If you list your work for 99 cents, you must think it is worth less than the value of the material used to create it. This is not helpful to you or to original artwork in general.
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Wise to attach contact info to the back of a painting, unless like me, you sell unframed watercolors where the info will be hidden by whatever frame they choose. Oh well. The future is a mystery into the past.
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I only tried this for awhile on eBay. I had read the idea was that the low price attracts bidders and that once they have bid they donât like to lose so they keep bidding so the price goes up. It worked on a few then it didnât so I stopped. Also the idea of the loss leader. One low price item to get people into your gallery to see your other items and hope they like what they see and buy something at the higher prices.
I put all my art on DPW, sold or donated to charity or for sale - I personally like browsing othersâ galleries and seeing all the different approaches to subjects. I made one of my categories (Available) so that people can go directly there to see whatâs for sale. Have just recently decided a super low price not worth it and as someone said up above, makes me feel better about my work even if it does not sell.As I donât yet live off my art, they can sit there for a while. Sometimes a piece doesnât sell for months or even a year after posting. Also, if you do commissions, people like to see what else youâve done and it may spark a âoh, I wonder if sheâd paint something for me?â
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I agree with most of you here. I spend time creating my art and donât want to give it away. LOL I figure it doesnât go badâŚ
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Regarding why some artists list work ânot for saleâ or already sold, I personally use my DPW gallery as my website (my domain name is tied to it). I want to show ALL of my best work, especially some of the stronger pieces that may have already sold or are part of my personal collection. As far as cheapo auctions, no thanks! Art supplies are TOO expensive to give it away. Iâd rather let it stack up in a drawer and host a studio sale down the road and hope to recoup at least my material costs.
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That is so true, Pamela. I hope to get a reasonable price for my art work, that at least covers my costs and keeps me motivated. Itâs tough out there at the minute, or maybe itâs just me, lol.
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Thatâs a great attitude, Gary! If youâre doing what you love, you canât go wrong.
I sell a lot of paintings to Castaways, which is a shop in Sugar Bay Resort in St. Thomas V.I. I get paid very little for my paintings, but I put all my information on the back of the canvas panels, hopefully, someone who likes my work, will look at my other paintings online and buy something else at the regular price.
Do what you love and the money will come. (I hope 
)
Hi, Iâve been absent for a few months and am just getting back up to speed. I didnât realize that DPW extends auctions with activity on them. Can you explain this further? I currently have two auctions with only opening bids but both with âfollowersâ whom I fully expect will swoop in at the last minute and snatch up a couple of âstealsâ.
Well I was playing around with the thought of starting my auctions at $1 and thatâs what Iâm getting. In 2 hours one of them ends at that price and another one tomorrow. I remember doing that a long time ago and at least they got a cheap price but not just a dollar. Iâll never do it again. I even posted them on facebook about an hour ago saying âLAST CHANCE!â but that didnât help either. Maybe theyâre not worth a dollar. I donât know anymore.
Hi Bob,
I think itâs a mistake to list work for $1. It undermines IMO, oneself and the site, not to mention the merit and value, intrinsically and artistically of the works. It is sad to see so many $1 auctions on the site.
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I agree with Joseph 100%.
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Exactly right! I am pinching myself because I get to do what I love. Itâs not work! And the money is comingâŚ
I have a secondary ID that I sell a lot on ebay, for paintings I donât think quite made it to the best level and I am always experimentingâŚanyway, a lot of people will buy these discounted, happily. It covers my costs and then some.
Then I can keep the best for DPW and my Sunny Avocado ID. I do still have the older paintings on DPW and I can see that I keep getting better, the longer I am painting. And the interest and the prices go up too. LOVE to paint!!
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Sunny,
Congratulations! Your one of the 1% that has succeeded. The only reason I pinch myself is to get myself out of the nightmare. Iâm giving it until Jan. 1st and calling it quits. I can no longer afford the cost of the materials and time it takes to paint and spin my wheels. Iâd rather try something else to make online sales. They say your insane if you keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. I think Iâve been insane long enough.
Being an artist will be a thing of the past for me soon.
Im sorry to hear that @rkstudio . You do lovely work. I do have that luxury of someone else in the household paying most of the bills. Have you been to local galleries? Have you tried other places online besides DPW?
I donât know what to tell you Bob. You have 555 paintings posted in your gallery and have red dots on 538 of them. Seems to me that you are selling.
I know Iâve written to you in the past and told you about broken links on your blog, but you still have them. In the right hand column you have Links to three websites to look at your artwork and all three links are broken. Buyers can get very frustrated when they click on a link and it goes nowhere.
Trying to sell art at a low price on Ebay is self defeating and I stopped doing it a while ago. Now I list art on Ebay at a fixed price (my regular price) with the Make An Offer option. Iâve sold a couple of paintings this way, by taking an offer, with the offers being lower than my asking price, but higher than what I would have listed it for at auction. And you can do these Fixed Price listings on Ebay all day long, without any cost to you, because the listings (40) are free until the piece sells. So there is no reason not to put some of your larger works up on Ebay. It wonât cost you anything to try.
You can also try a couple of other websites that are geared towards higher priced pieces. Vangoart.co (which I already told you about) and Saatchiart.com are both set up to sell art for a higher price, but they also take a higher commission (30%). Of course, youâre not going to get too far trying to sell 5x7" paintings for $500 on these sites. But an 18x24" or 20x30" go for these prices all the time (and higher). Obviously these sites are NOT set up for the average daily painter.
Yes, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. Iâm wondering if you have a clear idea as to what it is that you want to accomplish. You are selling art, but obviously youâre not happy with your results. You posted your first painting here almost four years ago and have consistently sold almost everything youâve posted.
Giving up when you have the talent that you do is bogus and the wusses way out. And I mean that in a Tough Love kind of way. I have two of your paintings hanging on my wall and Iâd hate to see you give it up because things seem to be hard right now. You have 538 Red Dots on your gallery page. 538 red dots! So you must be doing something right.
From a fellow Las Vegas artist, figure it out and get busy fixing it.
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Few useful statistics are readily available so work out ways you can make your own observations. Some artists start the bidding at one dollar and have some success if the work is desirable to the DPW viewers. Other paintings will remain unsold or get just one or two bids. Some artists will start bidding at one dollar but charge ten dollars for shipping which is quite high for a small work. I suspect cautious buyers are astute enough to sense this ploy. Some seem to hope that if one person is attracted by a low opening bid then others will follow in a feeding frenzy. I think not. As for posting sold works, some are valid, others less so. An artist might want to show a large format piece to display their capability. Some paintings posted as sold may simply be not for sale, though sold looks better, it connotes success. There are many available works of art and the few buyers are wary and very particular. It is really not much of a mystery.
I like the alliterate ring of, " wusses way out ".
depends on where the person is posting from, I sent an A4 sized work today from australia to america by registered post and it cost 21.10. even just shoving it into an envelope with no tracking isnât cheap.
Hi Sunny,
Great name and your work is superb, but, " Have you tried local galleries " as actionable adviceâŚyikes.