January 1, 2021

Where To Sell Your Art Online – Volume 2

Where To Sell Your Art Online: Volume 2

The internet has become the easiest way for one person to reach thousands or millions of people across the globe. It used to be much harder to sell art. Finding interested people is one thing, but trying to get gallery representation is a whole other issue. By selling art online, however, you can reach potential customers from across the world.

If you haven’t already, I would recommend that you check out my articles “Where To Sell Your Art Online” and “Where To Sell Your Art – Volume 3”. In those articles, I talk about twenty-four websites where you can sell your art. Since then, a few companies have reached out to me and wanted me to include them in that article. Instead of editing the first to add them, I thought I would just create a volume two. I will include those companies that reached out to me as well as some others that I found through my research. That being said, I don’t have much experience with all of the websites but in this article, I am more focusing on the basics of each site and giving you options to find what suits you best!

Here are the twelve websites I will be talking about in this article:

–ArtFire

–Artplode

–Art In Canada (Only For Canadians)

–Elephant Stock

–For The Cottage (Only For Canadians at the moment)

–Printful

–Requiren

–Store Envy

–TeePublic

–Threadless

–Ugallery

–Zazzle

ArtFire

$5 Monthly Fee + Listing Fee

ArtFire was launched in 2008 by John Jacobs. The goal is to be a marketplace for crafters, artists, and more to come together in one online location. ArtFire is similar to Etsy in that it offers similar products and also in the fact that you pay per listing.

ArtFire is not free to use. The cheapest plan they have is $4.95 a month plus $0.23 per listing. Here is a breakdown of their three plans and what you get for each:

They say that they reach thousands of shoppers each month, give you friendly support, have professional designs that don’t require coding and have easy management for your products and orders.

There is a forum and blog that has some interesting articles in it that may help you become a better seller. They also run a Seller Spotlight page where you and your work can be featured. It does seem like a website that is geared to help artists out.

I do not have experience with ArtFire but it may be a platform worth checking out. You could spend $20 for a few months of service and test the waters quite easily.

Artplode

$60 Listing Fee

Artplode is a platform for galleries, dealers, collectors, and artists to sell artwork. There is no commission fee when you sell an artwork which means that you receive all of the profits. However, it costs $60 to list your artwork. The listing will stay up forever until it is either sold or you take it down.

Their online gallery can be filtered by location, category, subject, style, price, size, and more. This allows customers to more easily find what they are looking for.

No payments are done through their website. You have direct contact with the customers and set up a payment method that works for you and the customer.

For a small fee, you can also use the Artplode Assistant which can provide a guide on pricing your art.

I do not have experience with Artplode but if your artwork is worth well over $60, then it may be worth looking into. If you sell artwork for around $60 or under, then this definitely isn’t the site for you!

Art In Canada

$30 One Time Fee / Only For Canadians

Established in 1999, Art In Canada’s goal is to help connect buyers with Canadian art. There is a one time $30 CAD fee to be a part of and list artwork on Art In Canada. This allows you to list 20 artworks on their website. You can purchase 10 additional spots for $10 CAD. As far as I know, you can purchase the additional spots multiple times so you aren’t limited to just 30 artworks. They also offer advertising plans that range from $10 to $250.

The fees may seem steep compared to some websites, but they take a 0% commission on any sale you make. This is because no actual transaction between you and a buyer is completed on Art In Canada. They act as the middle man in helping customers find your art. After the customer contacts you, it is up to you to handle the transaction which means you get to keep 100% of the profit.

I have been a part of Art In Canada for about two years now I believe. It has driven traffic to my website and got more eyes on my artwork. No one has explicitly said that they found my artwork through Art In Canada, but for the one-time fee, I am glad to have my artwork on a reputable site that people use to purchase art.

Elephant Stock

Free By Application

I have never used Elephant Stock but they reached out to me and wanted to be included in this article. Here is what they wanted you to know about their website:

ElephantStock wall art gallery helps artists, photographers and digital art talents, sell their artworks online. The website’s unique technology can turn any art photography into stunning canvas wall art in countless layouts shapes and sizes, allowing interior designers and individual customers to find their best match artwork for their home.

ElephantStock uses top quality high-res Giclee photograph printing processes on poly-cotton blend canvas material for a professional-looking and long-lasting outcome. Each artwork is stretched across crafted North American pine frames with a UV resistant, waterproof, and scratch-proof laminates.

