Where to sell your artwork

Art by Karie-Ann Author

Where to sell your artwork, information to help you make sales of your artwork.

At some point you will produce artwork that you can sell, you may not be there yet but one day you will be.

So, where do you sell it?

Not so long ago, the best and probably only place to sell your artwork was through a gallery.

Galleries charged quite hefty commissions to sell your artwork, sometimes their fees were higher than what you earned, it wasn't unheard of for them to charge 60% which meant that for all your efforts, they earned more than you. Taking into account if you had to pay for framing and to get you artwork to the gallery as well, it meant sales prices had to be high for an artist to make a decent amount of money.

Roll on to today, galleries are not so vital. Us artists can manage our own sales and deal directly with buyers and so keep more profits for ourselves. The downside to this newfound freedom is that there is more competition from other artists, but such is life!

So how can you make sales yourself?

Well obviously online is the main sales arena. So what are they?

so here is a brief overview of each -

Direct Sales on social media - Facebook and Instagram even had stores within their platforms, but now these are only available in USA, so what about the rest of us, well it's pretty easy, post about the artwork you have for sale and take payment via Paypal, direct bank payment or your chosen method. There are minimal fees, you deal directly with the customer without any third party additions. Quite simple! The downside to this method is there are plenty of scammers who will try to part you with your money so just be careful and aware this may happen.

Your own online store - you can have Shopify with a sales cart built in, you just receive the money minus a fee for the transaction. you don't need too much techie knowledge to set up a store and the money comes through a safe payment gateway. you just need to take into account fees, but you do need to maintain the store and pay a monthly or annual fee to host with them. Big Cartel is another store similar to Shopify. For online stores you are responsible for driving traffic to them in order for customers to buy. You could again use social media, Pinterest pins, newsletters and if you optimize for a search engine, you could even have direct traffic from the likes of Google.

Your own website - an example would be Wordpress or Wix. You need hosting (at cost) and some technical knowledge is required to update and ensure it is search engine friendly, however you can make it entirely your own. Design your own pages, blog posts, shops etc so it fits with your branding. You can use templates to make it easier or you can pay someone to create it for you but this is costly. Again you are responsible for driving that traffic, this is a time consuming option to begin with but once done it would be just to update as required.

Etsy - this is one of the most popular shops that crafters and arty types use. you need to pay a fee per item plus transaction fees in form of a percentage for each sale. You can drive traffic to your shop yourself, the problem is Etsy shows similar items to your own, it's not your own traffic and customers could easily go off piste and buy from somewhere else. Of late, Etsy has come under fire for allowing mass produced items to flood their website and this has led to much debate. Etsy does drive traffic as well by using Google ads so this is a bonus.

Ebay - Again, you need to tell people your art is for sale on Ebay, it doe show up in Google search but the main downside is selling on Ebay does result in much lower prices than you could get elsewhere. You can have a shop on there but you will encounter lots of competition. Ebay is mainly an auction price or the place tog et a bargain, if you want to make decent money for your artistic efforts, this option may not be for you.

Numonday and similar - Cheap to use, there's a monthly fee only, no percentage of sales costs, but minimal transaction costs, the same as if you used Paypal yourself. There is little way of promotion from Numonday, they don't make money from your sales, their aim is to get as many sellers on their platform paying a monthly fee so traffic is your responsibility, socials, search engines, newsletters etc must come from you. don't expect people to just find you. I see many lured there by the low monthly fees and then complain they make no sales, it's down to you to advertise. I would recommend using Pinterest especially, your pins will stay active for months and so help you. Instagram and Facebook are instant traffic, once the post on these socials goes out of view, no one will see it so you need to repeatedly share your items.

Physical in person sales are another option. One less expensive option is to rent a shelf in a shop, display you items and away you go. Someone will be manning the shop and can take payment for you. you will probably be charged a percentage on your sales but this gets your art out in front of people in real life.

Shows - this was my main source of income. You pay a fee to have a stand, you man it yourself and deal directly with the customer. Once you've paid your stand fee, the money you make is yours to keep using a card reader with a transaction fee to account for. Usually these shows are days long and can be very tiring (in fact I know they are) but I did amazingly well using this method. I was a very good salesman and my forte is I can talk to anyone in a way that made them want to know more about me and my art, ultimately leading to a sale. I will admit, I have an issue transferring this skill to social media but I am working on it!

Let me know if you've found another way to sell your art and how it worked for you!

Categories: : business tips