To start you’ll need to decide exactly what to sell and how to sell it. This is because there are a number of ways to sell art online, and knowing what you’re going to sell and the medium in which you’ll sell it is an important step in the process.
Not only can you sell your original artwork, which is rarer and therefore typically involves a higher price point, but you can also sell digital files or prints of your work to further leverage your time and make money over and over with one piece. Additionally, you can also make money selling other people’s artwork online if you build a network of artists and a website to sell their art.
Sell Original Art
If you’re a painter or work with charcoal or other specialized materials, you could sell original artwork. This would be an exciting item for anyone to buy because people love to have bespoke artwork to decorate their spaces. You might want to price these items higher because they are individually created.
Sell Copies, Prints or Digital Files
If you work with digital art or are interested in leveraging your time by selling copies of your original photography or art, you can sell prints of your work in various sizes. Prints and digital files typically sell for less money than originals, however, they do present artists with a good way of repeatedly making money with one piece of artwork.
Additionally, people might want T-shirts or mugs or even notebooks with your art on them. There are various print-on-demand services such as Printful or Printify that can make this process fast and easy. What’s great about print on demand is that you have no overhead, so you don’t need to invest in ordering a bunch of shirts or hoodies to sell. Items are only created when someone places an order. On top of that, you can also set up print on demand services so that orders are automatically printed and shipped every time you land a sale.
If you are looking to use a print on demand service to sell your art online, learn more about how to start a t-shirt business.
Sell Other Artists’ Work
If selling your own art takes off, you can start hosting other artists in your store as well. This would provide more variety for your customers and allow you to support other up-and-coming artists. This would be ideal for those who have large networks of fellow artists and those who are very skilled at marketing as both will be key in getting traffic to your site and selling art.
With that in mind, consider your brand, or the type of brand you want to build. This will help you stay on track, and produce the right types of art that reinforces your brand and helps you go in the right direction.
