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Even Microsoft, the makers of IE6, are counting down until IE6 goes the way of the dinosaur see http: We recommend that you install a modern web browser see http: If you don't have the authority to install software on your computer, you should forward this message to your IT department, and ask them to install a newer browser for you. So what about artists? Is it possible to successfully sell your artwork on eBay, or is there just too much competition to make it a viable solution?

I performed the same search today, and found very similar results. Interestingly, the results on eBay. To get a better idea of the real state of the art market on eBay today, I spoke to an artist who has been selling her original art on eBay for the last 8 years. Soniei creates contemporary Japanese paintings, the majority of which she sells through eBay auctions.

I asked her a few questions about the eBay art market:. The most important tip I can give any artist, especially those selling on eBay, is find your niche! I get some buyers from my website as well, but nothing compares to eBay at the moment. I also market my paintings on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and sell prints on Imagekind and RedBubble.

I focus on keywords for the title of the item, and I focus on smooth reading and good quality images for the item descriptions. I have written a blog post with eBay selling tips and another blog post on how to package and ship paintings. I love the online world, but I might be looking to sell my art in galleries as well, in the near future. As we have seen, there are artists making a decent income from selling their art on eBay.

But at the same time, there is still a lot of art going unsold. There are many possible reasons why a lot of artists might find it difficult to sell their work on eBay. It could be that their listings are not appealing enough, or poorly written.

It could be that they need to establish more of a following before people will be willing to buy their work. From what we have seen, it looks like success on eBay could be largely determined apart from the quality of your work by the price you are willing to accept for your art. This could work well if you can work quickly and turn out several paintings per week or month.

Why not try an experiment and list some of your work for sale on eBay? If you do, come back and leave a comment below to let me know how it goes. You might find that eBay is the perfect solution for you. If you have experience selling your artwork on eBay, either good or bad, let us know about it in the comments below. Dan, I have tried selling my work on e-bay a couple of different times. I find e-bay to be more for bargain hunters rather than serious art collectors.

I refuse to sell my work for nothing. Happy trails, Phil Hewitt. Thanks Phil, and fair point. Currently I have enlisted with Etsy and fineartamerica. Much of that has to do with not putting the energy into marketing my site. That will do it every time. I sell some on ebay to just to bring collectors to my website. I sell mostly aceos. I like to keep my work out in front of the public so I put some at auction.

Thanks for the great review of ebay. It all comes down to marketing and exposure and this is exactly what we are solving at Meylah for all artists…we have just launched still in private beta the ability for any artist to not only create their own online store, but to now connect those online stores to each other to create online marketplaces so they can sell together with their chosen peers. Our innovative online platform allows artists to work together while still remaining independent sellers which allows for more sales opportunities and increased community support!

Here are two great examples of current marketplaces powered by Meylah:.

These past couple of years have been tough for a lot of people economically and I admit getting frustrated as I continue to paint and my standing inventory increases. That said, your article has given me hope to refresh my marketing efforts and try EBay again, and become more involved with ETSY.

EBay and ETSY have huge followings — not so sure about the other art sites though FineArt America does come close. My first week on fineartamerica and I have already had visitors so the traffic is pretty good. To get an idea of what an FAA store looks like you can check out my FAA site here: As an aspiring artist, I recently made the decision to set up a website to hopefully make money from my work. Paul, your paintings are good, but your website does not do them justice.

Instead of looking professional your site looks like a school project. Look at other artists sites to get some ideas.

The typeface is childish and unprofessional and the orange color is distracting, instead of enhancing the color in your paintings it makes them look dull.

If you want your work to look mature you need your site to look mature. Also do some research on writing a proper Biography and Artist Statement. DO NOT sell art on ebay. The only ones who can appreciate the time and effort put into artwork are the artists and collectors themselves. Ebay is the worst way to promote artwork. They want stuff cheap! Just like every business.

Whatever you do for work…It has to take aim at a certain clientele. A complete waste of time, people are not willing to pay good money on that site, the site is full of cheapskates who want everything for nothing, not worth the trouble believe me. They have a lot to choose from. Good photos, and tell your story or the story of the painting. When the auction ends sell prints of the painting, that will generate more income from the same work.

