Bil H., I like how you’ve designed the site. Very nice.
You can simply link to your CafePress store from your own site. And, Cafe Press pages do get spidered by Google, so they will show up in search engines. I’d consider CafePress an “offshoot” of your web site, and not much more. At least people can pick up something pretty cheap if your “big stuff” is out of their reach financially.
I am a little curious about one thing—I thought fessie brought up some excellent points about furthering your art education, but I haven’t yet seen you respond to her post.
I agree with what she has to say. You have some innate talents, but everyone’s innate talents can be enhanced considerably by education. I highly recommend that you take some design and color theory classes, for starters. (I loved my color theory classes!)
I was “born” with some “innate” talents in the art area, but I truly did not know how much I needed to learn until I started to take classes. My work improved considerably after that, and it wasn’t as if I wasn’t selling my work before the formal education. I was doing OK before. But man oh man. School helped my work improve tremendously.
I highly recommend formal training to anyone who is interested in selling their art.
BTW, Friends, over the past week I’ve kept an eye on the art listings at eBay. Now, it’s possible it’s been a crappy week, but I’ve gotta say my findings were dismal at best. Better than 95% of the art offerings never even get a single bid. and the majority of the ones that sell go for $20 or less.
Honestly, I can’t see making any money at $20/piece (or even $40/piece; I was thinking $100 minimum, perhaps as high as $500 based on what I’ve seen in other research in galleries and online). And that’s not to mention all the effort it takes to publish the 20 pieces that don’t get sold for the one that does.
And if they’re not moving on eBay, it’s hard to believe they’re moving any other place online, eBay being the biggest online general market out there.
Can anyone who’s sold art on eBay confirm, deny or comment? What’s your experience on percentage of pieces that sell? What’s your experience on average selling price?
Bill H. My appologies for all the quotes, it’s pretty late and it will help me to be more coherent…
For starters, I have no pricing. The art on the site is ALL from the first few months while I was learning to Flame Paint the steel. The pictures are of a very low quality and were shot on my living room floor. I have some great shots now but the last time I tried to update my site I crashed the whole thing and had to pay someone just to put it back the way it was. <sigh> I have nearly 300 designs so far, only a fraction of them are shown. Many of the links are to pages that were never created. In short, it reeks of something hastily thrown together and never finished, not the best way to convince others that I am ready to follow through on an order. I just have no HTML skills whatsoever. I am looking to create a new site that is more in the vein of a portfolio or simple photo page. Not so much offering the pictured items for sale as much as just showing the art I have done and asking “What would you like to try?” I think this approach would ultimately lead to more custom work which is something I really enjoy.
I placed a minimum bid price at my wholesale price, which was generally half or slightly less than half of what a typical gallery would charge a customer. I also stated this, as an incentive to bidders. The goal being to remind bidders that they stood a great chance of buying below retail price. It is very important to create a value for the potential buyer. They need to realize that they are bidding on something which regularly sells in shops at a retail price but that they are starting bids at wholesale, or the deal is simply not as compelling. Most artists charge a retail price to customers but I figure that if I am willing to sell an item to a store for $50, why do I need to charge $100 to some guy off the street? Be careful with this approach though as it is not good business to undercut your retail outlets on price. I think it is fair game when you are selling to a market that is outside of competition with your galleries though.
There is a piece on my site called “Screech” which got into a bid war between several bidders, it sold to a guy in Chicago for $307, slightly over 3 times what my wholesale price for the piece was. Another time, a similar piece only reached $150, but this was still above my wholesale price so I was very happy with the deal. Overall, I generally got very close to the wholesale price, or got no bids at all. I never did end up selling a piece at a loss from wholesale. It was very hit and miss though. Patience and persistance is most important. I suppose I was lacking on both in that respect. My biggest problem was the time involved with photographing the actual piece, setting up an auction, monitoring the auction, going through several follow-up emails with the customer, and then the time to ship. Having given this more thought since your post though, I think I will give Ebay another go. Is was quite entertaining in spite of the time consumption.
A good gallery will know what they can sell and will not hesitate to buy it. They generally will “try” to get you to consign but just hold out. If they wont budge and you really believe that they can move your art, get back to them in a few days and offer to make a small consignment since you are so impressed with their establishment. It will usually get your foot in the door. Be up front with them that if they sell those pieces that any future deals will be paid for up front. After I have worked with a shop for a bit I always offer them Net 15 / Net 30 terms to help them out.
