Is Selling Your Art Online a Good Option for You?
Art has long been used to express emotions, communicate ideas, and even document history. Artists use it to express their feelings and passion for life. Similarly, selling one is also a vital part of the creative process. Selling art allows you to showcase your work to the world and let people appreciate your hardwork.
The traditional route to selling art is by displaying art works in a gallery and presenting art at showings. While this method has been around for many years and has been incredibly successful, the world is changing, and the newest way to sell your art is to sell it online.
However, it is crucial to note that selling your art is a big part of your career as an artist, and you should choose the platform wisely. Is selling your art online a good option for you?
To help you decide, we have outlined the pros and cons of selling art online.
The Pros of Selling Art Online
Selling your handmade art online, whether you are making drawings, paintings, sculptures, or any other form of art, can have several benefits over taking the traditional gallery route. Here are some of the major pros of selling your art online:
1. You Can Expand Your Reach
When displaying your artwork in a local gallery, you’re really limiting the scope of your reach. Your art will likely only be seen by people who live in the area and regularly visit art galleries. On the other hand, by selling your art online, you can greatly expand your scope. People worldwide can see your art, and you can be presented to a whole new audience with a click of a link. Many people who want to buy art can sometimes hold back because of the inconvenience or difficulty of having to go to galleries. Some of them are much more willing to buy art when they can do it from the comfort of their homes.
2. Online Art Stores Can Do Your Marketing for You
If you’ve been selling your art already, you’ll know how much marketing and promotion go into the process. This is by no means an easy task and can take a lot of time away from when you are actually creating your art. Many online art stores will handle all of your art’s marketing and promotion for you, which can be a huge advantage and save you a lot of time. Proper marketing and promotion can also gain you a big following and more buyers.
3. Commissions for Online Stores Are Usually Lower Than at Brick and Mortar Galleries
When you actually sell a piece of art, a certain percentage of the money you make goes to the gallery as a commission. Traditional brick-and-mortar galleries can charge very high commissions, leaving you with a small percentage of the sale price. On the other hand, online stores charge relatively lower commissions, meaning that you can make more money from selling online than you would at physical galleries.
The Cons of Selling Art Online
While the advantages of selling art online are quite significant; it would be unrealistic to automatically assume that it is most definitely the better alternative. In truth, selling art online also comes with a set of cons to consider:
1. Prices for Online Sales Can Be Lower
Many buyers are more willing to buy expensive pieces of art from galleries after seeing the artwork in person. When buying art online, buyers usually expect lower prices and are not willing to spend
too much money on the artwork they haven’t seen in person. As such, by selling your art online, you may have to settle for lower prices, which can affect how much you earn from your art.
2. The Chances of Building Connections with Buyers Are Lower
When selling art online, there is less of an opportunity to build a connection with your buyers since you don’t get to meet them in person or have any substantial interactions with them. This can be detrimental to building long-lasting connections that ensure repeat buyers. Repeat buyers are often where artists make most of their money when selling their art. Repeat buyers are usually also the ones that commission artists to create specific artworks for them.
3. You Have to Jump Through Additional Hoops to Represent Your Art Online
If you want your art to sell online, you need to represent it in the best possible light. This often means additional time and resources spent on staging your art, hiring professional photographers to photograph your artwork for you, ensuring that all of the information regarding your artwork is up to date, writing out appropriate artist statements, and more.
The Bottom Line
If you want to make a living as an artist, selling your artwork is imperative. How you do this can play a big role in your success. After going through the pros and cons mentioned above, you can make a better decision about selling your art online or if you want to stick to traditional brick-and-mortar galleries.
Art Over the World – Unique and Handmade Art for Everyone to Buy
If you are interested in selling your art online, Art Over the World is the perfect platform for you to use! Art Over the World is an online art store based out of Nieuw-Dordrecht, Netherlands. We sell handmade art in various categories, such as drawings, paintings, NFTs, sculptures, textile arts, digital art, and more. We also offer a shop-in-shop feature, where an artist can make their shop for their artworks as a part of our website.
With over 33 million buyers from across the world buying artworks from Art Over the World, become a vendor now and sell your art online with us.
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