Selling prints and posters online

[franko60]

Does anyone have any experiences/recommendations with selling prints, posters, canvases, etc through online galleries? Which are the biggest, best known, best value, etc?

[franko60]

Nobody sells online except through their own web sites? Hmm, guess I'll have to build my own, then.

[tbergphoto]

I have prints listed for sale on www.ETSY.com -- but I haven't sold much. I think it's because I'm only offering larger prints ($50 and up). Seems like most of the prints sold there are small and under that price point.

It's a fun place for showing the right type of prints..... my "store" is listed under my etsy name: tb5207043 but you can just search the photography category. I like it because I control the cost, the price, etc.

[Kraellin]

just do a google on the name of this thread: "Selling prints and posters online". you'll get all sorts of sites google is your friend

[franko60]

Thanks Teresa.

Kraellin - yes indeed. And before google it was altavista. And before that it was WAIS and Gopher. Having been on the internet since the Bitnet days I'm pretty familiar with search engines. If you look at the first post, you'll see I was asking for experiences and recommendations because, as you so rightly point out, there are so many out there.

[Kraellin]

ok, my bad. i'm actually supposed to read and understand these posts before i type out responses.

and with that, i do have a tiny bit of experience with one of these, Cafe Press. the competition is fierce. i only put up one pic there and ordered the only product off that pic, a coffee cup. this was several years ago and i still have the cup but my point is, there are millions of folks doing art of all sorts and a lot of them are online. i do like the idea of cafe press, post a pic, associate it with their blank products and then folks buy those items with your pics/art on them. i like that. i've seen the same sort of thing in kiosks in malls but not quite as good. the quality of the product from cafe press was quite good and you set the price of your product. other sites do different things different ways. zazzle.com is another like cafe press. i have a friend who uses that one quite a bit and apparently she's made some money, but i dont know how much.

my main point is, jump in, try it out, but dont expect a lot right away. it is highly competitive and the main problem is getting seen. some of those type sites will charge you extra for more exposure on their main pages. that's going to be up to you whether you'll use that or not. some have free pages you use as a loss-leader to get you to do more. cafe press does this and they promise a lot more exposure if you do a pay account. i was just trying this out to see if i wanted to do this. so, i dont have a lot of experience, but cafe press seemed pretty up-front and had a decent coffee mug and like i said, i bought one for myself and i still use it

i dont know whether you could post the same image/photo/poster on 50 different sites like this or not. i suppose you'd have to read their rules. DO be sure you have the copyrights! you can be banned for using other folk's stuff. and be careful of the fine print and pay methods and when they'll pay and such. cafe press used to only pay out when you had $25 or more in sales in a given time period or overall and on complaints on this, but just be aware that that's going to probably be true of any of these sites.

hope you find what you want

[zganie]

Frank,The problem with most of these sites is that so many people post there work ,that yours soon gets buried so you constantly have to keep reposting
Even on places like etsy The other way with your own site you need to link up with other sites unless your so well known.
Unfortunately, Most sites will let anyone join,because for them its number crunching,either for advertising dollars or sales
Each site has people that do,do well The ting about Etsy is they have a blog and in that Blog theres a part called "quit your day job"

[franko60]

Craig, no worries mate. I've often been guilty of posting before engaging my brain
I'll check out cafe press and zazzle. I've started putting images up on RedBubble. I figure if you get enough images out there even if you only make a few dollars every now and then it helps. I'll also link back to my own site from every pic I post so that will help a little also (although only a little). I've joined Etsy already. And I'll only be posting my own work.

I'm finding commissioned work is not returning what it did. I found my price list from 1982 recently, and I was charging more for an 8x10 then than I am now.

[Kraellin]

there's a very old saying in sales. the jist of it is: 'the higher you set your price, the more folks will want it. they may not be able to pay for it, but they'll want it'