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Creating An Online Market For Your Art
by Fiona R Ogilvie
http://www.froart.com
Unless you enjoy acting out the part of the proverbial
starving artist, chances are that you're always on the
lookout for good places to sell your art. What would you
think of opening a little gallery in a market that has
hundreds of thousands of visitors monthly, is open 24/7 with
or without you being there, provides excellent security and
even collects your fees for you? That market is the
internet. With literally millions of people using the
internet daily, more and more artists are discovering that
online is a great place to sell your art. Let's take a look
at three of the most popular ways to sell art online and see
if one of them would work for you.
Sell Your Art At General Auction I realized just how popular
eBay auctions have grown the other day when I overheard my
daughter tell a friend, 'Oh, I'll just eBay it'. The name
has become synonymous with online auctions, but there are
dozens of similar sites where you can sell your art. You
simply set up each piece as a separate item for auction, and
post them to the system.
You need: good quality scans of your work, a merchant
account on the auction site, a payment method.
You can post each of your works of art for sale separatelya
and accept bids on them. You can also choose to set a flat
"Buy It Now' price for each piece of art you're selling, and
bypass the auction. Accepting payments is easy. eBay is
affiliated with PayPal, the original pay by email service.
It allows you to accept credit card and EFT payments without
a commercial merchants' account.
Pros: large audience, easy to collect payment, easy to set
up. Cons: Not devoted just to artwork, people looking for
bargains won't pay a lot for original art.
You need: Quality digital scans of your art, enough
technical knowhow to be able to upload scans to their
gallery pages.
They provide: A market focused on artwork, a payment method
and escrow service, contact and exposure to other artists.
Your Own Web Site Building your own web site offers you
total creative control. You choose the look and mood of your
entire site, how to display the photos of your artwork, how
often you add new work - everything. It can be one of the
most powerful ways to sell your art online - if you have the
time to devote to it.
Pros: Creative control and sole decision making power Cons:
You're on your own. You'll need to provide your own payment
options (PayPal is still one of the most popular), your own
building and design skills and your own promotion. If you
have the time to market it properly, though, you could
really make a go of it.
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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