Sell paintings online in India
Tips – How to Sell Art Online and Make Money
The growth of e-commerce has been so rapid these days that everything has gone online. Right from the selling books to selling cosmetics, everything is online. Therefore, such a development has introduced a new platform to sell paintings online in India and make money through a home based business.
Generally, art is sold offline through art galleries. However, in this fast-paced world, people do not have enough time to visit the art galleries. Therefore, it is the time you decide to integrate technology to your art business. If you have the fire, you can now sell art online and make money easily over the internet.
How to Sell Paintings Online ?
There are various ways to sell art online such as website, social media, marketplaces and much more. However, the best way to sell art online is to build a website and post all your paintings/ artwork on your website. Unfortunately, not everyone can build websites or has the budget to outsource to a website development company. Therefore, the easiest way to do so is to make use of website builders/ eCommerce platform providers. Through the site builders, you can easily create your own site without any additional help. Also, you do not have to be a professional website developer. All you need to do is to select the e-commerce plan that is suitable for your business and follow the next steps.
As an artist you will be looking forward to pour your entire soul and talent in creating the most exquisite form of art. You will be investing a lot of money, time and passion to create something that adds value in the lives of people. This is going to be the lifecycle for you. You will also be looking forward to an online store where you can sell your arts and paintings but sellers will offer you really low remuneration and it will upset you big time.
Out of nowhere, someone will inform you about your personal e-commerce store for selling your beautiful paintings. Yes! It is possible for you to create an online painting store and start your own painting business. This is an opportunity you can use and help a lot of amateur artists get rid of innocuous experiences. Work for your community and see your business grow at the same time.
How to Sell Paintings Online – No More a Baffling Question
As artist we may struggle to meet our ends. Often most of our works are left in the corner to gather dust. We have the creativity and zest to sketch the most beautiful of all. Yet we fail to make a descent living out of our creative work. We are too involved in giving birth to multiple art forms that we fail to see the potential it could bring. We drag ourselves to the small cocoon we created and then get lost in the our world, picturing the best portrait.
There are a lots of talented artists in India, whose work could make an entire world mesmerise with the mystery involved. If put in front of the right audience/ people then portrait could attract some lucrative sum. Most artist fail to ignore the importance of placing/ displaying their art forms to a wider audience. To the max a few, only a few would have taken the initiative to display their artwork in an art gallery. That too we know its a limited reach.
With increasing internet penetration the whole world has moved to a digital realm. Internet with its powerful socializing channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) has dramatically changed the way we socialize and interact. Online commerce and other virtual channels has shifted our focus from visiting a brick and mortar business establishment to a purchase from an online store.
Why Hoard your Precious Art Collection When you Can Create an Online Store and Sell it Online. Let me remind you there is a huge demand for your work- Just that you haven’t realised till now. There is big market, that constantly looks for exquisite artworks. HURRY!
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YES, this is the best advice I have for you. Give an opportunity for the world to realize and acknowledge your ark work. Why limit it to yourself when you can showcase your talent to a huge audience. With an online store it’s always huge.
Consider this:- If you want something where do you start. EXACTLY “Online”. You will take your phone and will search for whatever you want. Simple as that. The internet has grown to become the best companion a person can have.
A Guide to Start Online Painting Store Business:
Find Artists like you: If you are looking forward to help admirers of real art find your store, you will have to make sure that you are reaching them and the best way of reaching them is by inviting other artists to come together and work. The moment artist comes to join you; his or her fan base follows. This way you will be able to serve a huge audience and your business will grow sustainable.
Build a Brand: Now that you have a good team with a loyal fan base; it is time for you to turn your business into a brand. Go ahead and start looking for an exquisite name. Keeping varied nuances like domain name availability and easily remembrance are going to help you find the right name for your brand.
Build a responsive website: E-commerce stores are not run by huge number of products, they are run with the help of great customer experience. The moment you start to concentrate on the customer experience instead of increasing sales number, you will see a loyal audience building up. Your loyal audience will help you do the requisite marketing and will keep bringing in a lot of users and buyers.
Domain Registration – Select the Right Domain
A domain name is as important as the address of any brick and mortar business store. It helps in identifying your store on the internet. You can purchase a domain name through various sites. However, before you purchase your domain you need to ensure the following.
- Your domain should be brief. A brief name is easy to remember.
- If your art is associated with one particular location you can include the locality in your name. For instance, you are dealing with Italian art; your domain name can include the word Italian in it. However, if you plan to expand your business with other forms of art in the future, you should focus on keeping the name a little generic.
- If your geographic targeting is limited to a specific location then you need to make use of the right ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain). For example if your venture is to target the Indian market. Then it’s better if you select a domain with “.in” extension. Also make sure that you will block the “.com” extension. In future if you decide to expand to a global scale, still you will be able to do so with easy.
- If you are an artist yourself, you should include your name or the name through which you are known. This will help you establish and identify all your works.
