5. Create an e-commerce art shop on your own website

If you already have your own website or online art portfolio but don’t want the involvement of a third party marketplace, you can sell your work on your own website. Whether you sell your work in an online gallery or elsewhere, it’s still necessary to have your own website or online portfolio.

The design of your website should reflect your artistic style and act as a showcase for potential buyers and fans of your artwork. It should feature your best quality work and be a virtual representation of your brand.

Get started with easy drag & drop site-builders:

• • Wix (Drag & Drop, best for beginners with no experience)
  • SquareSpace (Best for beginners & designers)
  • WordPress (Best for creators with website building experience)

6. Consider Print-on-Demand products

Print on demand websites are also becoming increasingly popular platforms for artists and designers to profit from their art. Once you’ve uploaded a high-quality image of your artwork, it can be printed on just about anything. The best part is, after you’ve submitted your work, the website takes care of the rest.

Get started:

• • Society 6 – (best for illustrators, printmakers, photographers)
  • Deviant Art – (best for character designers, illustrators)
  • Zazzle – (best for illustrators and designers)
  • RedBubble – (best for illustrators and designers)
  • Printful – (best for illustrators, printmakers, painters)

7. Get Social Media Savvy

For independent artists, art marketing is an important part of selling your artwork especially online. The art world is saturated with fine artists trying to do the same thing. You’ll find that it’s a lot easier to sell your work to an existing audience.

If you use social media to connect and engage with the people who are interested in your artistic skill and already find your Instagram page inspiring, you’ll have a captive audience ready to sell to.

Use Blogs, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, even TikTok, whatever social media platforms you’re comfortable with at the moment, to tell people more about the new art you’ve produced, or are in the process of making. Although beware that mindless self-promoting doesn’t usually lead to sales.

Instead, give your audience a sense of who you are as the person behind the art. Share behind the scenes, your art studio, or talk about the inspiration for your pieces. This will help them to build trust and confidence in you and your work.

8. Know your worth, and how to price your art accordingly

When it comes to pricing your art, it’s important to research the various ways to do this while still making sure you don’t underprice or overprice your artwork.

If you’re a beginner and have never sold your work before, rather than pulling random numbers out of the air, you may find it useful to use an art pricing formula to begin with and make adjustments as you grow. 

There are a number of online tools that can help your determine a price for your artwork, like this Free Art Calculator app. It’s a great tool to keep in your arsenal, although it’s not entirely accurate, it is a great starting point.

All you do is put in the size, medium and style of your artwork and boom, you get a price. You will need to make some adjustments up or down, and prices are shown in US dollars so you’ll also need to convert the currency if you’re not in the US.

9. Make Professionalism a Priority

If you’re accepting payments online, you need a very secure eCommerce store for people to feel safe and confident about buying your work online. Make the payment process easy and secure. Also make sure you are compliant with the policies on returning goods and giving refunds.

Another thing to keep in mind is, don’t start selling until you’ve worked out how you are going handle packaging and shipping and make sure you’re very clear on where in the world you are willing to ship to. Paypal is a great way to begin accepting online payments as they integrate with almost every platform and website builder and it’s free and easy to set up and use. 

10. Get to know the legal side of things

Selling art online means you should know, understand and observe the laws and legal items pertaining to selling, trading and buying artwork. Find helpful websites, courses, and books on our Resources Library. The other side of the equation is to understand the rights to your own intellectual property.

Would you know what to do if you discovered someone on the internet reselling your artwork as their own? A-N insurance is great website to get information from, the Business and IP Centre at the British library, and ArtLaw have hundreds of resources and free legal advice for artists.

11. Know Your Customer

It’s important to understand who your online consumers are and what they’re looking for in their search for online art. You need to know who it is you’re trying to attract and what exactly it is that they want. Pay attention when people compliment your work. Keep an eye on your social media too.

Which posts have the most comments, likes and shares? Do you receive feedback on the same art pieces time and time again? These are indicators that these are pieces of art that sells best to the people most likely to purchase it. 

12. Describe your artwork with the love you put into it

Lastly, you’re likely here because trying to make more virtual sales, so it’s very important to communicate the value of your work to your customers online as you’re not there to talk with them in person as you might at art fairs or artist market.

Connecting with people virtually and describing the stories and inspiration behind your art, the process involved in making it, even where the materials were sourced would surely help people to better understand the quality of your artwork and value you as the artist behind it.

Share your passion for art with your audience and they’ll feel more inclined to support the work you do.

It is possible to create the kind of art you want to make and earn good money doing it. The web allows you to sell directly to your fans and reach new audiences of potential buyers. You can cut out the middleman and become the exclusive dealer of your own work. There is enormous potential in online art sales and with careful and strategic use of the Internet, the possibilities are limitless.