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Three Ways To Sell Your Art Online
by Fiona R Ogilvie
http://www.froart.com
Imagine a marketplace that has no boundaries or limits, one
that doesn't require you to cart canvases and sculptures to
showings in other towns. Imagine a gallery with hundreds of
thousands of visitors a month, where you can arrange and
rearrange your art endlessly on the walls. Imagine an
enormous fair with no table fees, a venue where you only pay
if your artwork sells. Imagine the largest sidewalk art sale
in the world, open 24/7, 365 days a year - with no worries
about the weather.
Sound like an impossible dream? It's not - it's a digital
world, and you'll find all of those on the internet. If
you're an artist dabbling in any media, there are a number
of different ways to sell your art online. The three most
popular are your own web site, a gallery web site, or an
auction site. Your own preferences and skills should be the
key determining factor in which style of selling you choose
to sell your art online.
Auction Sites Auction sites allow people to post items that
they have for sale, usually with pictures. They provide a
way for others to post bids on the sale items. At the end of
a specified period of time, the auction is closed, and the
seller makes arrangements with the winning bidder for
payment and shipment.
eBay is the single most popular auction site on the
internet. You can sell anything on eBay, with very few
exceptions. Setting up a 'store' on eBay is simple and user
friendly. Once you set up a merchant account with the site,
you can post your works, set a minimum bid, a reserve bid
and a 'buy-it-now' price. eBay is affiliated with a number
of payment options. The most popular is Paypal, the original
pay-by-email solution. A Paypal account is the easiest way
to accept payment for your works.
Display Your Art in An Online Gallery There are a number of
different models for online galleries the most common of
which resemble an auction site with the focus on art. They
range from amateur gallery sites for artists to exchange
critique and compliments, to highly polished, professional
sites where the intent is to provide an upscale market for
quality artwork.
Artist's Gallery Sites Very similar to auction sites, except
the focus is on original art. A gallery site may charge
commission on any pieces that you sell, or may charge a
subscription fee to allow you to post your artwork on their
site. The gallery software will let people view your entire
collection of art, or just one piece at a time, as well as
letting them bid on a piece of work, or contact you to buy
it outright. Most let you set up a gallery free, but offer
special promotion for paying members.
The biggest advantage of choosing a gallery site over an
auction site is specialization. People who come to the
gallery are there to look at and buy art. Many galleries
also have an established community of artists with whom to
trade techniques and tips. Again, the gallery site will
usually handle any payment details, so you don't need to
have a merchants' account with a credit card company.
Create Your Own Web Site Building a web site of your own is
the most challenging of the options that are most popular,
but it's also the one with potentially the greatest reward.
You have complete creative and business control with your
own site. You may choose to display only your own work, or
collaborate on a joint effort with others. The site will
have the look and feel that you want it to have, but you
will have to work hard to maintain and market it.
The biggest disadvantage to building your own web site is
that you're on your own. You'll need a merchants' account,
though you can start off accepting payments through email
with a PayPal account. You'll also need to design and build
for yourself. By the same token, you won't owe anyone a
commission on any of your art that sells.
Whichever choice you make, you'll find that the internet is
one of the largest, most lucrative markets ever created. It
takes time and energy, but the market is there to be used.
Use it well, and you'll have your artwork hanging all over
the world.
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