Being an artist isn’t easy. Besides creating masterpieces, you also need to find ways how to sell art. Several years ago artists needed to contact galleries, agents, and retailers for that. Nowadays, everything is set for you to sell your artwork independently just by staying home. In this article, you’ll learn the main steps and ways to sell art online, what its pros and cons are, and how to price your artwork for sale.
Key takeaways
- Here are the key steps to sell art online: choose the artwork, choose the platform, create an account, strategically price your artwork, share it on social media, and handle the payment and shipment processes.
- Here are the main pros for selling art from home: lower costs, higher flexibility, higher profit margins, direct customer connection, and full control.
- Here are the main cons of selling art from home: you’ll be responsible for all the marketing staff and you’ll be managing orders, packaging, and shipping, which can be very time-consuming.
- Here are the key steps of how to sell art from home: use social media, create your own website, list your artwork, and offer print-on-demand services.
- The main steps for pricing your artwork for sale are finding your market, looking for similar artists and artworks, calculating the main costs, and determining the pricing strategy.
Steps to sell art online
For all of you who’ve been wondering how to sell paintings and other artworks, we’ve prepared the key steps that will help in the process.
Choose the Artwork
If you want to learn how to sell artwork, first of all, you need to understand which artwork you want to sell. Are they your own works? Or if you don’t create any artwork, you can buy and then resell artwork earning high ROI. History is full of this kind of examples. For instance, Gerhard Richter’s “Abstraktes Bild” was purchased for $607,500 and then sold for more than $46 million. A great way to find the right artwork to invest in is ArtyTraders. With its valuation and cost prediction feature, you can upload an artwork and get cost prediction with 90%+ accuracy.
Choose the Platform
Every artist wants to find the best place to sell art as the platform plays a crucial role in succeeding in selling. You need to find places to sell art that’ll feature your artwork, and show it to art collectors. With ArtyTraders, your artwork will be on top, and make sure that it’ll be shown to art curators. Our smart system will recommend your art to people who are interested in similar works. Additionally, our system will precisely evaluate and predict the price of your artwork for upcoming years.
Create an Account
While creating your account on the platform, you need to fill in some information to look trustworthy. You’ll need to not only add information about yourself, your previous auctions, and exhibitions but also describe each artwork. The key things to mention are material, medium, and size. You can also add information about the emotions you tried to convey to the viewer.
Strategically Price Your Artwork
After creating an account and uploading your artwork, you need to strategically price your artwork. In this guide, we’ve also included some tips and tricks that’ll help you wisely set pricing for each artwork.
Share Your Artwork on Social Media
In order to gain more interest among art collectors, you not only need to upload your artwork on the chosen platform but also share it on social media, and emails and probably run paid ads campaigns as well.
Handle Payment and Shipment processes
For the last step, you need to choose the reliable payment and shipment options.
Pros and Cons of selling art from home
While learning how to sell art online and make money, you need to consider the pros and cons of that. Here are some of them:
Pros
- Lower Costs. You don’t have to rent a gallery or studio, which reduces your pricing.
- Higher Flexibility. You can work at your own pace.
- Higher Profit Margins. Selling your art online usually promises higher margins than selling at galleries or studios.
- Direct Customer Connection. As an artist, you can personally engage with buyers and build customer loyalty.
- Full Control: Unlike traditional galleries, when you choose to sell art from home you have full control of the process and you choose by yourself what or how to sell.
Cons
- You’ll be responsible for the marketing of your artwork
- Managing orders, packaging, and shipping can be time-consuming
4 ways how to sell your art
Typing “How can I sell my art” and dreaming about finding a comprehensive guide? Well, you found it! Here are the most common ways of how to sell art.
Use Social Media
Start with the most general social channels like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn and Pinterest. Learn about the tips and tricks to promote your artwork on socials such as influencer marketing, adding hashtags, using paid promotion, etc. You can also engage with your followers, find online galleries and influencers, and discuss potential collaborations.
Create Your Own Website
Many artists create their own websites, where they have full control over the pricing, design, news, branding, and customer experience. You can use platforms like Shopify, Squarespace, or WordPress to set up your website.
List Your Artwork
If you want to learn how to sell art, you need to find the best art marketplace for you and sign up there as well. Before registration, pay attention to the requirements and conditions that the marketplace has. ArtyTraders connects artists with art collectors, lists artworks on top pages, and uses a smart recommendation system to show your artwork to those who are interested in that style.
Offer Print-on-Demand Services
Convert your artwork into posters, t-shirts, mugs, and phone cases using print-on-demand services. This will help you earn the best out of it.
How to Price Your Artwork For Sale
If you want to learn how to sell your art, you need to consider the following key steps:
Find Your Market
First of all, you need to consider the market. Where are you going to sell your artwork? Online? During auctions? In galleries? You need to think broadly before deciding on the sales place. For example, if you decide on galleries, research the ones that are showing artworks in your style. Also, find out what other artists will be exhibited. Also, keep in mind that galleries usually require some commission, so take into account the gallery’s cut before setting the final price.
Look for Similar Artists and Artworks
Find artists from your niche. Analyze their history and artworks, and find out where their artworks are mostly shown. Also pay attention to characteristics like medium, material, artwork size, theme, style, and experience level. As an artist, you need to consider that art collectors also focus on these kinds of things, and setting much higher or lower prices for similar artworks won’t be the best way to catch their attention.
Calculate the Costs
Your pricing needs to cover all the expenses related to creating the artwork, including:
- Materials (canvas, paints, papers, frames, and sculpting tools)
- Studio expenses (rent, utilities)
- Shipping and packaging
- Marketing (advertising, product promotion, gallery fees)
Determine the Pricing Strategy
Material and shipping costs are important. But all of this isn’t enough to determine the price for your artwork. You also need to set a price for your working time and effort. For example, you can think about setting an hourly wage. Another way to set a price is by deciding a rate for a square inch. For example, you can set $3 for one square inch, and depending on the width and height of your artwork, its price will vary.
Pricing your artwork is very important. You need to make sure that the pricing structure is clear. This way, you’ll have more transparent relationships with galleries and buyers, as you can always explain your pricing strategy to them and make sure they don’t think it’s based on nothing.
FAQ
What is the best platform to sell my artwork?
Artytraders is considered one of the best platforms to sell artwork. Not only it comes with many advanced features such as a smart recommendation system, artwork evaluation, and cost prediction, but it also has the lowest commission fee in the market.
How do I sell art without using a website?
You can sell your artwork by using Social Media channels such as Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest. Additionally, consider uploading your artwork to marketplaces, and online galleries.