I know someone who has recently started thinking about seling his paintings on the internet. As a partime website developer I told him that I could create a website for him to sell his paintings on, but the thing is we aren't sure if it would be worth the trouble. Should we find a website that will let us sell on it so that we know we will get traffic? If so who should we go with (other than Ebay)? We want to be sure everything is secure.

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Hi

There are a lot of choices on the internet for selling your art work. Mind boggling at times and most times it's hard to decide which one will be more
lucrative or worth the time and effort you will put into selling your work.

I have been selling my art on Ebay for over a year now. I mostly specialize in ACEO and OSWOA formats, both are Small Format Art. Unfortunately
Ebay isn't quite the venue for collectors of art anymore, but the traffic and exposure are still there.

I also sell on a site called Etsy. It's a site similar to ebay, however it's for handmade items only and only offers a fixed-price format without an option
to auction your work. I really like the site, however it has nowhere near the traffic that Ebay does.

I also have a blog speaking of my art and a space within deviantart (which also has the option of selling prints of an artist's work) And just recently
I have launched my own website to tie these all together.

I guess my advice to your friend would be this: get your name out in as many places as possible. However be smart about it. Ebay is great because it
has the traffic, however the market is fickle and a sale depends greatly on wether the right buyer sees your work or what's "hot" at the moment. It can
get overly expensive rather fast there (listing fees, possible relist and yet another relist, plus final value fees, plus paypal fees if that's one of the options
given to the buyer to submit payment).

The listing fees at Etsy are quite a bit lower. I believe it's 20 cents per listing for a 2 month period....not sure, I'll have to check. but again, the traffic
is nowhere near as high as Ebay, but would be the second best site to go with. I use Etsy as my actual "store" however I do have a shop section within
my site that leads to it.

Do the site, however make sure he doesn't limit himself to only that. Word of mouth and business cards are great, but you need to go where the buyers
are. Use those other venues to drive the traffic to the site and hopefully it will work for him! To be honest mine is still rather new, so that part I can't
guarantee. I will definitely say that the other parts that I have had a part in during the last year have definitely help get my name and my art out there.

I wish him the best of luck!

 

 

 

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