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January 2018
Feature Selling Fine Art and Fine Crafts OnLine by C.J. Shane |
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In late November, I sent out a call in the of Sonoran Arts Network newsletter to artists. If you’ve been selling your fine arts or fine crafts online, please share your experience with us.
Three artists responded. Before we look at their comments, let’s first take a look at what options we have to sell online. The options are too numerous to even count. Literally, there are hundreds of online markets now, and a whole sub-industry of articles and even websites on how to evaluate online markets and how to choose which is best for your needs. Frequently, these articles have advice on finding an alternative to Etsy.
Three artists responded. Before we look at their comments, let’s first take a look at what options we have to sell online. The options are too numerous to even count. Literally, there are hundreds of online markets now, and a whole sub-industry of articles and even websites on how to evaluate online markets and how to choose which is best for your needs. Frequently, these articles have advice on finding an alternative to Etsy.
So let’s start with Etsy https://www.etsy.com/ which is probably the largest and best-known of the online art markets. It is so large, in fact, that many artists have left Etsy because they think they got lost in the crowd there. Someone compared it to a huge warehouse where it’s hard to be found unless a buyer already knows about you. A second criticism of Etsy is that it opened itself up to vendors selling manufactured goods. This means that Etsy is no longer a totally “handmade” market.
To open a shop on the Etsy website, you pay a fee of 20 cents for each item you list, the item stays available for purchase for four months. After that, you to relist and pay the 20 cent fee again. Etsy takes a 3.5% transaction fee and an additional 3% plus 25 cents payment processing fee for each sale.
One trend we are seeing now in some of these online markets is to offer vendors two options: to open a shop on the main art market website and also to have your own website under your own URL and domain name which is integrated with, and managed through, your online market website. This means that if you want to do this, you have to purchase your own URL from GoDaddy or another source.
URL is defined as “universal resource locator” and it is essentially the website’s address on the web. For example, the URL for Sonoran Arts Network is https://www.sonoranartsnetwork.net/, the domain name is SonoranArtsNetwork, and the “net” is the extension.
The idea here is for you to get the maximum exposure with the least amount of work. Presumably creating that website under your own domain name associated with an online market is easier than designing your own website, although design options are limited, and you pay an extra fee. With platforms like Weebly and Wix which make website creation fairly easy, it may or may not be easier to go through an art market to do this.
Etsy offers this service for a fee of an additional $15/month. Let’s take a look at Judy Robbins of Tucson and her sites. Here is Judy’s Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/robbinsprintmarks/ and here is her website through the Etsy platform. https://www.judyrobbinsart.com/ As you can see from Etsy shop, she’s had 8 sales and she’s been on Etsy since 2011.
Judy says: “I have my Etsy site and I pay $15 per month to Etsy for the website judyrobbinsart.com. So two platforms but neither makes money. I probably need to keep updating and posting stuff to increase the Google profile but I am not producing that much so maybe just re-designing the site would be a good thing at least to spiff it up.” Judy says she’s been writing a lot lately and she’s had some recent health issues so she hasn’t spent as much time on her Etsy sites.
Another Etsy vendor is Sherrie Posternak of Tucson. Sherrie has her own website for her encaustic and mixed media art. http://www.sherrieposternak.com/ She also sells Mexican oilcloth accessories on Etsy under the name Cereza Oilcloth Studio https://www.etsy.com/shop/CerezaOilclothStudio?ref=l2-shopheader-name
Sherrie also has a website for Cereza that is not attached to Etsy https://www.cerezastudio.com/
Sherrie says she started her Etsy shop about three months ago in late 2017. “I put up maybe 20 items (3 designs in various color choices)…..no results….talked to some folks who told me you need to be active on the site— reposting and “being present” almost daily, to receive any results, due to the ENORMOUS competition. Don’t know if I’m willing to continue on that route...”
To open a shop on the Etsy website, you pay a fee of 20 cents for each item you list, the item stays available for purchase for four months. After that, you to relist and pay the 20 cent fee again. Etsy takes a 3.5% transaction fee and an additional 3% plus 25 cents payment processing fee for each sale.
One trend we are seeing now in some of these online markets is to offer vendors two options: to open a shop on the main art market website and also to have your own website under your own URL and domain name which is integrated with, and managed through, your online market website. This means that if you want to do this, you have to purchase your own URL from GoDaddy or another source.
URL is defined as “universal resource locator” and it is essentially the website’s address on the web. For example, the URL for Sonoran Arts Network is https://www.sonoranartsnetwork.net/, the domain name is SonoranArtsNetwork, and the “net” is the extension.
The idea here is for you to get the maximum exposure with the least amount of work. Presumably creating that website under your own domain name associated with an online market is easier than designing your own website, although design options are limited, and you pay an extra fee. With platforms like Weebly and Wix which make website creation fairly easy, it may or may not be easier to go through an art market to do this.