A consignment deal has several inherent problems. Foremost is the fact that they are going to push the items which they have purchased first and foremost in order to recoup their investment. Consignment art also has a nasty habit of getting damaged as they have nothing to lose in the event of damage. YOU get stuck with damaged goods, not them. My friend’s can all point this out as they have many scratch and dents which I just gave away. Trust me on this, consignment is great for a gallery but it is a losing proposition for you in the long run. Only use it as a means to build a relationship with a gallery which you have great faith in.
Many galleries will only do consignment, but not all. The ones in very touristy areas such as Jackson Hole, Wy. and Park City, Ut. are prime examples of cash customers in this neck of the woods. They have unbelievable markups though. 100 to 250%. I believe it limits sales but it is their call in the end. That is one benefit with consignment is that you are in a better position to negotiate the retail price. I do not believe a consignment shop can justify a markup of more than 30% tops. This keeps the price down and helps fuel sales. I could go on and on here, you should really give me a call sometime as I can talk much faster than I type…
Very important, a large number of my outlets practically fell into my lap while I was not in sales mode but just happened to be paying attention at the right time.
These places can command a very high price. The downside is that sales are not frequent. I sold one of my very first mirrors in a very cozy local restuarant for $350. I would have wholesaled that piece for around $150, it did wonders to help me believe in my art and myself. A lot of restuarants have framed art for sale and as far as I can tell, very few sell at bargain prices. I have sold art in 3 restuarants and 4 coffee shops (you know, the “trendy” kind?) not one of them asked for any commission. Several coffee shops that I have found show a selected artist and rotate them out monthly or so. Pick out a few and approach the owner/manager with this idea. You might be surprised in the interest you get! As far as “upper limit” when it comes to art, “the sky is the limit”. You will soon begin to get a feel for what a fair price is for your art.
My pleasure. And please do. Like I said, I have asked numerous metal artists online for advice and every single one of them replied with all manner of suggestions. If I can do the same it would only be fitting. Besides, I think your art is very good. If you only believe that you will succeed and apply a bit of energy to the equation then you will. Simple as that.
I hope I do not come off as trying to be some “know it all”, I know very little about art and even less about business besides what I have picked up along the way. I simply would like to see other artists succeed with their dreams as I have with my “Steel Dreams”.
Wow! My first SDMB mini-novel. I hope it was helpful.
But Bill, is a general market what you’re looking for? eBay is for mass market and garage sale stuff isn’t it? The economy isn’t really the issue. People buying fine art will buy it, reguardless. eBay is for bargain hunters. You need to have a venue that matches the quality of your work.
Iteki, I looked at fark.com, and it looks like a teenage dating place. Are you sure there are serious art buyers there?
To be real honest, if the real value at fark.com is that I can pay for a classified ad so some 18 year olds with no money will insult my work, I’m not sure I get it. I’m insulting enough to my own stuff.
Unless I missed something about the site; if so, please let me know.
Your comments about eBay seem to verify my concerns, that it’s really not a good place to sell fine art (if I can be so bold to label my crap such), as the prices you can command are very low.
I appreciate the pointers about arts and crafts fairs. I’m looking into some of those I can get into. But I think you’re completely right about entry costs: to sell anything of any decent dollar amount will require a showing that costs more money to enter; that selling at low-end places will only bring low-end clientele and low-end revenues.
I’ll also check into local arts organizations.
And congratulations on your good fortune at the recent fair.
I appreciate your thoughts about chasing customers at the cost of artistic choices. And I do agree, but I’ll be honest and tell you that I’m at least half whorish. My real love in life (behind my family) is building businesses, and the product is almost secondary. Not to say I don’t love building the product, I do. But the real beauty to me is when people like your product, and not just like it enough to say “I like that”, but rather “I like that enough to pay for it.” I know that probably sounds despicable in artist terms, but it’s who I am. Customer satisfaction and a successful revenue model are absolutely key to my happiness, and that’s a good part of my goal here.
Also, I appreciate your sagacious advice about really getting involved in the art community, with other artists, joining organizations and taking classes. I know you’re absolutely correct. That’s part of the reason I’m asking for advice here, to meet the SDMB art community. And I’m checking out other places online, and doing some things offline, more as I find time.
On education: you are so right. I do have a little insight into what I want to see on canvas, but I’ll be the first to say that even a little education would go a long way with me. And more would go further. I will pursue that both indirectly (getting critiques and advice from my quickly growing circle of artist friends) and directly (in school).
