A few decades ago, dealers, brokers, and 3rd personal middlemen were needed to sell or buy any art form. Now that the Internet has taken over the world, people are no longer required to rely on a 3rd party broker to make sales. The most popular way now is to sell through an online marketplace.
eBay is one such marketplace that deals with art. Here artists looking to sell their pieces post them. Buyers who want to buy art surf through the site to find the perfect fit and contact the seller to buy it from them.
Why is eBay an Effective Platform to Sell Art?
If you can create art pieces every day, selling your work on eBay is a wonderful method to generate money. Whether you’re a painter, sculptor, or photographer, eBay has something to offer you. It’s fantastic since you can do it from the comfort of your own home, and the initial investment in supplies is cheap. You might be able to cover the entire cost of these expenses if you sell just one of your artworks.
This marketplace has a massive audience on the lookout for art, especially because eBay has an enormous product filtration system that is incredibly user-friendly. This helps eBay customers lock on to a specific category of product which allows them to shorten their list of potential buyers. This enables you to increase your chances of getting chosen.
Things Needed for Making Sales on eBay
Aside from art supplies, you will also need a few other equipment, tools, and accounts if you intend to sell and make money on eBay.
- An eBay account.
- A PayPal account.
- Digital camera with an optical zoom of at least four times.
- Tripod (highly recommended).
- Quality lighting or access to ample natural light.
- Black velvet backdrop.
- 3D modeling program if you have a high budget.
How to Sell Art on eBay
- Set up a personal website for advertising before making posts on eBay. You could do this by creating a local business page via Facebook. You could use Facebook to advertise your auctions to your customers before they decide to buy the artwork from eBay.
- When you create an eBay account, make sure to write about yourself as detailed as possible. Set yourself different from other artists so that you can gain an advantage against them.
- Set up a PayPal account so you can get your payments made through a secured connection.
- If you want to sell art as a reputable seller, you must obtain the Certificate of authenticity (COA). This will serve to relay to the buyers that they can trust you.
- Think about the pricing. You could select the price based on your expenditures or research the marketplace and find out what other similar artists are selling their work.
- Take clear photos of your artwork. Make sure that the art presentation is good enough to give potential buyers a great first impression. If you aren’t sure how to do this, you could hire a professional photographer to help you with the presentation and photography.
- In the first step, you have created a business website through Facebook. You could use that account to advertise your painting sales. You could also run a blog over there for other marketing purposes.
- eBay will often tell you to put a low starting price for their items and avoid using a reserve price or minimum bid. You consider taking their advice seriously and pricing your product according to them. You could raise the price slowly afterward.
- If you have a lot of art you want to sell eventually, you should make a subscription to the eBay store. This will help you keep track of your listings while giving you access to more potential customers recommended by eBay. The subscription fee is approximately 15 USD per month.
How Does eBay Charge You for Selling Items?
One major problem with using eBay for most people is that eBay has a very high service charge of about 13% of your selling price. This percentage is included in the total of both the product/s costs and shipping fees.
If you are using PayPal, you will lose an additional 2.9% along with a 30% transaction fee.
Tips to Sell Your Art on eBay
- Open a dedicated seller account for your art sales.
- Always calculate your cost and whether the sales cost figure will cover your expenditures.
- Always add custom keywords and categories so that buyers can find your art easily.
- Include a detailed bio and reviews so that you can stand out from others.
- Keep your branding consistent and traditional marketing through blogs from various websites.
- Offer free shipping or a reserved minimized price if the buyers decide to buy as soon as possible.
- If contacted, provide them with any information they might need. Do not make them nervous by telling them to buy your product.
- Decide on a price that should not be too low or too high.
Conclusion
Selling your art on eBay requires some specific steps that you have to follow. Just abide by everything that we’ve discussed, and you’re good to go!
If you are going to do business on eBay, never rush. You might not make any sales when you are first starting. But if you are persistent and, through a trial and error technique, find the right price for your art, your hard work will be rewarded.