Many talented artists struggle to earn an income from their work. It's a difficult realization that creating great content or beautiful works of art isn't enough to earn a living. Many artists assume that an audience will flock to the right products. Like any sort of business, artists must advertise and market in order to generate interest around their work. Even the most talented artists would struggle to sell a piece of art without some moderate business skills.
E-commerce stores have become the perfect place for artists to showcase, advertise, and sell their work. This is an affordable alternative to renting a gallery or brick-and-mortar store. Online stores are also much easier to manage and operate. Here are a few tips for building an online e-commerce store for your art.
1. Finding the right e-commerce solution
Unless you have a background in programming and web design, finding an
e-commerce platform with premade templates is the easiest solution. There are countless websites that provide the functionality of an online store along with customizable themes, templates, add-ons, and more. The first step to creating your own art e-commerce site is choosing the right e-commerce solution to meet your needs.
A majority of e-commerce platforms will provide similar offers. Generally, these providers will have e-commerce functionality and a simple template as their basic offer. Hosting may also be an option for some providers. If you want a more advanced theme or other extras, you'll have to pay more money. Most providers will also offer different payment plans depending on the number of features available.
With most e-commerce store platform, you’ll get a lot of extra features that aren’t needed. It's important to understand what you’re getting and what you’re not. For example, one provider may offer a significant amount of operating space but no hosting option. Although these extras are enticing, you will have to pay extra for the hosting. Another option is to
look towards more affordable hosts that can easily allow you to build an ecommerce store without all the initial paid for features. That way you can start small and scale up.
2. Creating your product pages
When operating an art e-commerce site, product pages are the most important detail required to make sales. These pages will display your pieces of work with high-quality pictures and vivid descriptions. Visitors to your site will determine whether or not to make a purchase largely based on the presentation of these pages.
You should start off by collecting great images of your pieces of art. If your work has a functional application, it can be helpful to have photos of the product in use. A smartphone or a digital camera should be enough to capture high-quality images. You should also provide a description of the piece of art next to these images. You can talk about what inspired the piece of work and how it can be used by the customer.
3. Price your products
Many artists find setting prices to be the most difficult part of starting an online art store. There seems to be an internal argument that every artist undergoes during this decision-making process.
Pricing shouldn't be random or arbitrary. Instead, you should calculate the number of hours required to create the work of art. You should also factor in other costs of the individual sale including website hosting, shipping costs, packaging supplies, and more. You don't want to scare customers away by the prices of your art, but you also don't want to end up losing money in the long run.
4. Setting up a payment option
Once you've curated enough works of art to display on your e-commerce site, it's time to set up multiple payment options. After all, there's no point in constructing an online art store if visitors aren't able to make a purchase. There are a few important things to keep in mind when setting up a payment method.
First and foremost, you want to ensure that your customers' credit card and other personal information will remain protected. You can accomplish this by installing an SSL certificate on your site with a series of other protective measures. Visitors will be much more likely to make a purchase if they feel confident that their information will be safe.
Secondly, you want to offer all of the major payment methods on your site. In the past, credit and debit cards were the standard for online purchases. Today, there are dozens of different payment methods which different people prefer. In order to increase the number of people who can buy your artwork, it is critical to implement many different payment methods.
5. Organizing packaging and shipping methods
Selling art online isn't as easy as posting pictures of your work and accepting payments. You still have to worry about packaging and shipping the items. As all pieces of art vary in their size, delicacy, and shape, you may have to establish a custom method of packaging that is cost-effective and protective. It's important to use affordable material to ensure that packaging costs don't end up overtaking your profits.
When setting up shipping methods, you should make sure to advertise varying options on your e-commerce site. For example, your customers may be able to pay extra to have their item shipped within a few days. No matter which shipping methods you choose, it is important to ensure your customers are well-aware of the varying options and the cost of each.
It's also a good idea to set up an automated notification to alert you when any purchase has been made. In today's world of immediacy, customers will expect their purchases to be dispatched right after making the payment.
In order to be successful in art, you must also become successful in business. Even though most artists want to focus on their projects rather than building a business, this is the only path to earning an income through art. E-commerce sites are the easiest, lowest-risk, and most affordable places to start an online business selling your own art. Once you've got the site up and running with product descriptions, you can focus on advertising. You'll be receiving that first order in no time.