However, another one of my “who I am” characteristics is that I don’t want to wait to make sure I know what I’m doing. I’m happy to get out there now and sell what I have. And if it is crap and noone pays for it, well that’s fine, I’ll get better with time. To me the learning (both about the art itself as well as the market through the sales process) is the joy in all this.
I have somewhat of a history of jumping in with no education. I dropped out of college early on. And in my professional life, there’s noone in my circles who doesn’t have a degree. I’ve always learned more from doing (and that includes doing and failing) than being taught.
Not that I’m disputing your point about art education. It’s crystal clear to me that I need it, it’s just not as high a priority to me right now as the other aspects (marketing, selling, and of course making art).
picunurse, I’ve also seen them around here (bay area in calif) for similar numbers, but I’ve just assumed nobody would actually pay that in those venues. Perhaps they do.
On the framing side, that’s a great idea; I’ll check it out.
yosemitebabe, thanks for the compliment on the site. Got the postcards, guestbook, and mailing list done, now finishing up the shopping cart. Also, I built a really slick back-end that makes adding/deleting/moving pictures really easy. It was my first experience with php, which I really like compared to cgi stuff.
I’ll take a look at integrating CafePress; thanks. I think to do it right, they want more money, a premier membership or something. But I’ll take a look.
And thanks for the encouragement to get some learning. lord knows I can use it.
I like your ideas for your new site, but as an ousider, I’ll tell you that I think it’s great. As far as making minor mods to it, such as adding new pictures, I’m happy to give you some pointers and help by email. I suspect with a relatively small amount of work you can bring your site at least up to date with your latest work. Also, I agree that categorizing your work and displaying similar types together would go a long way towards getting custom work, and would make the site more pleasing as well. And I think you can go a long way towards that by just organizing the existing pictures you have (online and not yet posted), and just display them in groups. Which should be very little effort. In other words, I suggest you have a big plan for the perfect site, but then in the short run just think how you can solve your immediate problems with minimal effort. Personally I think you can do alot with the structure you already have in place.
Your comments on eBay are VERY encouraging. As I noted above, I’ve begun to believe that you can’t possibly sell a piece on eBay for better than twenty bucks unless your name happens to be Pablo Picasso and mine isn’t. I appreciate your marketing insights there as well.
You gave a couple examples of eBay sales in the $200+ range. Was that at the high end? What was your average sale would you guess? And what percentage of postings actually sold?
Very much appreciate your thoughts on galleries. I’ll keep a portfolio in my car and make it a point to talk to some galleries. And appreciate your insights on accepting consignment as a good-faith intro, but expecting payment for future work.
And finally, thanks for the additional kind comments about the quality of my work.
picunurse, I hope you’re right. I guess it is true that eBay has a lot of low end things, and I suppose it’s true it’s not the typical place one goes to buy fine art. I did buy some pieces by Dali there a number of years ago. I had never bought anything famous before, and figured eBay was a way I could see a ton of stuff without physically going to a gallery. Which was true, but it wasn’t quite as nice as buying something where you can see it close up. I know eBay acquired some high end fine art auction site some time ago, but I don’t see it on their site. Maybe I have to look harder, or maybe it’s kept as it’s own name for branding purposes.
Bill H, hopefully I’ve haven’t exhausted my welcome on your thread…
The eBay feature you’re looking for is eBay Live Auctions. There used to be many restrictions about who could sell and buy there, but I don’t know what the current rules are. It’s probably not the best place for a new artist to get established, especially because many buyers I know have been badly burnt by the auction houses and don’t even look there.
I know artists who sell to the same pool of collectors I do, and command prices via regular eBay as high as $2,000 and beyond for a single 5" item. The initial pool of buyers was established elsewhere, however, not grown from scratch via eBay.
Another thought that came to me: are your works being produced in limited editions? If they are, say so. Many buyers are very keen on the idea, sometimes to the point of absurdity. It’s been well-established within the microniche of collectors I cater to that an artist can get higher prices for two editions of 25 each than a run of 50 one-of-a-kinds. Whether that behavior transfers to other groups, I don’t know.
Bill, I’d like to support your position on this - I also have no formal art education (after the age of 15) but I have sold a great deal of art and had some of my paintings published in limited and unlimited editions. The lack of an education shouldn’t be a barrier, psychological or otherwise, to attempting to follow your own artisitc development and selling art.
Having said that, I would give up a great deal to return to college to study fine art because it is my passion. I would love to devote myself to it fully and see how far I could develop my painting. I also like the thought of being surrounded by other people with a similar interest. If only I had the time…!