Auctions are just wierd like that. About a year ago I tried to sell high end art on eBay and it was barely even looked at. With my experiences I found that there are many other things that are better worth your time selling on eBay. According to the Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, on average, eBay consumers are younger than are the consumers not utilizing eBay.

Being of a younger generation, most of the people I know have no interest in art whatsoever. Additionally, eBay consumers have more of a tendency to engage in impulse buying than do consumers who do not utilize eBay and it seems more likely that one would impulse buy a DVD or book and not artwork.

I sell art on ebay. When I am done with a painting, I want it gone, and I am thrilled to send little paintings all over the world. Do I undervalue my work? That would depend on why I paint.

I paint all the time for fun. I would rather paint any day than work as a fast food manager or other retail, which is about the best I could do right now if I tried. If I constantly list, the auction prices go up. If I skip weeks or months of listing, the auctions are not as high for a while. I had an account on ebay for almost two years before I began listing art. I think I have been selling for about 3 years now.

It starts slowly and builds as people come back again and again. I love my regular customers, but i am excited when I see a bid from someone new, because if they like my art, they may be back as many are repeat customers. The ACEOs I sell are part of a collecting phenomenon that can be addicting, so that is a niche in itself. I just started listing non-ACEO art. I sold a painting to someone who has bought my ACEOs.

I absolutely agree that no one should ever sell their art for less than they are comfortable with, but make up your own mind about what you want for it instead of listening to what anyone else says. You may find you like turning over more pieces for less money. I used to sell bigger painting for more at art shows, but I sold few with long periods of time between sales. I must say that the ebay situation of selling more pieces for less money is a much bigger thrill, for me, but then again, I am not so attached to finished paintings.

I started out on Ebay in and the fact is, Ebay wrecked art sales. I could sell artwork on there for hundreds of pounds but now it is a waste of time. As an experiment a year or so ago, I listed one of my originals with a start price of 70 pounds. It ended with no bids and one watcher.

That in combination with high volume is where they make the most money out of the rest of us. So no surprise that this seems to be the general trend. This can be quite substantial, and will be the same no matter how expensive or cheap the individual piece is. I then usually spend at least 60 minutes taking pictures, posting re-post is quicker , calculating shipping costs.

Then packing and shipping waiting in line… might be another 60 minutes. I sold more before holiday this year, but I enjoy listing and modifying. I keep prices pretty low, but some pieces i know are worth lots more — if the buyer sees the value. I also can look up my paintings beyond my other listings by typing in the search ACRYLIC SIGNED JONES and this helps me and others locate my work.

It s all fun, but i do wish i coud drive more traffic without getting a store, etc. Overall, i am having a ball -esp. I am on Fine Art America I have a page Incessant Memories on facebook and I am on Google and I am on twitter. I have have been a artist all my life and I found word of mouth sold my work faster in the old days then this does. I was raising my kids for a time and I am coming back in. I put a painting on eBay and it did not sell but you have made me want to try again.

I am thinking about doing like Dellilah said and put my aceos on and see what happens with that. I find it strange to sell aceo cards we called them trading cards because I am from a time we artist made them to give to each other and to show a small scale of art work for a commission job.

But I think to sell them on eBay is a good way to bring in costumers to your other web sites. I have enjoyed how I no longer feel alone as a artist because of how we now can all come together on the internet in this way its a beautiful thing for artist all over.

Take a look at my work enjoy and be happy.: As compare to search engine sales, ebay stands far away from this. Instead of all the inane speculation and fantasy science just go to ebay and study a field with some parameters, such as, oil landscape paintings direct from artist original US from until present auction, then observe the results until you can recognize the work of individual artists on sight.

You will note a very few but consistently successful individuals and their work is usually quite good. An artist who is doing well might start the bidding at anywhere from 0. Often these receive 20 to 50 views and some number of bids, say five to ten and maybe sell for Occasionally someone particularly good will start a painting at Very inexpensive ACEOs will sell with some regularity for around five dollars.

A twenty dollar painting will set there until the crack of doom unsold listed time after time after time. That people sell well on ebay or have some formula for success is highly spurious or in the vernacular, just plain bullshit. Ebay can be a great place to give away artwork to the needy. I am trying to do something. Please help me because without your help I can do anything.. I need money insteafly. I love selling on e-bay. I also love to look at the art displayed on ebay.

