One of my goals this year was to clean up the online shops where I sell photography prints and products. Sometimes I find it hard to keep up with these online services.
Due to the economy, it’s been a difficult couple of years for artists to sell their work. They need to look at many options and diversify in order to sell their work. There are some that might disagree, but I know many artists that are trying more than one location to feature their work online.
The first shop I started cleaning up was my Etsy shop. I changed up some of my inventory and listed only what I have in stock. Some of the prints or cards listed are inventory I’m trying to move to make way for newer prints or have been popular sellers in the past. Though I’ve not received very many sales directly on Etsy, I am getting inquiries for larger prints. I have also received direct orders from Facebook friends and fans that have seen something listed on my shop. I offer free USA shipping on every order. So people in my local area will never be charged shipping.
The next thing I wanted to do was to close my Redbubble account. Though Redbubble does a great job with customer service and the products are quality, the profit is very slim. A year ago at Christmas, I generated several sales that brought in a tiny amount of income. It was disheartening. They did however have a couple of great calendar sales and I was able to purchase some quantity of calendars to resale to friends and fans locally. This year at Christmas, I saw no calendar sales offered at Redbubble. I chose to do some quantity calendar orders at Lulu.com this year because they had a couple of sales. At some point this year Redbubble finally added single prints to the product line. I hadn’t realized that they added that option to my account and before I could go in and edit my settings an order came through my account and someone received a print pretty cheap before I could adjust the pricing!
I have heard some good things about Fine Art America and I finally launched my shop this month. Fine Art America has canvas prints, prints that are framed or acrylic, as well as greeting cards.
I continue to add new work to my website gallery. Prints have always been available for sale on the website. The print orders are filled through a professional lab. The print quality is excellent and turnaround time is very quick.
Many times friends and fans see my work in local shops, shows or from my posts to Facebook and contact me directly to place an order for a print. I love hand delivering prints!
Currently, my work can be purchased at the Artist Loft Gallery in The Pony Village Mall or Chocolates of Oregon in downtown Coos Bay.
So again here is a recap of my online shops:
I continue to have my work featured in local shows. To stay up to date on where I will be showing my work, follow me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pddesignsimages or subscribe here to my blog.
Good going on the “winter cleanup.” Here’s to hoping many more sales this year. Your imagery is so beautiful. Deserves to be hanging in many peoples’ homes!
Thanks Bob!
Beautiful photography
Thank you Carol! Very kind of you!