Back to Art… Business…
Selling Prints Online
How does a photographer begin selling their pictures online as prints?
One of the many choices that comes up is SmugMug.
I know professional photographers who sell a few prints through
it, but they say they dont sell too many. But they probably don’t
do a lot to push the exposure of their SmugMug site. What if you
want to do more to market your prints, like through Facebook ads,
Google Ads, landing pages, or creating a subscription prints
service?
Some photographer blogs, such as
Ken Rockwell say that being a photographer is a lower paying job than almost any other. Its not making good photos that sells. It is marketing the great photos that sells. It is all about the self promotion, and setting yourself apart.
So what are the choices to pursue more aggressive marketing of your art?
Private notes:
Some of my example galleries
How to evaluate an online art prints sales choice
How easy is it to put the pictures online?
How do people find your pictures? Search engine with tagging? Only your own visitors see your pictures, or is there a global marketplace offered on the site to let other visitors find your work?
Can you build your own email list from the site?
Getting others to market your art - Is there an affiliate program? Multiple level affiliate program such as two level?
Costs? Setup fees? Monthly fees? Commissions on sales?
How many pics can you put on for free to try out? What features do you lose in the free try out?
What is the profit model? How does the artist get paid?
Creating an online Photo Gallery with prints ordering and affiliate program
Totally Do It Yourself Art Print Sales
One possibility is to buy your own wide format printer, create your own portfolio book of prints, and start selling them in the real world: Showing the portfolio book to real people in real life, getting their reactions, asking for the sale. This is guerilla, boots on the ground, marketing at it’s simplest.
One photographer I know is always advising “Think Big!” As in wall sized prints. He wants to someday afford wall sized metal prints of his own work.
What about software?
You will need art gallery software.
You will need e-commerce software, payment gateways
eMail marketing - MailChimp, Constant Contact, or self managed such as Sendy
Affiliate tracking system?
Custoemr relationship management system
Backend system for tracking fulfillment
Image Security
Color1Photo touts their “IMAGE SECURITY YOU CAN TRUST”
No Right-Clicking - Your images are protected.
Watermarks - Protect Image Previews with Watermarks. Create your own custom watermarks.
Resolution - The software automatically creates a very small version of your image file for web viewing.
Amazon Web Services - We use Amazon Web Services for safe file storage.
Make sure that any image that can be downloaded does not have adequate resolution for a quality print, so nobody will make any money off your work.
Affiliate softwares
OSI Affiliate says it includes tracking up to 200 affiliates for $47/month - https://www.osiaffiliate.com/pricing.php
NOTE: Read this more indepth to get all the options listed here…
Good article on choices: eCommerce for photographers - https://www.foregroundweb.com/selling-images/
Indepth info on WooCommerce
NextGen Pro - $139 - Wordpress plugin offering print lab interface - NextGEN Pro is now the ONLY WordPress plugin with automatic print lab fulfillment (meaning that when someone orders a print on your site, a professional print lab will automatically print that image and ship it directly to them, without you having to get involved in the process, as opposed to traditional “self-fulfillment” methods).
Basic review of a large number of photography portfolio sites
Photo Gallery software
PIWIGO
Useful queries:
Questions:
Why is BayPhotoLab not coming up in print-on-demand lists? Is it because they focus only on photoprint fullfilment?
Remember to compare costco pricing to BayPhotoLab - Big different: CostCo will not drop ship
Fullfillment Vendors
https://www.color1photo.com/websites - in Seattle Washington
Free upload library
Products include fine art prints, photo prints, metal prints, acrylic prints, canvas prints, and more.
Offers sales website: Uses ArtStoreFronts, branded shipping
Best Print-on-Demand websites: The Definitive 2020 Guide - https://blog.placeit.net/definitive-guide-on-best-print-on-demand-websites/
Note that many of these are about printing on all kinds of products other than making fine art prints
In-depth descriptions of the alternatives: What to expect, profit margin explained, how to get paid, initial investment, design ownership, ranking
End focus is on t-shirt marketing
Article mentions:
Bonfire
Redbubble
Teespring
Society6
Spreadshirt
TeePublic
Threadless
Zazzle
Teefury
Design by Humans
SunFrog
Printful
Print on demand websites for photographers - https://megapixelmaniac.com/print-on-demand-websites-for-photographers/
Article mentions:
Red Bubble
Zazzle
Fine Art America
Society6
Printer's Studio
CowCow
Deviant Art
Other possibilities:
BayPhoto.com
Integrated partners:
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Basic - use their printlab? Might not offer right click protection, may need power - $55 annual
Power - $85 annual
Portfolio - fulfill with BayPhoto, options for frames, mets - $200 year
Pro - allow assistants access - $360/yr.
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$0 option takes 15% sales commission - unlimited galleries
Collects email from visitors
Testimonials
Strong marketing
works with clients of photographer
Client galleries
Album proofing comments
Client photo selections
Art Galleries
Various online gallery sites
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Artlimes
Artpal
Crevada free online portfolio
ArtSpan
Adobe Portfolio - no shopping cart, $10/mo.
ArtBridge (EU Site; Print on Demand) This site specializes in selling prints. Sign up, upload your images, and earn 20% of every print sale that is made
ArtCloud
Artist.com
ArtistBe - online gallery / print on demand
ArtistShops - print on demand
ArtOfWhere - 3 tier commission?
ArtPal - online gallery / print on demand
TurningArt - focuses on renting reproductions of art to residential and commercial clients
PicFair
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ArtPal
ArtOfWhere
Set commission, like 25%
Wall Art - https://artofwhere.com/info/design-guidelines
Ratio | In inches | In pixels |
1:1* | 24' x 24'* | 7200px x 7200px* |
3:2* | 30' x 20'* | 9000px x 6000px* |
4:3* | 32' x 24'* | 9600px x 7200px* |
—– | 8' x 10' | 2400px x 3000px |
—– | 11' x 14' | 3300px x 4200px |
—– | 16' x 20' | 4800px x 6000px |
—– | 20' x 24' | 6000px x 7200px |
* Those ratios can be sized down, but the specified sizes are the biggest available since your artwork must display correctly up to those sizes.
PicFair
SmugMug
ArtSpan
ASF: ArtStoreFronts
Advantages
Trying to provide all in one solution including marketing training
Education that can probably be applied to other sites - Of course they are very big on their Augmented Reality AR showing what your prints look like on the customers wall, and having a smooth shopping cart experience.
Green Man Design Studio
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Problem of branding - people have to see a message 10 times or more to make a decision, to understand what they are seeing
Big decision - customer buying your art to put it on their wall and daily life
Email list - getting their permission to send them more work, develop their interest and trust in you
He uses MailChimp. He also mentioned “My Emma”
You must have peoples permission to email them!
Videos click through rate is even better than images or articles
Coupons for 30% off is a good sweetspot
Breakthrough Prints Monthly Subscription And Commission Structure