How to Best Sell Your Original Fine Art Pieces
When I graduated from art school, I had mastered color theory and castor techniques and composition—but didn't know the first thing about business organization. How can I sell art and paintings online? How would I market place myself? What steps did I demand to take to sell my art? How should I price my work, and what would I charge for aircraft? At the time, the creator tools and channels to dilate and sell your own art online were practically nonexistent.
In my very first week as a working artist, I learned a hard lesson: to succeed in art, yous must also succeed in business.
For gallerists and curators, the shift in how we purchase and sell in the last two decades has allowed these businesses to correspond more artists and expand into selling affordable art prints online to reach larger audiences worldwide.
How to sell art online
Whether yous're a creator or a curator looking to brand money selling fine art online, this how to sell artwork online and in person guide is for you lot. Nosotros consulted experts and successful artists for their communication on everything yous need to know to sell your art, from marketing to pricing to shipping. Yous can as well use this guide to larn how to sell your photos online as fine art.
Meet the art experts
We reached out to experts in the art world—two artists and a gallerist—actively making their living past selling art online and asked, "how exercise you sell art online?" amidst other things. In this guide to selling your own artwork, their anecdotes volition be woven into applied and actionable communication for any creative entrepreneur.
Cat Seto, owner and artist, Ferme à Papier
Cat Seto is an creative person and writer, and the founder of Ferme à Papier, a San Francisco–based studio and boutique representing unique goods from independent West Coast designers. Her stationery has appeared in multiple publications and landed her partnerships with brands like Anthropologie and Gap. Prior to the pandemic, Cat closed the retail arm of her business to refocus and find a new location. The recent hate crimes targeting the AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) customs have influenced her need for change. "I have decided that I am at a time and place in my concern in which my collections demand to represent themes which affair to me and those around me," she says.
Maria Qamar, artist, Hatecopy
Take note of our next proficient specially if you desire to know the best way to sell paintings online. Most famously known by her creative person moniker, Hatecopy, Maria Qamar quit her advertising career to focus on art when her pop art paintings began to grab burn on Instagram. The success didn't happen overnight. "I did contract piece of work here and there," says Maria. "When you're starting out, you lot're earning nix dollars." Her full-time task, still, taught her business skills that were critical to selling her own artwork, getting off the basis, and marketing herself equally an artist. Now she works full time on her art, selling her ain artwork in multiple formats, from art prints to printed merch. She also published a book, Trust No Aunty, in 2017.
Ken Harman, curator and gallerist
Ken Harman is the man behind the art empire that includes Spoke Art, Hashimoto Gimmicky, and publishing company Paragon Books. Together, these businesses represent many global artists through physical galleries, online shops, and popular-upwardly exhibitions. Unlike Maria, Ken didn't take a chance to transition slowly at the start. When he was unable to secure a temporary pop-up location for a curated show, he signed a two-year lease on a space. "I really didn't have any other options," he says. "I just pulled the trigger."
What's right for you: selling your own art or selling works by other artists?
There are two ways for how to sell your art: create or curate. True cat built her career on both by creating and selling her ain piece of work and representing the work of others in her boutique. Which one is correct for y'all? Let's explore the 2 avenues in this guide to how to sell artwork online.
Equally an artist, you are the creator, producing original art and/or reproductions of originals and selling directly to your customers or indirectly through a gallery, retail partner, or amanuensis. It's never been easier for artists to sell straight, with emerging creator tools popping up seemingly every day. Depending on your style and medium, choose a sales aqueduct where your desired audience hangs out. This is arguably the easiest way to sell fine art online for many.
Maria runs her own online shop, where she sells prints and trade, eliminating the middleman and keeping her costs low. But she also leans on relationships with experienced galleries for exhibiting and selling own artwork. If you're learning how to sell your art, note that galleries tin can expose your work to new audiences. They may besides have access to resources and professionals to help promote, exhibit, handle, and ship artwork.
Curate
If you're not personally an artist but you lot have a great eye and a love of the art globe, you tin can still go into the game of selling art as a curator. Some artists may be disinterested in marketing or figuring out the best style to sell fine art online and instead rely on gallerists, curators, and retail partners to handle this aspect of the business. As a partner to artists, yous make a percentage of the selling price in exchange for your business organization cognition and service.