The good art far outweighs the bad. Ebay is now heavily manipulating search results. They only want to promote listings that they know will sell. They have removed any paid methods to promote your listings. You list something for 10 dollars opening bid…. That same listing will see a few hits at most and no bids. Sales are generally slow bc people do want only inexpensive things there.

Occasionaly I will have high sales for a while and then back to slow sales. The attack of killed art sales for more than a year. They started to come back by , then the economic crash knocked them down again. Sales have been recovering, but overall not good enough to live on. Those people who are interested in art are not really looking to eBay or anywhere online for their art. They go to a gallery where someone will smooze them and give a sales job so the client can have a story to tell their friends when the see the art in the house.

Selling your art to a global market aboutartists. Occasionally works of art do sell on ebay for thousands of dollars for whatever odd reasons, but these are anomalies and signify nothing of use.

Selling art on eBay can be extremely exciting sometimes and extremely frustrating most of the time. The other frustrating thing is popularity. Pretty discouraging… and then you think — well you could just hack out a bunch of works at a lower level of craftsmanship maybe call it folk art and see if that works — and it just might.

Toot that horn because they like to validate what they see with words. I am considering all your comments……I will re-schedule my auctions and make changes…. A few years ago i tried to sell my art on ebay and got no views or bids…unless i priced it to basically give it away. I noted some artist constantly making sells and getting good prices for their work so decided to observe and here is what i learned.

First, i bought some of their art that had lots of bids and turned around and tried to resell it on ebay just as an experiment. I was utterly shocked to learn that it got no hits or bids! How can that be? I also noted that these select artist that were always getting bids had other art listings above or below their listing with similar, if not better pieces of work for far lower prices, and yet had very low hits and no bids..

So i decided to make communication with some of these artist about how they get bids and views.. If you are looking for buyers through the channels of ebay you will struggle to make any sells and the sells you do make will come at yard sale prices. What they do is use ebay as a place to park their work solely to sell from. They do art shows throughout the year, promote on social media and so on. Through these various avenues they have built up a customer email list over time…when they put an item up for sale they send out a email to all their previous customers with a link to their new item up for sale as well as links on various venues they use to promote their art with their ebay listings link.

This is where their hits and bids come from NOT EBAY. Yes, along the way you pick up a new customer through ebay here and there, but they all stated the majority of their views and bids do not come from ebay. This is why i could not resell their work in my experiment..

This is why they can sell their work for higher prices and when a past customer or potential customer clicks on their link to their listing, they only see their listing, not the other listings who are selling for pennies. The others are selling for pennies because they are relying on a very small buying audience through ebay who only buys at yard sale prices.

Sellers see other sellers with high view hits and bids and think there is a audience there to be had when the truth is, those high viewer hits or bidders are not even originating from ebay to begin with. Another piece of advice they gave me is in the beginning you have to focus on building a customer base for repeat buyers. You have to all but give your work away either through charities, prints and so on.

You have to get your work out there and gain ground with email subscribers who are interested in your work. Save your originals for when you have become more established with a following or make small originals that you can sell at a low price point initially.

It will be a guide to how much you can get for your larger original pieces that you want more money for and have the customer base willing to pay it. The single most important thing aside from making a sale and promoting your work outside of ebay is getting that buyer or anyone for that matter who may be interested in your work to subscribe to your email newsletter.

These artist called this their bread and butter lined in gold that gives more and more the larger it gets.

This is what i learned from talking to successful artist on ebay and hope by passing this along it can be of some help to others. Sorry to chime in so late but I just ran across this article.

Make money from art, acrylic painting, flower painting, inspiration, art lessons, freedom to paint

I did very well, some weeks almost making more than my day job. In I moved and as soon as possible began running auctions but it slowed way down. By the end of the year it was pretty much dead. I would run auctions sporadically since then with occasional sales. A few years back I ran some auctions for small paintings to test the waters but it was just as slow as print sales. I sold a few but really not worth the time since I had to sell very low. That was a really good post DeAnna.

How to Make Money Selling Things on the Street: 14 Steps

Buying something you value for way less than the actual value is what eBay was all about. I guess you have to just accept selling a painting for much less than you feel it is worth or look to another venue. I have found that people on ebay tend to gravitate toward buying art much cheaper than what it is worth. I have time to time made fairly good sales. A good site is fineartamerica. I have made many sales there, including prints, and cards.

