"How to Expand Your Arts and Crafts Sales from Locally to Globally or How to Sell on the Internet." ©
Posted: Saturday, October 29, 2005
by Arlene Wright-Correll
http://www.learn-america.com
In my last article we spoke about using barter to increase your arts and craft sales and I ended that article with the following words, "Each of us needs to find new ways to market our arts and crafts."
If you have a computer or access to a computer and you are not using it to expose your arts and crafts to millions of people on the internet, then you need to start thinking in that direction.
Spam comes with the territory and it comes in all forms. We get plenty of "spam" in our regular mail box… Only we label it "Junk Mail"! I personally like junk mail. Why? Because some big company has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the correct marketing ideas for them and most of the time the marketing will work for type of product. I get some of my best ideas from Junk Mail. It is my own inexpensive form of research and development.
I find I do not get too many great ideas from spam, but occasionally I get a lead or a link to something that will head me towards a market place that will produce a sale for me.
Most artists and craftspeople are disinclined towards marketing themselves. After almost 40 years in marketing real estate, I find that past career came in handy when I was able to devote my full time towards my art. I do not know how good my talent is, but I have sold more of my paintings while I am alive than Van Gogh ever did while he was alive! Not that I am putting myself in the same class, but who the heck wants to be famous when they are dead? Not me. I get great pleasure when one of my paintings leaves my studio and I have personally sent it to another state or another country.
However, marketing is what is needed and the cheapest form of marketing is Internet Sales. Where can we find the right venue? Here are some things that work for me. eBay. In the beginning it is very cheap. It is free to set up an eBay account. Once you have 10 sales you can open an eBay store should you wish to. You do not have to. When I opened our store it costs us a minimum of $9.98 a month. Now it costs $15.98 minimum a month. I find putting things in my store front with good until sold with a make offer check is the cheapest way to expose my stuff. When I put something up for auction I do not spend the money for a reserve bid, I just start my auction at the lowest I will take. eBay fees have increased in the last year, so you have to say no to a lot of what they offer because sales are feast or famine, but you can control your inventory. Payments are fast and secure. You need a credit card on file or a bank account for direct deposits or to pay when you buy something. Another bonus with eBay is when I need some art or craft supply, I look up what it costs in the store and on the internet and then I search for it on eBay. Many times I have purchased something for a fraction of the cost. I get one free picture on eBay, so I have learned to use photo merge from Adobe and get all sides of a product into one free photo.
Another must for the internet is having a PayPal account. It is free to set one up and the fees are cheap, the payments are fast and they are secure.
Another must for exposure is a site called MightyBids. I have sold lots of stuff on that site. They are based in Canada. They went though some growing pains, but have finally gotten their site a lot easier to use. They are a lot cheaper than eBay. Registration is free, 2 pictures for each item are free and their fees are a lot lower than eBay. Check them out on www.mightbids.com and on any of these sites I only accept PayPal, cashiers check or money order payments. I recommend you consider the same policy. Another thing I like about this site is the free automatic up to 9 times relisting feature. Plus they have made me their featured artist which means often my name rolls around to their home page at no extra fees to me.
Another site I recommend is a site called Yessy. Yessy allows you to put up your own gallery for only $5.00 per month or $59.00 per year. They have a 14 day free trail and during that time you can put up your own site/gallery complete with bio. They allow you to have as many items for sale. You earn 100% of your sales. Yessy does not charge a sales commission. If a buyer chooses to pay through the Yessy ordering system, then a low 10% payment processing fee applies. This covers credit card transaction fees and related payment processing costs. There are no other fees.
I love the ease of moving around in Yessy and I love the professionalism it gives me for only $59.00 a year. I love the site stats feature which shows how many viewers visited my gallery.
In both Easy Edit and Power Edit, there is a section entitled "Commerce" where you provide your payment information. You can pay by credit card or U.S. bank account.
For a bank account, they tell you what is a routing number and account number?