In that location are several ways to work with artists to figure out the best fashion to sell art online for you—exist it selling originals or prints to licensing works to be printed on merchandise or used in publication. "Most galleries offer an industry standard l% consignment split for original fine art," says Ken. "The artist provides the artwork, we practice our all-time to sell it." Spoke also operates its ain impress shop, selling limited-run prints of works past the artists information technology represents—offering a broad range of price points for their fans.
What fine art to sell: originals or reproductions?
As an artist, you may choose to sell your art, reproductions of that work, or both. The best way to sell fine art online volition depend on the nature of your art and your called medium. Fine artists using classic mediums and selling at high toll points may choose to only sell originals, for example, while digital fine art, which can be reproduced without loss of quality, is great for prints and merch. However, almost art created in 2nd mediums have multiple options for generating unlimited sales on a single work.
🎨 Consider the following options when determining the all-time manner to sell your art online:
- Original art such as paintings, drawings, illustrations (Note: you can sell both the original fine art besides as prints of the same piece of work.)
- Limited- or open-edition prints (framed, unframed, or prints on canvas)
- Digital downloads (desktop wallpaper, templates, print-at-home art, etc.)
- Custom art made to social club from a customer request or commissioned past a business organization (Annotation: More often than not, this art would be one of a kind and not sold again equally a reproduction.)
- Merchandise (your fine art printed on hats, mugs, t-shirts, enamel pins, greeting cards, stationery, etc.)
- Repeat prints on fabric, wrapping newspaper, or wallpaper
- Licensing work to other brands or publications (great for illustrators and photographers)
- Collaborations with brands (limited drove sold through the partner brand'due south shop)
Some mediums, like sculpture, are more difficult to reproduce or use for merchandise applications—yous may consider a different road if yous're interested in the easiest mode to sell art online. But for those incommunicable to scan and print, in that location are however ways to generate boosted income from a single design. For case, clay works may use the aforementioned mold to generate similar pieces, and 3D designs tin can be created over and over with a 3D printer.
Reproductions of art: open up or limited edition?
Reproducing fine art on t-shirts, mugs, or fine art prints means that a unmarried work tin can comport fruit indefinitely. If you're looking for how to sell artwork similar paintings as prints, in that location are pros and cons. You tin choose to sell an unlimited number of products (otherwise known as open up edition). However, some galleries, similar Spoke, opt for a limited edition model when you sell your art (there are just a sure number of prints produced) on many of the works they represent.
The effect is much like that of a limited time offer—creating a sense of scarcity and urgency is an excellent marketing strategy. For Ken, however, the decision to limit print runs goes deeper. "We work actually difficult to discover things that are very special to sell. Things that are special should be treated like they're special," he says. While Spoke may exist able to brand more money selling prints as an open edition, the option to limit them adds to the value of the art.
Limited edition has its drawbacks, however. "A lot of the things that we sell have secondary marketplace values," says Ken, meaning that limited edition pieces may sell for inflated prices on the resale marketplace (think limited-edition sneakers) because the demand is high. To help minimize reselling, Spoke will limit quantities of certain prints per customer. It'southward also congenital a blacklist of known resellers. "Making certain that the real fans are really the ones who are able to become the things that nosotros sell is always a priority," Ken says.
How practise you print art and choose printers?
Understanding how to sell your artwork comes downward to getting very friendly with a printer, whether that's your at-dwelling house inkjet or a visitor that handles the task for you. There are multiple options, from DIY to completely hands off, to help you sell art prints and other merch to your audience.
DIY press
Information technology's possible to start selling your own artwork by creating quality prints yourself with the high-quality newspaper, ink, and dwelling house role printer. As a new creative person, this method tin can keep costs low, only it'south not the way to get if yous want to know how to sell your art sustainably so you lot tin can scale over time. "In the beginning, I would print, package, and deliver past mitt every single poster that was ordered," says Maria. "At some bespeak the volume became so much that I couldn't brand fourth dimension to draw. I was spending all of my days delivering and in transit." This method is usually express to selling art prints on paper, but some specialty printers may let you to print on canvass paper or fabric designed specifically for this purpose.