- In case, your art deals with just one form of style, you can include that niche keyword in your domain.
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Templates to start an online art gallery
After you decide on the domain names, you should decide the template for your site. The templates are styles that are pre-designed for the websites. Every site builder provides you with several templates. You can select the template that you feel is suitable for you or your business. Majorly, you should ensure that the template that you select is the right fit for your online art gallery. Being a beginner, you can experiment with multiple themes. Later, you can select the template that you feel feel is the right choice.
Try Our Awesome Template:- ATHENA – It’s the right fit for an online Art gallery
After the selection of the template, you need to appropriately edit it according to your business needs. Some of the edits include
- Adding your own logo and favicon
- Creating an about us page
- Uploading a sample art and adding the required product details about it
- Creating a contact form
- Adding additional discount coupons and promo codes
Social Media Marketing: As an artist, you must be really famous among your colleagues and friends. It is time for you to use your popularity for building a successful business. Get on to varied social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and build an audience base. Ask your friends, family members and colleagues to help you with the same. Generate huge number of fan and start driving traffic to your site by posting unique content on your varied social media accounts. You can also use your social media reach for generating bookmarks and increasing the reputation of your site.
SEO professional: You know, millions of people are looking forward to get in touch with real artists and buy their art directly but e-selling on Amazon and EBay has killed the conversation. With a good SEO professional, you will be able to discover such emotional base of audience and your business will touch new heights.
The most important key of building a great business is to do things with passion. You have invested so much of time creating unique art, it is time for you to go ahead and build a relationship with the audience and see your business grow.
Presentation – How to present your online art gallery
The presentation plays a very important role in any website. Especially on websites where art is sold. How you display your product plays a major role in convincing the online customer. The beautiful your art looks on a product page, the easier to entice a customer.
To showcase your art in the best way, you should hire a professional photographer. The photographers have all the equipment and skill to display your art in the best way. Apart from the picture, the content also plays a major role. Therefore, you also should focus on scribbling a descriptions that is irresistible. However, you should ensure that you do not miss out on the basic details such as dimensions, material, price, delivery and packaging, etc. Furthermore, while you price your products, you should ensure that you do not charge too high or too low. To know about the pricing you can look to your competitors.
Note:- Selling products online is no more a complex activity – Learn how to sell paintings online in India.
Categorization
Organized artworks are something that is very essential in any e-commerce platform. You need to categorize all your artworks in a fashionable style. The main reason is to help the viewers search the required art in the quickest possible way. You can categorize your artwork based on type, theme, period and much more. Moreover, with the help of filters, the customers can also sort your artworks.
Payments
The major part of any business is the payments. Even when you sell art online, you need to focus on the payment methods. The easiest thing with any website builder is that they provide easy options to integrate any payment gateway. Once you set up the payment mode, your customers can easily purchase your arts through credit card, debit card, PayPal or other means. If you find any issue setting up the payment method, you can always get help from the site builders. Their customer service is always ready to serve the customers.
Shipping
All is well that ends well. So, if you sell art online, you cannot do business without shipping your art. It is the final stage of your process. The first thing that you need to take care about shipping is the packaging. You should ensure that the art is packaged properly. There should be no possible chance of the art getting damaged while shipping. Once properly packed, you can ship your product with the help of third-party shipping services. These services have several options for shipping. You can select the best option for shipping based on the price and features.
With the overload of information, you might be wondering that selling art online is quite difficult. However, if done in the right way, it is easy to sell art online. All you need is the right way to do the online business and run it. Most of your time would be spent on selecting the right site builder. Once you are done, most of your job would be done. Therefore, what makes you wait? Hurry up! Start with your dream business today.
How eCommerce Store Helps an Artist
It’s the same as how you own a physical store. If you own a physical/ offline store where you can display your artwork then it’s a revenue generating business model for you. Based on multiple factors like, where the store is located, how well your mini art gallery is maintained, you will be able to generate a nominal revenue. When comes to an online store the concept is the same. Instead of showcasing the physical products as it is, you get an opportunity to display an image/ video that details your work. In the virtual world you get an opportunity to display the virtual representation of your products.
Now your thoughts are a bit swayed. I thought so. That was the first instinct I had. HOW TO CREATE AN ECOMMERCE STORE? HOW TO SELL PAINTINGS ONLINE? Etc. Allow me to demystify it for you. It’s a simple process, almost all the eCommerce platform provider’s have made their platform quiet user friendly. It is not a troublesome experience. One small signup and yu own an ecommerce store.
SETTING UP AN ONLINE STORE & SELLING PAINTING ONLINE IS AS SIMPLE AS CREATING A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT
Now if you are worried about the investment. DON’T
An online store will cost you online less than your monthly electricity bill. You can own an online store with an investment of just Inr 1000 per month. That’s all you need. COOL isn’t it.
Let me make it a bit more simpler. I will list down few of the top eCommerce website builders that allow you to start with the list investment possible.
