Do you think it is possible for artists to earn a living selling art on ebay? I’ve often wondered what it actually takes for artists to actually be successful here. In the past, my friends have often insisted I place my art for sale on Ebay, but I was always sceptical. So I decided to do some research.
Do you think I went to the library to look for books on the subject? LOL, of course I didn’t. I did what most us do in this web savvy generation. I Googled it!
So here I am Googling away. I’m thinking of phrases related to how to sell art on Ebay.
First, I typed in ebay fine art to see how many results I would get. I came up with nearly 16 million!
The first link here is the official Ebay auction site, so I clicked on that.
The page that appeared really amazed me! Art is categorized under different headings, according to:
- Style – abstract, expressionism, pop art, art nouveau, impressionism, and more
- Subject - architecture, landscape, still life, floral, and more
- Famous artists- Monet, Warhol, Kandinsky, Salvador Dali, Picasso, Van Gogh, Escher, etc.
- Great finds – Drawings, paintings, prints, mixed media. photographs, sculpture
- Medium – Acrylic, marble, pastel, lithographs, oil paintings, watercolors
I think to myself, it must be true… many artists must be making a living with Ebay, or at least listing their artworks there.
So, I decide to actually search on E bay for abstract paintings, making sure to check the filter for only North America art (to filter out all the cheap Chinese imitations for Ebay art)
39,533 results are shown! It is highly doubtful that many artists are actually selling art through Ebay, but some of them must be successful at it.
I took a look at the second painting on the list, since the first one was really a limited edition print. This is actually a top rated seller at Ebay, who has a feedback score of 300.
This auction actually ended without any buyers, but I wondered if this person really has much success. So I clicked on the feedback score, to find out what the art buyers are saying. This seller has 12 positive ratings in the past month, and 192 in the past year! The paintings range from $109 to $199 in price.
Now I decided to take a look on Youtube to see what I could find on the subject. Check out what I found…
This artist has become very successful at E bay, and her husband even quit his job to help out with the business.
So, it is obvious that some artists can make big incomes from Ebays website. But, in order to succeed here, an artist has to know how to sell art on Ebay.
I remembered having seen plenty of books regarding E bay art selling. So I checked on Amazon to see what I could find. Well, there were a few on the subject, but none really worth mentioning.
Now, I was not interested in purchasing any of these books anyway. I wonder if they give any useful tips on selling artworks on Ebaay at all. I really have no doubt that they do, but at a price. For the most part, these types of books prey on artists who are desperate to earn money from their art.
This is why I have decided to do some research on the whole affair, and share the information with you for free.
So, stay tuned as I share tips on making money with art on Ebay very soon. If you are interested in learning more, subscribing now will ensure you will not miss these informative articles!
Do you have any stories of successful Ebay artists? Please comment below.
It's definitely possible, but as you say, you need to know how to go about it, and you need to price your artwork accordingly. It's very unlikely that your art will fetch more than a few hundred dollars on eBay. I recently published an article on the subject, featuring an interview with an artist who successfully sells her paintings on eBay.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to be a downer, but art on ebay has crashed, the good times of making good sales is long gone. The artist you see above Osnat used to make a lot of money on ebay, that news program is years old now, and Osnat does not make much of any now, in fact her paintings are piling up.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is, people just aren't buying much art online unless you have a name already or have done something special, like being published in magazines. Some people do art shows, and pull people into ebay sales that way, but these days, there is so much junk on ebay, many fakes, chinese scams, people don't trust in it, and the ones who would normally buy for investment have faith in very few. Seeing an artists sales go from 300, to 200, then 100, then 75 and lower degrades the artist, but that's the only way to make a buck these days. I can only recommend doing the art for yourself, letting it go cheap to build up a following, or save it for when people have extra money.
The person above is correct, art on ebay CRASHED. There was once a boom of artists and many sales happening on ebay. One of the reasons is because Ebay gave the chance for artists to feature their auctions above all others, at expensive 35.00 each listing, not many people could afford to list. So what ended up happening is the top 50 artists who could afford, would list each and every day, a huge following developed. Some artists would sell consistantly $700 to $1500 a painting. Osnat was one of the top, however even her art value crashed like all others when EBAY decided to end the featured option (because the artists who couldn't afford it, complained till they were blue in the face), AND GUESS WHAT HAPPENED... They ruined it for everyone in a time of bad economy, it backfired. The popular artists could no longer compete, market crashed. Thanks Ebay, Thanks amature artists, and thanks economy! Now it's a bunch of junk. I was a buyer at the time, and it's too bad the artists I loved are gone.
ReplyDelete