Using a printing company
A local or online printing visitor can reproduce your work en masse and can even offer bulk discounts if you are printing many of the same piece. This tin be the best mode to sell art online if yous have a pocket-size itemize of but a few works that you sell consistently and accept a budget to purchase inventory upfront. With this method of how to sell artwork online, yous will still be responsible for your own packaging and shipping.
It's important that we are the last sets of eyes inspecting, packaging, and shipping the product to our customers.
Cat Seto, Ferme à Papier
While a impress-on-demand model for custom clients and orders is the best way to sell your fine art online for Cat, she often prints large batches for collection releases. In either case, the prints arrive at her studio first, rather than aircraft directly to the customer. "It's important that we are the terminal sets of eyes inspecting, packaging, and shipping the product to our customers," she says.
Print on demand
Print on demand is the near hands-off and versatile of options and possibly the easiest style to sell art online, especially if you program to sell your piece of work printed on merch like t-shirts or caps. Print-on-demand companies generally integrate with your online store and allow you to upload your designs, which are then printed and shipped straight to each customer when y'all receive an order. This is a bang-up option if y'all want to know how to sell artwork on a upkeep, as there is little upfront investment with no need to purchase equipment or inventory.
When the number of orders exceeded her capacity to print and ship work herself, Maria upgraded to using a print-on-demand company. "All I have to do is upload and let it do the work for me," she says. "Now I tin can focus on actually creating the artwork and connecting with people."
💡 Tip: Before you start selling your own artwork this way, request samples from the printer so you tin inspect the colors and quality of the print. This is especially important if printed items will be sent straight to your customers.
How practise y'all photograph and scan art?
Photographing and representing your products clearly and accurately is important for any online business. Without the ability to experience a product, customers demand to become the all-time sense of what they're buying through clear and detailed images. Selling art online is no exception.
"If you have a bad image of your work or the paradigm doesn't correspond the work accurately, y'all're going to have a harder time selling it," says Ken. Or, you'll exist stuck dealing with unhappy customers and processing returns.
Product photography when you lot sell your art is a little trickier than other products, and a basic light setup may nonetheless cause glare or color irregularities. Consider hiring a professional to shoot larger works or art with whatever three-dimensional or sleeky elements.
If you take a bad epitome of your piece of work or the image doesn't stand for the piece of work accurately, you're going to have a harder fourth dimension selling it.
Ken Harman, Spoke Art
For 2D works, however, Ken recommends scanning as an affordable and effective alternative to photography. Though his facility has a photography setup for shooting art, many artists submit their works to Spoke as scans because they need the digital file for their ain athenaeum anyway. "The nearly price effective mode to exercise that is to get a desktop scanner and scan the work in parts and sew together it together digitally," he says. "If you've got a slice with a high-gloss coating or a resin, that's a little tricker, but for the bulk of works on canvass or newspaper, it's pretty easy."
If you're selling merch or other products that feature your art, the full general rules of production photography apply. Accept clear shots from multiple angles as well as zoomed-in shots to show texture and particular. Lifestyle photos (your product in a scene) are great for your dwelling page and social media and help to show scale. Print-on-demand companies ofttimes provide mockup images yous can utilize on your product pages in lieu of or in improver to photography.
📚 Read more than:
- Production Photography: DIY Guide for People on a Budget
How do y'all build your make equally an creative person or art curator?
As an creative person learning how to sell your artwork, your brand may evolve equally a natural extension of your art. Your chosen style and medium volition define y'all as an artist and you will naturally attract fans and buyers based on this alone. Even so, there are many decisions you lot will demand to consciously brand when yous outset to remember of yourself as a business organization equally well as an creative person.
Because art is a personal and sometimes emotional buy, your story every bit an artist could be a factor in someone'south decision to purchase. And other business assets like packaging and site blueprint should mirror or complement the visual aesthetic of the piece of work itself.
🎨 Inquire yourself the following if yous're interested in selling your own artwork:
- Do you create and sell art under your own proper name, a pseudonym, or a make proper noun?
- What's your make story? How much of your personal story will yous tell?
- Do y'all have a mission, values, or a cause that you want to communicate through your make?
- Exterior of the art itself, what is the visual direction of the make? What'south the tone of your communication?
- What branding assets practice you lot need? Even without graphic blueprint skills, y'all tin generate a logo with complimentary tools.
