The Shy Artist's Guide to Selling Online (Preview)
How to Sell Art or Craft Online
Introduction
As a shy artist, I would much rather do all my selling online. With online selling, there is no direct contact with customers and we can hide behind the keyboard. We can sell at any time of day or night. We can sell to a much larger audience than our local art shows of even galleries.
This book is a guide to the various types of online selling sites. It is by no means a complete list. The world of online selling changes every day. Websites appear and disappear just like their brick and mortar counterparts. However, unlike brick and mortar stores, there is a greater variety of categories of online selling sites.
Online selling sites fall into three basic categories: General marketplaces, Art/Craft marketplaces, and product printing marketplaces. Within each of these broad categories there are many theme and variations depending on the market the website is targeting. Each of these types of selling venues has their good points and their not so good points.
You will have to investigate the sites and see if your art or craft is a good fit.
No matter what you're selling, there are several things you will need to do in order to assure success.
As a shy artist, I would much rather do all my selling online. With online selling, there is no direct contact with customers and we can hide behind the keyboard. We can sell at any time of day or night. We can sell to a much larger audience than our local art shows of even galleries.
This book is a guide to the various types of online selling sites. It is by no means a complete list. The world of online selling changes every day. Websites appear and disappear just like their brick and mortar counterparts. However, unlike brick and mortar stores, there is a greater variety of categories of online selling sites.
Online selling sites fall into three basic categories: General marketplaces, Art/Craft marketplaces, and product printing marketplaces. Within each of these broad categories there are many theme and variations depending on the market the website is targeting. Each of these types of selling venues has their good points and their not so good points.
You will have to investigate the sites and see if your art or craft is a good fit.
No matter what you're selling, there are several things you will need to do in order to assure success.
- Have good high-quality pictures. When you buy something online, you can't pick it up, turn it over, feel it, touch at, or look at it. You have to rely in the pictures provided by the seller. If the pictures aren't very good, if they're too small, or if they just don't show the product very well, then it's going to be a lot harder to sell that item. If it's allowed on the website, try to have multiple images of the product. Show it from different angles. Try to show the scale by including either another object, or a ruler, or something, so that the potential buyer can get an idea of the size of the item.
- Be consistent. Posting one item to a site and then forgetting about it is probably not going to result in sales. Consistency is the key. It's best if you can post items based on a schedule. For example, every Monday on eBay, I always post my 3 yard fabric specials. Let's say you have seven items to post. It's much better to post one item each day for a week than it is to post all the items in one day. Why is this? If you spread out your postings, then you'll have items showing up on the "new item list" every day of that week rather than just once in that week. This increases your chances that your items will be seen.
- Have a unique product. The distinctive products tend to get noticed more. But it doesn't have to be completely unique product to get attention. If you have something aimed at a very specific market, a niche product, those can get a lot of attention as well. Oftentimes, there are people who were looking for some very specific item, and if you have a variety of that type of item, they'll find you.
- Create good descriptions. We, as artists, tend to be highly visual. We like looking at the pretty pictures. But, not everyone is visual like we are. For those people, we need to write the descriptions. The descriptions not only need to explain what the product is, but they also need to romance the object. The description needs to help the customer to make that emotional connection to the object.
I hope you enjoyed the preview. If you liked what you read, then subscribe to my occasional newsletter and I'll let you know when the book is published.