Top 3 Ecommerce Website Builders to Start With
Shopnix
Quicky Plan:- INR 1,000/ month
Starter Plan:- INR 2,000/ month
Pro Plan:- INR 5,000/ month
Premium Plan:- 10,000/ month
Zepo
Standard:- INR 50,000 (per year)
Professional:- INR 1,00,000 (per year)
Premium:- Custom price
Shopify
Basic Shopify:- USD 29 (per month)
Shopify:- USD 79 (per month)
Advanced Shopify:- USD 299 (per month)
Sell your Paintings Through Online Marketplaces
Online marketplaces are one great channels where you can list your products/ paintings/ artwork and sell them online. List your artworks on an online marketplace can be a boon to few and a burst to others. Online marketplaces are similar to renting a space. You don’t own the space, you are constrained with multiple limitations and regulations set by the platform. There are lots of parameters that need to be considered. For eg, the competition on the platform, the kind of audience it attracts, etc.
Few advantages of selling on marketplaces
Attract High Quality Leads
Marketplaces like Amazon comes with huge volume of inherent traffic. The brand was able to attract and position huge volume of customers. Amazon as a single channel was able to dominate the online commerce world. Listing your paintings on marketplaces like amazon will help attract high quality leads. Also, more importantly. People trust a brand like amazon. So it’s less likely that they will question the authority of the website or the products that are listed.
Acquire New Customers
It’s a wise strategy to list your products on reputed marketplaces. These platforms will help attract new customers and build some trust in the niche segment. In the initial days it will a bit hard to sell through your eCommerce store. As always, there are hundred factors that determine a sale. At the same time its wit less attempt to just focus on one channel. By listing your products on multiple online marketplaces you get an opportunity to create multiple touch points for customers to interact with the paintings. Higher the no: of eyeballs greater the chance to get an online sale.
Disadvantages on selling on a marketplace.
The Marketplace Fees/ Commission
Listing your paintings/ artwork on a marketplace is not that easy. When combined together with the marketplace fees/ charges it can be a bleak experience. Most marketplaces works around a commission based business model. The marketplace will charge you an x% of the total value when a sale materialises. Marketplace fees are deducted as a percentage of each sale.
Make sure that you have a firm understanding of the marketplace fee structure and what’s the least price at which you can sell and still make a profit out of it.
THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE WITH MOST ONLINE MARKETPLACES ARE THAT THEY WILL CHARGE A MIN OF 15% AS COMMISSION. WHICH IS A HUGE SUM
“For a savvy artist the possibility of making money online is endless. Through online commerce the artist’s get an opportunity to display their artwork to a diverse audience and sell their paintings in huge volume. The more you sell the higher the profit you make”
Never Ignore the Power of Face To Face Selling
Regardless to the extreme technology outburst it’s impossible to ignore the potential of a face to face selling. Direct marketing and selling remains as the best strategy to convince a customer to buy from you. Don’t shy away to participate in local trade shows. If you get an opportunity to display your product in a art gallery don’t hesitate just take the opportunity. These congregation comes with a lot of perks. These social gathering/ meetings are great for networking and sell your product among target customers. Keep in mind, people who comes for these trade shows have an affinity towards artwork, and don’t dare to ignore the power of impulse buying.
Why you Need to Conserve your Paintings
Paintings are delicate, so it’s important that you need to keep it safe and preserve the brilliance. Maybe you don’t have a dedicated art gallery or an allocated space to keep you artwork. The limitation should not compromise the integrity of your work. Take necessary steps to conserve your artwork from gathering dust, fading, mould, etc.
How to Commercialise your Painting / Artworks
As an artist I believe you lack the passion for marketing and sales. But in reality if you are planning to sell your artwork/ products and make a decent living then you may need to see it as a commodity. A commodity that has some value among people. So you need to be active with artworks that has some merchandise value. Know you need to understand the importance of creating artworks/ paintings that lures people’s attention and have a higher chance for sale.
Few online strategies that you need to implement so that your artwork will get higher visibility among the audience
Social Media Marketing
Socialize and sell your paintings. The best strategy for an artist to sell his/ her artwork is get active on social media. Social channels like Facebook and Instagram have become a temporary refuge for most people. Through social media your could drive a lot of impulse traffic to your website. Make sure to integrate a social media strategy and will constantly share your artworks on these platforms.
Paid Campaigns to Drive Instant Traffic to Your Online Art Gallery
Paid campaigns are an amazing source through which you can attract targeted customers to our online art gallery. When planned and implemented with the right strategy this channel will help you sell paintings online. As SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a long term approach, In the initial stage of your online business you can drive quality leads through paid campaigns.
Parting Note:- As any business model it takes time and commitment to scale up your art gallery and sell paintings online – A GBF (Grow Big Fast) idea will be hard enough to materialise. Success comes when you consistently dedicate time and effort to add value to your business.