The reply to these questions will assist y'all build a set of brand guidelines that will dictate many of your decisions going forward: branding, website design, marketing materials, etc. If y'all eventually scale your business organisation, these guidelines will help you maintain brand consistency as you lot delegate tasks to staff or other partners.
In collaborating, I think it's important to non merely stay truthful to your brand, but to be able to listen and be proactive to whomever you are collaborating with.
Cat Seto, Ferme à Papier
For Cat, the causes closest to her heart are primal to her brand. While she is currently refocusing to work on themes that support the AAPI community, this isn't the first time she's made a statement with her piece of work. Ferme à Papier launched a Saving Faces collection highlighting the stories of women and underrepresented groups.
Cat's brand values influence the types of projects she takes on with brands and clients. "In collaborating, I recall it's important to not but stay true to your make," she says, "but to be able to listen and be proactive to whomever you lot are collaborating with."
📚 Read more:
- How to Beginning Your Own Brand From Scratch in 7 Steps
- A Guide to Brand Storytelling [Free Worksheet]
How do y'all fix prices for your art?
How do you sell art online—and brand money doing information technology? Making a living as a working artist is possible if y'all know how to value and price your piece of work. Pricing art is challenging because it doesn't necessarily fit neatly into typical pricing strategies.
Pricing original art
The best way to sell art online and in person is to be profitable—and you take to price your art appropriately. If y'all're just beginning to experiment with how to sell your art and don't accept a widely known proper name in the fine art world, y'all can start with a uncomplicated formula to cost your original fine art: your time and labour costs + material costs and other expenses + your markup (profit). For this method, you volition need to assign yourself an hourly wage. It is typical for artists to undervalue their time and work, especially at the beginning.
Knowing what your products correspond and what you aren't willing to compromise are fundamental components in driving decisions almost pricing.
Cat Seto, Ferme à Papier
Where the formula above fails is that the value of fine art is subjective and non necessarily dependent on concrete details like material price or labour hours. Famous artists can fetch exponentially more for a piece that has roughly the same creation costs as that of a new artist. Check the market to compare your pricing to similar artists at similar levels and adjust accordingly.
Think that if you are selling through a gallery, that business will usually take one-half of the concluding selling price. You can unremarkably piece of work with gallerists, who are experts at valuing and pricing art, to set a price that makes sense for yous, the gallery, and the market.
Pricing art prints
Selling fine art prints or other types of reproduction can follow a more simple pricing formula: the cost of press + your toll to sell and market the impress + your markup. Your markup may be on a scale depending on whether you sell open- or limited-edition prints.
"Knowing what your products stand up for and what you aren't willing to compromise are fundamental components in driving decisions most pricing," says True cat. For her, printing on sustainable paper was a must-have, even though it would drive up textile costs and ultimately the retail price. Communicating these decisions to the customer is important, peculiarly if your prices are college than boilerplate.
📚 Read more:
- How to Cost Your Production: What You Demand to Know Near Pricing Before You Launch
- The Cost Is Right: xiii Strategies for Finding the Platonic Cost for Your Products
- Product Pricing: five Steps to Set Prices For Wholesale and Retail
How do you sell art online with your own ecommerce shop?
The best fashion to sell your art online is through your own ecommerce store. Beginning, take a few minutes to create your store. At this bespeak, you can set it upwards as a trial and tinker with it for two weeks before committing. Y'all've already done a lot of the work if you've established brand guidelines, pricing, and business model (originals, prints, or merch)—this part is simply assembly.
Become started selling art online and endeavor Shopify free for fourteen days
Store pattern and themes
When setting up your online art store, choose a Shopify theme that lets your art breathe–large images and lots of white/negative space. Themes are similar templates that you build upon, layering in your own images and copy, and tweaking colors and layout to accommodate your business organisation.
🎨 Some of our theme picks for selling art online:
- Narrative (complimentary) is a theme for storytellers, allowing your artist persona to live front and center.
- Editions ($) is an airy theme that gives bold artwork the breathing room information technology deserves.
- California ($$) is a clean theme that lets your art be the star. It'southward great for large collections.
- Highlight ($$) is a bold theme with slideshow and parallax scrolling features that are slap-up for visual storytellers.
- Artisan ($$) is an platonic theme for artists who sell custom piece of work and commissions.