Lots of exposure on that site. Years ago I used to sell lots of signed prints of my drawings and photography on eBay. I kept the price low they were just hand signed inkjet prints — but using quality art paper and ink , and they sold well and I built a good following, so I set up a proper business doing it.

But over time eBay made it more and more difficult to maintain a profit margin, and they seemed to be turning very much against the small seller. So I quit selling on there quite a few years ago.

You will cheapen yourself and other artists, and no serious collectors want to buy work from artists associated with eBay these days. Avoid like the plague. Hi Oliver — I am sorry to hear you say this — I do not not believe that selling on ebay as an Artist cheapens me at all — it is a shop window in which to show my worth — Many serious collectors still do look on Ebay and if they see something worth having they will buy it.

I paint more for relaxation and a creative outlet. My local outlets might as well be flea markets. As a photographer, I sympathize with many of you. I am proud of my meager collection of dead listed artists.

Stunning work can be found for a song and it is everywhere! Ebay is the dumping ground for many DNS pieces from major auction houses. You can follow the paper tail many times. Throw in an obscure artist, a funky signature, along with a lazy or uniformed seller and the treasure hunt and detective story ensues. Most are dead ends, but I have scored some real finds. HOW THEY CAY AFFORD FREE SHIPPING??? She was an accentric French artist She has had them hanging in Banks and Museums in our area for many years.

She has oils, acrylics and charcoal drawings. Thanks for any feedback. Look for a reputable auction house. However so saying I sent them a detailed description of something I have never seen for sale in the world. SO take detailed photos, sizes,condition of painting, include any pedigree background on painter, where the painting came from, anything interesting etc.

BEFORE you do that do your research online to see if you can come up with anything on the painter or the era or the subject. People need healthcare, food and a roof over their head. Even the rich are not so rich….

This is an interesting article. I have listed and sold on eBay, they have changed their format and fees so I am giving it another go. I ask for less then I sell on other web platforms but what works best for me is to be everywhere. When all I would really like to do is paint. I am fortunate to have a wonderful husband who supports me emotionally and financially while I make my mark. I have been an Artist for many years, I went through a period of time where the only artworks I could produce were small due to constrictions of space, I then kept them all, not showing or offering them for sale, But now have decided to sell them all as I have been motivated by the need to become a writer and need funds for that.

When I first started creating works of Art I did what came out of my head, But unfortunately, If you want to sell your art you need to meet the demands of the collectors — you can either make art for yourself or ones that will sell.

I am lucky in as much as I cover many subjects and use many types of media. I have made ACEO artworks in crochet — clay — collage — card — acrylic…. So you know what, I am going to stick with it, Put it all up a bit at a time and see what happens, What harm can it do…. It is all down to what you are offering, If it is of interest, I am sure it will sell. I want to sell my art to people whom dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars for some unique art.

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Image courtesy of cytech. A Story From the Inside To get a better idea of the real state of the art market on eBay today, I spoke to an artist who has been selling her original art on eBay for the last 8 years. I asked her a few questions about the eBay art market: How long have you been selling your art on eBay?

Have your sales been fairly consistent during that period? Ebay is one of the biggest online marketplaces in the world. How do you get noticed among the competition? Do you get a lot of buyers finding you through eBay search, or do more people find come to your eBay store via your website?

How much importance do you place on writing a good listing, with the right keywords, tags etc? Are you ever unhappy with the price a painting sells for? Have you ever tried any alternative methods of selling your art? If so, what was your experience? The Verdict As we have seen, there are artists making a decent income from selling their art on eBay.

Ani Todd Smith says: Here are two great examples of current marketplaces powered by Meylah: JJ, My first week on fineartamerica and I have already had visitors so the traffic is pretty good. Original Art by Joe Hendry says: The very same painting sold in a gallery a week later for almost ten times the amount.

Will you still earn more then if working at bad employers like Walmart? Art Spectrum Oil says: Bill Jones III says: The answer is no. I want to sell my handmade oil painting. Plz tell me what i can do.. Hope this clarifies some things for you! Leave a Comment Cancel reply Your email address will not be published.

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