ElephantStock artists community enjoys:

• Free account setup

• Extensive Online exposure (2M pageviews monthly)

• High conversion rates and sales commissions

• Easy to use interface

• ElephantStock takes care of all the shipping and handling

• Account performance reporting of their monthly sales

Join ElephantStock artist community here >>

As I said before, I don’t have any experience with them. I filled out their form to sell on their website a few weeks back (the beginning of December 2020) and still haven’t heard back (December 27, 2020). I know the holiday season is busy but that is quite a wait compared to other websites I have worked with.

If you have any experience with Elephant Stock, please comment below!

For The Cottage

Free / At this time it is only open to Canadians

For the Cottage is a newer platform where you can sell your art online. They specialize in decor for cottage life. Whether that be a lakeside retreat, a cabin in the woods, a small-town bungalow, or wherever you want the cottage feel, they have what you need. You will find not just artwork on this website, but apparel, decor for the kitchen, bathroom, outdoor spaces, living rooms, and more.

At the moment, it is just for Canadian vendors, but that is because they are a Canadian based website and want to keep up with the overwhelming response they have received just from Canadians. Soon, artists and creators from other countries will be able to join as well.

You must apply to sell of For The Cottage as they want to make sure that your products are of good quality and fit with the niche that they specialize in. This is great because that means that not just anybody can sell here.

They take a 15% commission fee on any sale. This is quite average for a website like this. We have seen some that are less and some that are a lot more.

I have had personal contact many times with the founder and have found her to be very personable and easy to work with. If I ever have any concerns, she is always willing to answer my questions. There have been times that I forgot a detail or two in one of my products and she has personally emailed me to let me know so I could go in and make the necessary adjustments. This would never happen on any other website I have sold on.

If you are a Canadian artist and your style fits the “cottage” mentality, I would definitely check out this site!

Printful

Free

Printful is a platform that is similar to websites such as Redbubble and Society6 where you can sell your artwork and designs on a variety of products. These products range from prints, wall decor, apparel, furniture, accessories, and more.

It is free to set up a Printful shop and free to list your products. One of the things that I like about Printful, is that you can link it to your already existing e-commerce shop. If you have a shop with Shopify, Wix, Woocommerce, Etsy, eBay, Amazon, and so many more, then you can directly link your products from those shops so that you don’t have to go through the process of uploading each of them again on the Printful website. This will save you a lot of time.

Printful has a base price for all of their Print-On-Demand products from which you can set your profits. They take care of all of the production, shipping, and handling for you.

The packaging that they use doesn’t have the name or logo of Printful on it so it looks as if it came right from you.

Printful has multiple manufacturing locations around the world to ensure quick production and shipping of products to customers from any country.

Though I do not have experience with Printful yet, it is one that I think I will try as it is free to set up and should easily link to my store database from my website.

Requiren

Free

Based in the U.S.A., Requiren is a platform from which artists can receive commission requests from potential customers. This is a website from which you don’t sell already made art but have the opportunity to display your current work for people to ask you to do commissions for them.

Potential customers will put in a request for a piece of art to be done. Multiple artists will receive the request from which they can then send a proposal to the customer with pricing, time of completion, and other details. The customer then chooses the artist that they think best fits what they are looking for.

I have been a part of Requiren for a while now but have never actually received a commission for a piece of art. I did send a few proposals out but was never selected to fulfill the commission. For a while, I had my settings set to accept many subject types and noticed that every commission request was either a pet portrait or a person portrait. Since my forte is more in landscapes and animals, I submitted a couple of proposals for the pet portraits but never did for the people portraits.

That being said, if you are a portrait artist, I think it would be a great idea for you to join Requiren. Many people are using it to find an artist to complete a portrait for them. In the last 4 months or so, I have my settings to only send me requests of landscapes and I have not received one request in that time.

StorEnvy

Free + Subscription

StorEnvy is an online platform on which you can create your shop to sell your items. These items can range from art, clothing, accessories, tech, health and beauty, and more. Its goal is to allow emerging brands and creators to express themselves by not only selling their products but by telling their story. StorEnvy allows people to follow, watch, and save your products to collections for others to see. With over 66,000 brands to date, it is a growing e-commerce platform.

Your products will be listed in their marketplace as well as be able to be listed in your own store/website.

There are three levels of subscription on StorEnvy. Check them out below:

Having a free option is always great. It gives you a chance to test the waters a little bit and see if you like how the platform runs and if it generates many sales.

$14.99 a month for everything that you get isn’t even that bad of a price either. A custom domain/website on your own is usually at least $5.00 a month but this takes the work out of having to run your own website.

I don’t have experience with StorEnvy but it seems like it could be a solid site. I enjoy platforms that just sell art, as well as platforms that sell other products because someone might come onto the website looking for something totally different but still be able to end up on your art page.