Shopify is the easiest way to sell art online. It'south designed so anyone can gear up upward a custom online store with no coding or design skills necessary. However, if you're interested in customizing your theme even further to suit your business, consider hiring a Shopify Expert to help you lot with design or development work.
📚 Read more:
- All-time Ecommerce Website Designs: 27 Exceptional Sites
Apps for art stores
The Shopify App Store is packed with apps that plug direct into your online store to solve specific pain points, add together unique features, and assistance you run your store more effortlessly—assuasive you to focus on the artistic aspects of the business.
🎨 App suggestions to assist sell your fine art online:
- Print-on-demand apps. If y'all sell your artwork via prints and merch, apps like Creativehub, Printful, or Printify can sync with your store, taking the brunt of shipping and fulfillment out of the equation.
- Gallery apps. An app like POWR Epitome Gallery can feature past or out-of-stock works, serving every bit a portfolio or full catalog of your piece of work for galleries or brands looking to partner with y'all.
- Social marketing apps. Equally a creator, you may lean toward visual social media platforms like Instagram to help market your products and build an audience. Keep site content fresh with an app like Instafeed that pulls Instagram images into a gallery on your site.
- Production page apps. If y'all're offering a specific piece of artwork with overlapping options (size, frame or no frame, newspaper type, etc.), use an app similar Bold Product Options to layer particular variants.
📚 Read more:
- The 27 Best Free Shopify Apps for Your Store
Where can y'all sell your art online?
What's the best place to sell art online? Aside from your own online shop, information technology'due south the identify where your ideal customer is already hanging out. If you take amassed a following on a particular social channel, for example, that might be a cracking identify to first.
Where to sell your art online:
- Online marketplaces like Etsy or eBay tin plug direct into your online shop, allowing you to sync sales and accomplish wider audiences.
- Social selling channels let you lot sell straight to fans who are already following you on their preferred platforms. Create customizable storefronts on Facebook and Instagram that integrate with your Shopify shop.
- Wholesale to other online boutiques and galleries. You can scan wholesale markets like Handshake to notice compatible retailers that want to sell your art.
Cat at present sells her piece of work through multiple channels, but she cautions to showtime slow if you're just learning how to sell artwork. "Having multiple avenues came as an evolution to what get-go began as a wholesale business," she says. While her retail channel is on break for the moment, she now sells direct to customer and works on custom projects for clients and brands in addition to her wholesale business organization. "If I had tried to balance all of these from the onset," she says. "I believe I would have been overwhelmed."
Gallery exhibitions, pop-ups, and offline events for selling art
How to sell your artwork isn't limited to online—y'all tin can sell via physical retail besides. Because Maria works frequently in traditional mediums, much of the bear on of the texture and scale of her piece of work gets lost digitally. "Information technology's actual physical piece of work, so when we practice exhibits, you can walk into a gallery and see that I'm a real person that has technical skills that tin practise paintings and large scale installations," she says. Artists tin can also connect with fans and find new audiences by taking piece of work offline. Yous can utilize in-person experiences to bulldoze people back to your online store.
🎨 Consider the following when selling your own artwork:
- Partner with a gallery to exhibit work.
- Look into local art markets and events, and set up a onetime or semi-permanent booth.
- Consign or wholesale with art, gift, or lifestyle retail stores, or set up a modest pop-up within an existing store.
- Open up your studio to the public when yous launch your website, or go along consistent weekly open-studio hours to invite fans into your procedure.
- Run a pop-upward shop (partner with other artists to reduce costs).
- "Lend" or consign work for décor to emerging retail businesses like cafés in exchange for the exposure.
Before Ken opened his permanent gallery, he dabbled in pop-ups as a means to build his reputation as a gallerist and validate the business organization idea, simply has never let go of the concrete function of the business. For those selling original works, some element of in-person experience is critical, says Ken. "It's very rare to find a successful fine art gallery that functions entirely online."
Still, advances in engineering science like 3D and AR for online stores and the acceleration in digital experiences brought on by the pandemic may mark big changes for the art world in the future. It'southward of import to follow consumer trends while y'all learn how to sell your art and grow your concern.
Can you work with galleries to sell your art?
