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Is selling online realistic?
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Message
Posted
Hello
I've heard folks constantly telling me that I should be selling my work online. I can't say this is something I've thought much about before. However I like to keep an open mind.
Does anyone sell online?
Any advice?
Recommendations for online services?
What do you think?
Thank you
Alicia
Posted
As Alicia says, you've still got to do all the marketing wherever you exist online; and rightly so - nobody's just going to stumble across your stuff and go "Wow! I must buy that".
Online selling is essential these days. Hardly anyone goes to the shops and if you don't have a website the younger generations think you're some untrustworthy fly-by-night cowboy. I sell my classical guitar performance work online - weddings, parties, events - and I've been to some superb venues to play. You never sell as much online as you want to but it sure as hell beats paying out to go sit there all day at a wedding fair/ arts and crafts show and have nobody even talk to you (a pianist I shared a gig with once reported that as his reward for paying £300 to "exhibit" at a wedding fair). Friends at an arts and crafts fair last weekend said they'd paid £80 for their tables for the three-day event but what they'd sold whilst having to be in the room for that time meant they were working for a fraction of minimum wage.
So, overall verdict - if you're not selling online, you don't exist. You can also get on with production whilst people are browsing (or not) your product.
Posted
I’ve sold a lot of work online, mainly to the American market - so it does work. Most professional artists sell online from their website, Haidee-Jo being a good example. It’s a must these days.
The postage and packaging part can be a bit tiresome I must say, that’s one of the reasons I don’t sell online at present.
Posted
Selling on-line is for me the saviour - local art exhibitions where much of the work is priced well below anything I would ask and where sales are so low that often the exhibition relies on the sale of coffee and cards for any income are, I am afraid not really worth all the effort. My local watercolour scenes are promoted by several local Parish and Council websites where they are often used on the main page. Also a couple of local companies use them for the same purpose. I don't charge but welcome them as part of advertising my name and it does pay dividends. A couple of local chuirches also suggest to couples about to wed that they may like to use one of my images on their Order of Service - again no charge and welcome 'publicity'.
This is in addition to other more conventional websites and this year I have had nine sales to America alone mostly of my abstracts.
There are plenty of opportunities to promote your work this way at no cost - they just take a bit of hard work seeking them out.
Edited
by Michael Edwards
Posted
The two galleries that I used were Saatchi and Artfinder. Both have sold quite a bit of my work, mainly to the States as I said previously.
But as we all know, commission structures are high, and frankly I’ve had to question whether it’s all worth the hassle.
I’m not currently with either of them, my sole representation is a small local gallery, but selling my art is secondary, I’m only interested in the painting aspect.
Posted
I've done it, I recommend it if you're enthusiastic and committed to your business, and probably preferably a lot younger than I am. But in the end - the pension came through! I don't need (though might like) the extra money; and I don't need the headaches that go with it, either. But it does seem to me this is the way forward, though you still have to establish your reputation and make a name for yourself, somewhere, somehow - or no one will find your website, and you will be restricted to the online sellers - hoping that those trawling those sites, as surprising numbers seem to do, will also find your own website.
I have a project for the new year, when this blankety-blank election is over and I can resume my 'retirement', to rebuild my website and launch a fresh Blitz, with new paintings. But at the moment I am, frankly, knackered - I need a rest! I've painted nothing for two months now .... very hard to bear this, but while I may be but a lissom youth compared to Sylvia (we've had this conversation before!) I am in my 70th year, and shouldn't be running election campaigns. I can't wait to stop, and pick up the brushes again; and if I can get back in the rhythm, I won't even care if I sell or not.
Posted
Thank you for all the replies.
I've decided to go part-time with my work, which in the new year will give me 3 days a week to paint.
Firstly I cant wait to get stuck in and experiment a little. Eventually however I'll need to make up the fee's I loose.
I'm not expecting this to happen over night, especially as the last time I exhibited was about 15 years ago, so I'm completely invisible.
But not for long.
Fingers crossed
Alicia