn't much demand or much on offer. The only thing I kept finding was cheap versions of the same art.

If the art is more in the line of, forgive the expression, arts and crafts type objects - ceramics, etc. - he might do better, but as another poster said, eBay fees and shipping costs could eat you up.

Without seeing what type of art is being offered, I'd offer the following:

> Set up a gallery website or blog to display the art.
> Set up a fan page on Facebook for the artist. Another place to display the art, announce shows and/or galleries carrying the pieces, etc.
> Set up accounts at sites like a few of the posters have suggested.
> Work on building targeted traffic to those places, particularly the gallery site.
> Start issuing press releases when new pieces go up for sale, when the artist participates in an auction, charity function, etc.

The idea is to get the art in front of people who buy that type of art, and let them know that it is avalable for purchase.
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cpaddiction

11 years ago

Ebay is good to go, but if you can set up a business website and brand your arts, that's even better

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Rashell 11 years ago

Here are a few more choices. Some are fine art while most are folk art. None are affiliate links.

Online art galleries, exhibits and marketing tools for artists | EBSQ

Fine Art - Art Prints - Fine Art Prints - Greeting Cards - Posters - Originals - Buy Art Online - Sell Art Online

Yessy Art Gallery - Buy Art & Sell Art

ArtFire.com - Premier handmade marketplace to buy & sell handmade crafts, supplies, vintage and art

http://en.dawanda.com/

Art Gallery & Community - T-Shirts, Posters, Greeting Cards, Wall Art, Fine Art Prints, Calendars & More | RedBubble

Prints, Posters, Canvas & Framed Wall Art from Independent Artists at Imagekind

Ruby Lane - Antiques & Art . Vintage Collectibles . Jewelry: Wed, April 27th

deviantART: where ART meets application!

Ning Communities

Indiepublic

Art Fair Insiders - Call for Artists, Making Money at Juried Art Fairs, Craft Shows and Festivals

b-uncut.net - Where Artists Gather - And Art Breaks

If nothing else your friend can join the various forums to start networking and asking questions of experienced marketer/artists in their genre.

Rashell
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joejoechen

11 years ago

Dude, you can sell them even WITHOUT a website.

Get a Fanpage. Period.

If your art work is cool it will start generating fans VERY quickly after your initial push. If you need faster results just set up a small FB ads campaign with a small budget.

Then get a blog. Get your fans to visit your blog and sell from there.

For niche like Arts, it's so much easier to sell/promote them via social networks.

my 2 cents

Joe

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whaldorf

11 years ago

A wordpress site with a gallery plugin is a great start - you can drive traffic to one location that looks professional and gives some details about the artist.

Here are some nice themes to consider:
24 Free Portfolio And Photo Gallery Wordpress Themes

Also, here's a marketplace to consider:
Artbreak: Buy art online and sell art online

Best of Luck!

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Zabrina

11 years ago

The answers about putting effort into various methods are right, I think, but I also think that creating a "hub" is a good idea.

That means that perhaps a website with your friend's full name (firstlast.com) is a good hub... I wouldn't trust your "hub" page to any external site like Facebook.

From there, you can link up your Facebook fanpage, Twitter feed, accounts on various social media sites and art sites like Deviantart and Etsy, etc, to your friend's home page.

While I'm at it, create a list to notify past artwork buyers of current and future pieces/plans.

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bl 11 years ago

I don't know much about how much they make but deviant art is also another website that people sell all kinds of art on.

I have seen some comic book artist sell their work on this site and these are people who already make a lot of money from their jobs and they are also considered professional artist.
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bonk12

11 years ago

Personally I think it would be a good idea to make a hub website advertising your artwork and then have links as to where people can go to buy.

You can also very easily integrate ebay ads into your website, so they could order the painting straight through your site.

Also if you combine this with some basic offline marketing and other forms of marketing such as kijiji and craigslist, you should be able to get your name out there.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Steven Patterson

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Daniel Rickfold

11 years ago

I think the best way to sell art online is ebay and social media presence. Then when you get bigger get your own site.

This isn't for the fain hearted. Social media presence does take a lot of time to build and maintain relationships and things like that, and this is even more difficult when selling art, since art is subjective.

A good thing is to also critic your own art and tell what that represents so that the everyday viewer can understand something. That's what makes people buy in art. When they feel a connection with the piece. So when you explain what that abstract blue brush line on a white canvas represents and they get to feel good for knowing it, they'll probably buy.

Another good idea to do is to look at other ebay art sellers. Those in the $200 - $1,000 range and see how they structure their ad. It usually is an image of the painting and a example of how it would look in a room, for example above the sofa and places like that. Study the market place a little bit and see what's successful.

Artists really aren't marketers so you won't find a lot of useful sales tricks, but there are some...

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Glenn Leader

11 years ago

From my (limited) experience with local artists, they
don't like ebay. They feel that they (ebay) take too
much money from sellers.

HTH

Glenn

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madison_avenue

11 years ago

Something like art is best sold live so the buyer can see the art close up. I would try to do a deal with a local shop or gallery to sell the painting on sale or return basis, and you could charge a commission.

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vverrall 11 years ago

It all depends on how big the project is, if it is small and short-term ebay or other auctions may be ideal. However, depending on the geographical location and interest, auction houses may be your best chance. Do your research before you approach any.
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Andrea Wilson

11 years ago

I don't know what kind of artwork you are talking about but my friends use Deviantart. I see lots of pretty drawings, sometimes comics, mini paintings in there. You can check and see if it fits your friend's artworks.

Goodluck.

Andrea

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