Yes, y'all tin work with galleries to sell your fine art on your behalf. If yous're not interested in how to sell your artwork yourself and instead prefer having your art represented past a gallery—or even in add-on to selling prints on your own site—there are a few dos and don'ts:
✅ DO check out the gallery'due south social media accounts. "If you have more followers than that gallery does or that gallery doesn't have a lot of followers, that may give you lot break," says Ken. A gallery should be able to give you a wider exposure than y'all tin go yourself.
❌ DON'T arroyo a gallery via social media. "You'd be amazed at how many people try to submit to us via Facebook Messenger or tag us in a post on Instagram and ask us to look at their piece of work," says Ken. "While social media is a major focus for us, that's just not a very professional way to come beyond if you lot're an artist."
✅ DO your research and contact only those galleries who represent work in line with your own style. "You can't sell street art to somebody who collects impressionism," says Ken.
❌ DON'T cede quality for quantity. "It's frustrating when an artist who's hoping to catch our attention tags us and xx other galleries all in the aforementioned post." Select the top few galleries that you want to work with most and send individual outreach to each.
✅ DO your homework. "Find the name of the managing director or the curator for the gallery," says Ken. "Being able to personalize an email is a bang-up first step in that procedure."
How do yous marketplace your art store?
Many artists similar Maria started on social media as the best way to sell art online, growing a following offset before launching a store and monetizing their work. The aqueduct where you've gained the most traction in the beginning is a natural place to spend your energy and marketing dollars first.
🎨 More ideas to get traffic to your site—and make sales:
- Run paid advertising campaigns on platforms like Google or Facebook.
- Invest in organic social past producing consistent content and engaging with fans and fine art communities ofttimes.
- Run contests or offer exclusive discounts to social followers (bonus: apply these to help build your email listing).
- Reach out to influencers and printing when y'all launch your site or a new collection. As you scale, you may opt to outsource to a PR firm.
- Use content marketing to drive organic traffic. Apply your expertise to create content effectually art, how-tos, behind the scenes, etc., either through a blog, vlog, or podcast.
- Learn nigh SEO to help improve your store's discoverability.
- Drive exposure with offline marketing. Participate in art shows and markets or work with a gallery to expand your attain to new, larger audiences.
📚 Read more:
- Increase Website Traffic: xx Low-Cost Ideas
- SEO Checklist: How to Rank a New Website
- Authenticity Sells: A Beginner'south Guide to Marketing on TikTok
- Press Kits: How to Create A Hype Media Kit
How do you bundle and ship art?
As art is visual, you should pay attending to the smallest details, downwardly to how your art is packaged and shipped. Art that arrives undamaged is the blank minimum—give your customers an experience that matches the quality and care you put into your work. As art can be fragile, follow these guidelines for ensuring your work arrives safety and sound.
DIY aircraft fine art
If you are shipping original art, or elect to ship prints and canvases yourself, rather than through a print and fulfillment company, take actress precaution with your packing. Larger prints and posters are best shipped in paper-thin mailing tubes, and smaller prints in rigid cardboard mailing envelopes. Use glassine (a water and grease-resistant newspaper) or clear cellophane sleeves to protect prints within the packaging. Remember: the best mode to sell your art online is to brand certain it arrives in mint condition as a bare minimum.
Shipping expensive and oversized original artwork
Framed works and canvases crave additional precautions—they're certainly not the "easiest" way to sell art online in terms of aircraft. Packaging supply shops offer packing and shipping materials like cardboard corners and specialty box sizes designed specifically for art.
If you're aircraft original piece of work to a gallery or fine art collector, there are ways to cut costs. "The cost to ship an oversized painting that's stretched on a sail can exist pretty substantial," says Ken. "Sometimes what we do is unstretch a sail, roll information technology in a tube, and ship it that manner, which dramatically lowers the freight costs. Then we tin have the canvas stretched locally."
Shipping art direct with print on demand
The easiest way to manage shipping is to non manage it at all. If you opt to sell prints or merch but, your printing, order fulfillment, and shipping can all be managed by your impress-on-demand partner. They are able to admission bully aircraft rates due to volume and partnerships with carriers.
Shipping insurance for fine fine art
Insurance is important when shipping original works, as a lost or damaged package can't be replaced. Many standard carriers offer fairly basic insurance on near packages, and if yous sell your fine art you lot should expect into the specific extra coverage costs and limitations of each carrier's insurance offerings.