Took another look at the site… its’s looking good. I’m not sure about including the photographs in Gallery 4. They are fine but not really in keeping with your other images and I find them distracting. I can see how your work is developing even in the few weeks since I first came across your post. Some of your images really are very good indeed (Blocks, Magic Stone, Dreams 2 stick out for me), which brings me to a point I’d like to make. It’s time to stop putting your work down! For two reasons.
First, you need to come to appreciate the value in being artistically creative - sure not everything you do will be fantastic, but then Picasso painted a few lemons. You are producing art - and art that some people genuinely admire if the comments on this board are anything to go by. Popularity doesn’t necessarily make it great, but it’s certainly not crap. I respect a healthy degree of humility but being overly self-deprecating is both negative and disrespectful of the opinions (which you have courted) of those who like what you are producing. At worst it can come across as a kind of false modesty, which will not win you many friends.
Second, if you are intending to market and sell your work it makes poor business sense to debase your product. I don’t know if you are familiar with Gerald Ratner’s story - head of a very successful chain of low-end jewellery stores in the UK he famously described his products as ‘total crap’ in a speech in 1991. The media got hold of it and the market crushed the stock-price and almost wiped out the company… If you are putting a price-tag on your product you need to at least give the impression that you believe it is worth what you are asking. If you don’t believe that to be the case, I would suggest that you hold off marketing it until you do.
I looked at the eBay Live Auction site, and sure enough, to sell you must be a registered auction house. Also, I looked through what they had on the block, and there wasn’t much. I am encouraged by your comment that you know people who sell things for as high as $2k there.
I am selling things in limited editions. What are typical sizes of runs? When you said 25, you scared me as I’m thinking a couple hundred. What is typical?
Also, could you run your 2x25 vs 50 comparison by me again? Are you saying that if you sell 2 different pieces at a run of 25, vs 1 piece at 50, the 2x25 model is better? I.e. are you really saying that if you sell a piece at a run of 25, that you can charge better than double what you could if you did a run of 50?
Or are you saying there’s a way to extend a single piece out in two runs? I’m not quite sure what that would mean, as it seems to me that both runs are really the same.
How “limited” a limited edition should be probably varies greatly from medium to medium. Even within ceramics, edition sizes tend to vary based on what type of clay one is using. Porcelain, my claybody of choice, is very tricky to use, so edition sizes tend to be very small - anywhere from 10 to 50. People who use earthenware clay, which is a lot easier on the potter, tend to have larger edition sizes ranging from 25 to 250. Prints, which I’m assuming are a lot less labor-intensive per unit - ?? I have no real idea what’s typical. Worth some research.
As for my example, I’ll try to word it better this time. Say I decide I’m going to release a new frog sculpture, and that I will make 50 copies total. The smarter move for me is to split that 50 piece run into 2 colors - 25 identical frogs in fuschia, and another 25 in electric purple - than I am to decorate 50 frogs in unique colors and patterns, or to decorate all 50 frogs the same color. A given buyer will purchase frogs from the 25/25 run much faster and in greater quantities than s/he will 50 uniques or 50 all alike.
If, however, I make a run of 25/25 or a run of 50 lookalikes, and then take one unique frog and label it an “artist’s proof” or a “test color”, it will potentially bring many times the price of any of the others. Same frog as part of an edition of 50 one-of-a-kinds won’t receive any particular attention.
I’ve seen these buying patterns occur repeatedly, to a number of artists and manufacturers, so I don’t think my observations are based on a fluke. I have my own theories as to why collectors behave this way, and will be happy to share them if anyone’s interested.
Somnambulist, thanks for the thoughts on education. And I know what you mean about time. Lack of time is one of the main thing keeping from going back to school.
Thanks very much for the site revisit and kind comments. Re: the photos: I can’t draw real life things at all. A few weeks ago, I realized I could start incorporating photographs into my art, and as I’m a decent photographer and have tons of back stuff, I figured I’d start there. Pulling them out, I figured I’d put a few online. But you’re right; they’re out of place there, and I’ll likely move them out.
And of course you’re right about proper attitude. I haven’t heard the Gerald Ratner story before, but in my “real” work, I’m well aware of the importance of being confident and projecting it in terms of sales and professional respect. Very very aware of that concept. My work has been in building companys from one or two people and an idea to hundreds of employees and many millions of dollars in revenue. And a very key ingredient when you’re small is to project bigness. As you can see in my bio on the art site, I project much better than I do here. Anyway, you’re right, and I’ll make it a point to do better there going forward.