Etsy offers this service for a fee of an additional $15/month. Let’s take a look at Judy Robbins of Tucson and her sites. Here is Judy’s Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/robbinsprintmarks/ and here is her website through the Etsy platform. https://www.judyrobbinsart.com/ As you can see from Etsy shop, she’s had 8 sales and she’s been on Etsy since 2011.
Judy says: “I have my Etsy site and I pay $15 per month to Etsy for the website judyrobbinsart.com. So two platforms but neither makes money. I probably need to keep updating and posting stuff to increase the Google profile but I am not producing that much so maybe just re-designing the site would be a good thing at least to spiff it up.” Judy says she’s been writing a lot lately and she’s had some recent health issues so she hasn’t spent as much time on her Etsy sites.
Another Etsy vendor is Sherrie Posternak of Tucson. Sherrie has her own website for her encaustic and mixed media art. http://www.sherrieposternak.com/ She also sells Mexican oilcloth accessories on Etsy under the name Cereza Oilcloth Studio https://www.etsy.com/shop/CerezaOilclothStudio?ref=l2-shopheader-name
Sherrie also has a website for Cereza that is not attached to Etsy https://www.cerezastudio.com/
Sherrie says she started her Etsy shop about three months ago in late 2017. “I put up maybe 20 items (3 designs in various color choices)…..no results….talked to some folks who told me you need to be active on the site— reposting and “being present” almost daily, to receive any results, due to the ENORMOUS competition. Don’t know if I’m willing to continue on that route...”
Barbara Kemp Cowlin of Oracle sells her acrylic paintings on line on the Saatchi Art website. https://www.saatchiart.com/ Saatchi does not offer a personal website option although you can link to your personal website which for Barbara is https://barbarakempcowlin.com/ . Barbara’s Saatchi site is https://www.saatchiart.com/BarbaraKempCowlin .
Barbara says of her Saatchi experience, “SAATCHI gallery is extremely easy to use. There are regular improvements to the website. They send out tips to the artists once in a while and I think they do a lot of advertising. The trick to selling on the site (from SAATCHI emails and several artists I know) is being really active on the site. It’s a social media process— if you produce a lot of work consistently and upload frequently that gets attention. And there are collections and favorites that viewers can pick (not sure what it means). Also likes. I’ve never been clear how it all works and haven’t gotten involved with anything except uploading my work as I finish it. But I’m a slow painter and I wait until I have at least three finished paintings before I ask Jim (husband photographer Jim Cowlin) to photograph them (otherwise it’s a hassle for him because he sets up his equipment in the living room and has to take down again each time). So I may add several paintings a month.
There are also various levels—my paintings were chosen for a ‘collection’ by the chief curator several years ago. So my page says that and it’s supposed to mean something to viewers, I guess. I should really figure the system out…I’ve only sold one painting through SAATCHI, not sure how long I’ve been on it, maybe 8 years? The painting was sold to a fairly well known architect in Canada, so that was kind of cool—clearly someone who would never have seen my work otherwise. So I’m not a mogul of the online gallery world.”
Saatchi offers you a free account, Saatch pays for shipping of artwork, and the artist gets 65% of the sale price so that means Saatchi gets 35%. https://www.saatchiart.com/whysell
Barbara says of her Saatchi experience, “SAATCHI gallery is extremely easy to use. There are regular improvements to the website. They send out tips to the artists once in a while and I think they do a lot of advertising. The trick to selling on the site (from SAATCHI emails and several artists I know) is being really active on the site. It’s a social media process— if you produce a lot of work consistently and upload frequently that gets attention. And there are collections and favorites that viewers can pick (not sure what it means). Also likes. I’ve never been clear how it all works and haven’t gotten involved with anything except uploading my work as I finish it. But I’m a slow painter and I wait until I have at least three finished paintings before I ask Jim (husband photographer Jim Cowlin) to photograph them (otherwise it’s a hassle for him because he sets up his equipment in the living room and has to take down again each time). So I may add several paintings a month.
There are also various levels—my paintings were chosen for a ‘collection’ by the chief curator several years ago. So my page says that and it’s supposed to mean something to viewers, I guess. I should really figure the system out…I’ve only sold one painting through SAATCHI, not sure how long I’ve been on it, maybe 8 years? The painting was sold to a fairly well known architect in Canada, so that was kind of cool—clearly someone who would never have seen my work otherwise. So I’m not a mogul of the online gallery world.”
Saatchi offers you a free account, Saatch pays for shipping of artwork, and the artist gets 65% of the sale price so that means Saatchi gets 35%. https://www.saatchiart.com/whysell
Let’s look at a couple of other sites for selling online. One marketplace that is getting consistently high rankings for ease of use, low fees, and good design is Zibbet. https://www.zibbet.com/ Like the Etsy example given earlier, Zibbet offers vendors both a “store” on the Zibbet marketplace website and a separate website, too. Here is an example, The Vintage Teacup. http://thevintageteacup.zibbet.com/ (website) and https://www.zibbet.com/thevintageteacup (Zibbet shop).
