The practice of selling art online has become increasingly popular in recent years due to the buoyancy of the online market and the fact that the cost effectiveness of selling online proves to be just as competitive, and even more profitable than trying to sell via a traditional bricks and mortar business model.
Firstly, the price of obtaining an online exhibition or portfolio space, as opposed to that of a physical gallery space, is certainly more cost effective and 'hanging' the work out there for people to see definitely take a lot less time - time that you can put into marketing that work.
Selling art online also offers you a higher margin on the sale of your artwork. You don't have to put that money into rent, heating bills, electricity bills or paying for staff. To take it to the extreme, you don't even have to get out of bed to update your art gallery website so no paying for commuting and no battling rush hour traffic to meet the expected opening times of a traditional gallery space.
In talking about gallery times - a physical space is generally restricted to regular opening times, whereas an
artist website ensures that you are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year.
All that being said, it's not enough to build an artist website and expect the sales to come flooding in - that's not how the internet works, and it definitely isn't how the art world works. Selling art online will take dedication to marketing and a great deal of communication with potential collectors or interested parties.
You should make an effort to be as descriptive as you can on your artist website to encourage trust and comfort amongst your audience. It is also wise that you think about the keywords that you use to describe your work as this will be useful for search engine optimisation. We have already put together a few
blog posts on search engine optimisation, so take a read to find out more.
To make the best use of the benefits of selling online you should aim to get to grips with how the internet works in terms of people finding your website, and how people behave when they visit your site. Then do your best to create an artist website that looks good, works well and offers your visitors just what they are looking for.
To be successful in selling art online, you have to drop the penny somewhere between having a great website that showcases your work and the marketing activities surrounding that website that will let the world know who you are. Having confidence in your artwork and your website so that you can promote it to the best of your ability is the first step in becoming successful at selling online.
Stay tuned for a blog post about potential places for marketing your artist website, and how to go about having your site featured there.