TeePublic

Free

TeePublic is another Print-On-Demand platform similar to Redbubble and Society6. Though they claim to be the world’s largest marketplace for independent creators to sell their work on the highest-quality merchandise, I don’t know how true that exactly is. They started back in 2013 and have grown to support artists, designers, YouTubers, Podcasters, and more.

The name of the website can be deceiving. I received an email from them mentioning that they wanted to sell my art on their products. With the name “TeePublic”, I figured they dealt mainly in apparel which is not ideal for my type of art. They assured me later on that they sell prints of art as well so keep that in mind when considering this website.

They offer a whole variety of products from apparel, kitchen, stickers, masks, and home goods. Their fine art prints are available on paper, poster paper, and canvas.

You can set up an account for free and start uploading your products instantly. Unlike a few other print on demand websites, TeePublic sets the prices for your products and the amount you earn per sale. This is frustrating because many other websites allow you to set your profit above and beyond their base price.

On the other hand, it is nice to not have to deal with the production and shipping of any products. Just upload your art, select the type of products you want to sell on, and you are on your way.

I do not have experience with TeePublic as I did not take their invitation to set up a shop on their site. I have many other platforms I am working with right now so I didn’t want to join another at the moment.

Threadless

Free

Threadless is also a Print-On-Demand type platform that was opened in Chicago in 2000. This makes it one of the older and more established websites like this. It started as just a t-shirt company but now you can sell your art and designs on many types of art prints, apparel, home goods, accessories, and more.

It is free to set up an account and upload your art. Each of their products has a base price from which you can set your profits above and beyond that base price. I like this feature because some other websites, like TeePublic as you just read, don’t allow you to do this. You can switch a setting on your shop that allows Threadless to manage your profits and also run sales on your products when they think it will improve your profits. This may be worth giving a try.

Just like any of these types of websites, when you add a product, there are endless amounts of customization that you can do on the hundreds of products you can sell.

I have had a couple of my paintings on Threadless for over a year now but have never made a sale. However, I have not put any effort into marketing or even really customizing my shop on Threadless. With a little more time and effort, I may have been able to make some sales.

Since this is one of the older Print-On-Demand services, it may be a good one to check out.

Ugallery

By Application

Ugallery was founded in 2006 by Alex Farkas. It is considered to be an online art gallery, not just a marketplace for people to sell art. This means that they pick and choose every artist and every artwork that they display on their website so that customers get a more curated experience while visiting their online gallery. This means that not everyone can sell through Ugallery, however, if you are accepted to sell through them, that means they believe your artwork will sell.

Even though they are based in the United States, international artists can apply as well. Just be prepared to package and ship artworks to your customers once they are purchased.

Their commission fee is 50%. This is quite high compared to other websites that I have reviewed. However, if you can sell consistently through Ugallery, it would be worth it.

When you list a piece with Ugallery, you are not allowed to list or sell it anywhere else. This is more restrictive than most other platforms where you can sell your art.

There is a $5 application fee to sell with Ugallery.

For more info, please check out their FAQ page here: https://www.ugallery.com/faq

I have no experience working with Ugallery but if you have a strong portfolio and want to try to break into the online art gallery area, then you should check out Ugallery!

Zazzle

Free

Zazzle was made in 2005 to help designers reach their potential. They boast a lot of numbers on their “About” page that you can check out here.

This platform is very similar to websites like Society6, Redbubble, and TeePublic. You create the art and then sell it on a variety of products. There is a base price that Zazzle sells the products for, and then you set your profit percentage above and beyond that price. This is a good feature because I have reviewed a few platforms that don’t allow this.

It is free to make an account and list your products on Zazzle.

They will put your artwork on products such as baby & kid clothing, accessories, art prints, clothing, electronics, home goods, invitations, office supplies, wedding, and more!

I have a little bit of experience with Zazzle. Their dashboard and interface is a little more difficult and unorganized than other websites I have used. I have had a few of my artworks listed on Zazzle for quite a while and have never sold anything. However, I rarely go on Zazzle and do absolutely no promotion for my Zazzle products. If I was to put more effort into my shop, I’m sure I would see some sales. My artwork isn’t necessarily made for many of these designs as it is a more traditional art. However, it is free to have an account so I thought I may as well have my artwork in front of more people if possible!

Final Thoughts

Selling art online is a must for any emerging and/or self-taught artists. It allows you to reach countless people from across the globe that otherwise wouldn’t have a chance of seeing your art.

Make sure to check out Volume 1 of this article “Where To Sell Your Art Online” and many of my individual more in-depth reviews on these websites.