The biggest downside is that Zibbet is fairly new and has less traffic than a site like Etsy. Reviewers have said that they think Zibbet will grow rapidly, and it will become a force in the online market business. Zibbet is based in Australia so if you wish, you can sell to an international market. For support, you have to wait for a day or two because day is night in Australia and we have to wait for them to wake up…or they have to wait for us to wake up depending on your perspective. I personally enjoyed looking at the work of artists and craft people from different countries. There’s Rosita from Lithuania who says of her linen pillow products, “Save home with long lasting items. Save Earth.” https://www.zibbet.com/pillowlink/meet-the-seller It’s hard to resist that! Here’s the link to Rosita’s store. https://www.zibbet.com/pillowlink
Jonathan, the founder of Zibbet, sent me a message in which he says,
“The Zibbet marketplace has a few key differences to Etsy:
- We have stricter rules on handmade. Therefore, sellers aren't drowning in a sea of mass produced products, which are giving them stiff competition on prices etc
- We have no commission or listing fees
- You also get a free standalone website through Zibbet
I like this sentiment of changing "vs" to "AND." Instead of competing, why not cooperate? Too bad we don’t do more of that in southern Arizona! Zibbet’s no listing fees and low subscription fees make that possible. https://www.zibbet.com/sell#pricing
An appealing alternative to Etsy is ArtFire which also consistently ranks high in reviews. https://www.artfire.com/ For those who like to “buy local,” ArtFire will interest you. ArtFire is homegrown with both its private offices and remote developers based in Tucson. You have three options for opening a shop. https://www.artfire.com/ext/sell/start_today The starting plan is $ 4.95/month with a 9% fee, and goes up from there depending on your total number of listed items for sale, and expanded services. The most popular plan charges $20/month and offers a 3% fee, up to 1000 Active Listings, and no individual listing fees.
I exchanged emails with Dylan who is a Subject Matter Expert (SME) at ArtFire. He tells me that ArtFire focuses on handcrafted items (no Chinese manufactured imports!). ArtFire sponsors a Great Maker Search which Dylan describes as “a competition run quarterly in which users vote on their favorite sellers applicants in a category, with the winner receiving enhanced exposure on site and accolades through our social media channels.”
Dylan wrote that ArtFire has “powerful selling tools and features not found on everyday website creators or template selling sites. We take the development work and feature setup out of the artists’ hands so they may focus on crafting and selling. The ArtFire Marketplace attracts 1000s of shoppers each month. We automatically integrate with various APIs and major search engines, and merchants can set up a Google Shopping campaign and connect analytics for accurate statistics…We constantly promote via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google Plus with paid Ads and boosted posts of seller's items as well.” He also mention Forums where vendors can give and receive assistance.
I exchanged emails with Dylan who is a Subject Matter Expert (SME) at ArtFire. He tells me that ArtFire focuses on handcrafted items (no Chinese manufactured imports!). ArtFire sponsors a Great Maker Search which Dylan describes as “a competition run quarterly in which users vote on their favorite sellers applicants in a category, with the winner receiving enhanced exposure on site and accolades through our social media channels.”
Dylan wrote that ArtFire has “powerful selling tools and features not found on everyday website creators or template selling sites. We take the development work and feature setup out of the artists’ hands so they may focus on crafting and selling. The ArtFire Marketplace attracts 1000s of shoppers each month. We automatically integrate with various APIs and major search engines, and merchants can set up a Google Shopping campaign and connect analytics for accurate statistics…We constantly promote via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google Plus with paid Ads and boosted posts of seller's items as well.” He also mention Forums where vendors can give and receive assistance.
Also worthy of mention is Bonanza (https://www.bonanza.com/ )which is much more like a big online market like Amazon Marketplace or Ebay than like Etsy or the other online art markets mentioned here. You can buy and sell a large variety of goods on Bonanza. Integration with Google Shop is a big plus for this site. Like Etsy and Zibbet, you can have your own marketplace shop on Bonanza and also a separate webstore. You can start with free listings, and pay a commission to Bonanza for each sale. But monthly fees for more listings and services like a separate website through Bonanza are higher than some of the other sites.
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We’re seeing some themes emerge here. Some sites focus on handcrafted items, fine arts, and other items such as “vintage.” Others like Saatchi and Zatista focus primarily on fine arts. Also constant engagement with your shop seems essential if you want consistent sales.
If you have comments about a market you are on now or if you have any comments about this story, email me and I’ll add your comments. editor@SonoranArtsNetwork.net
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We’re seeing some themes emerge here. Some sites focus on handcrafted items, fine arts, and other items such as “vintage.” Others like Saatchi and Zatista focus primarily on fine arts. Also constant engagement with your shop seems essential if you want consistent sales.
If you have comments about a market you are on now or if you have any comments about this story, email me and I’ll add your comments. editor@SonoranArtsNetwork.net