If you're selling your ain artwork at high toll points, Ken takes boosted measures to ensure the safety of the work. "Shipping anything worth more than a grand dollars is definitely tricky," he says, and suggests that artists look into using a private freight company or a carrier that specializes in art handling, despite the higher costs.
📚 Read more:
- Shipping & Fulfillment 101: A Stride-Past-Step Guide for Getting Your Products to Your Customers
Plagiarism issues and copyright protection when selling art
Creative person Tuesday Bassen waged state of war on copycats—large chain stores who ripped off her original designs—by hiring a lawyer and taking her story to the media. However, both Maria and Ken say copycats and plagiarism are just an unfortunate reality of doing business. Maria took legal activeness only in one case, earlier shifting her perspective. "At the finish of the day, information technology took me my whole life to learn how to do this," she says. "If somebody is copying me, they're going to have to sit down downward and eventually learn for themselves, because sooner or later they're going to run out of ideas."
It's a sign that I'thousand inspiring others and that what I'm doing is right considering they wouldn't copy me otherwise.
Maria Qamar, Hatecopy
Maria takes Hatecopy's copycats as an indication that she'south on to something."It's a sign that I'm inspiring others and that what I'thousand doing is right considering they wouldn't copy me otherwise," she says, "I'm non offended or bothered by it anymore."
For galleries that correspond multiple artists and sell art online, copycat websites are a consistent problem. "We do accept an issue with diverse online sites just bootlegging what we do," says Ken. "Information technology'southward part of the way the world works, unfortunately. Nosotros practice our best, but information technology happens."
While copycats may be a reality, artists and businesses have legal recourse and should seek the advice of a copyright lawyer to help protect intellectual property before infringement happens.
The creative person equally an entrepreneur
For many entrepreneurs, the best way to sell art online is from whatever space yous already have—non some expansive warehouse or inviting storefront. Cat started her art concern from a spare bedroom. Whether it's a basement or a kitchen table or a guest room, it can work equally your launching pad. In this phase of your business, you lot'll article of clothing all the hats: creator, marketer, packer, shipper, web designer, and client service rep.
True cat describes this time in her own journey as lean and humbling. "It gave me balls of knowing every aspect of my business inside and out," she says, "including its strengths and weaknesses."
Yous could know everything about business and you could know everything about fine art, but it's the combination of both that really makes a successful brand.
Maria Qamar, Hatecopy
Thinking of yourself every bit an entrepreneur correct from the get-go will be crucial to your success. You may stumble as a creative to learn the business organisation aspects, only they will ultimately assistance yous abound and calibration. Eventually, you lot can delegate and automate, allowing you to focus on what you do best: making cute things.
"You lot could know everything about business organisation and you could know everything near fine art, simply it's the combination of both that really makes a successful brand," says Maria. "I am obsessed with creating that harmony."
Characteristic illustration by Pete Ryan
Selling fine art online FAQ
What is the best way to sell art online?
The best style to sell art online is by building your own branded ecommerce site with a platform similar Shopify. You can also sell your piece of work on a crafts and art market like Etsy or on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook Shops. Sympathize where your target customers like to shop to find out the best place to sell your art online.
Is selling art online profitable?
Yes, selling fine art online tin be profitable if you're intentional almost your pricing and marketing strategies. Selling fine art online has get more accessible with platforms like Etsy and Facebook, which enable ecommerce. Notation: When you sell on your own online store congenital with a platform like Shopify, y'all don't have to pay marketplace fees.
How can I sell my original fine art online?
Selling original art online is even so possible through your own branded website. Price point for original art volition be much higher, so it'south of import that you lot build a strong, loyal audition for your work. Diversifying your sales channels, similar likewise working with a gallery, will assist you broaden your exposure every bit an creative person.
What fine art sells the virtually?
This is a tricky question because fine art is very wide and subjective. Selling prints of your work can be very profitable because you can continue to generate income from a unmarried piece. Lower cost points (versus original art) mean you likely can sell more volume. Curators should follow trends in art and design to help sympathize what art collectors and potential customers are buying, then work with artists that have high success potential. As a creator, yous should lean into the style that you do best and build a following from there.
Source: https://www.shopify.com/blog/211990409-how-to-sell-art-online
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