They have a click here to popup an image of a routing and account number. The routing number is a 9-digit number on your check and is used to identify your specific financial institution. The account number is used to identify your bank account.
The annual fee is paid on the day your free trial ends should you wish to continue. The 10% payment processing fee is only paid when a purchase is made through the Yessy ordering system. The 10% payment processing fee is automatically removed from the purchase price and the remaining 90% is transferred to you, the seller. If the order is refunded later, then Yessy refunds the 10% payment processing fee as well.
Yessy is a privately held corporation located in Boulder, Colorado and was founded by an artist for the purpose of providing a better way to buy and sell art.
Since the beginning, the pursuit of Yessy has been to provide a wide variety of artists the opportunity to sell their art in a manner that is easy-to-use, powerful, and affordable. We believe it is more important to assist and contribute to the art community rather than focusing on financial gain. It is this philosophy that keeps any fees low, provides genuine help to artists and art buyers, and builds trust and loyalty in the art community.
Yessy is able to ease many of the difficult tasks associated with selling art, freeing artists to focus on what they love to do, creating artwork. Artist's can display their art within minutes and make it available for purchase instantly. Yessy manages the commerce aspects and automatically transfers the funds directly to the artist when their art is purchased. Yessy artists also benefit as a group, promoting art on a greater scale than is possible by an individual artist.
The enjoyment of buying art is enhanced with fast-loading and clutter-free pages, logical browsing and searching, along with the ability to instantly purchase from a large variety of art and artists. The clean, simple, and functional design of Yessy allows the focus to remain on the artwork.
There are no hidden fees with Yessy. Yessy feels it is in everyone's best interests to communicate in a clear, straight-forward, and easily understandable manner. Yessy does not believe in popup advertising, spam, or other similar tactics, and will not advertise using such methods. Yessy is technologically advanced, but there are also good values to be learned from the past.
The name Yessy is a tribute to a fellow artist from Colombia, South America who will always be remembered for her integrity and inspiration.
There are several other places such as www.USFreeads or http://www.gallery-worldwide.com . I have sold some things on USFreeads but so far nothing on Gallery-worldwide. But neither cost me anything except my time. So the exposure is there.
How much time do you need to spend on your internet marketing?
I spend anywhere from 10 minutes a day to 5 or 6 hours a week. It just depends on what I am doing. In the beginning it took me a lot of time to set these up. Really no time to maintain unless something expires.
I find that I spend upwards of 10 to 30 minutes once I make a sale. It usually takes me about 10 minutes to process all the paperwork on the net and then in the event I have only one of these items that sell, and I have it listed in several places, then I have to remove it from the other places and that may take about 20 minutes. I also have to remember where I have put my art.
Then of course we have our own website and our own domain name. Why not have yours. I struggled for years with ISP and computer guys until I finally took the reins in hand and did it myself and found a great web hosting service call www.weblogger.com
Weblogger allows me to monitor or change my site from anywhere in the world including an internet café. They have great service. I used to pay about $90.00 a month for web hosting, My Weblogger cost is about $300.00 a year which is the biggest bang for the buck around as far as I am concerned.
So stop fooling around and go global. I live in a town of less than 2000 people. How many sales am I going to make without the internet? Not many.
But with the sites I mentioned, I find I truly live in a global village where there are buyers for my artwork.
"Tread the Earth Lightly" and in the meantime… may your day be filled with….Peace, light and love,
Arlene Wright-Correll
I grant "ONE-TIME" publishing rights
©Copyright www.learn-america.com All rights reserved.
About the author,
Arlene Wright-Correll is mother of 5 and the grandmother of 8. For almost 40 years she was an International real estate consultant and during the last 20 years of her career traveled to many parts of the world. She has been a cancer and stroke survivor since 1992. While working and raising her children she had many hobbies including being a very serious home-vintner for approximately 14 years while residing in upstate New York in St. Lawrence County producing 2,000 to 3,000 bottles of wine a year. She was the president of the St. Lawrence County chapter of the American Wine Society in Potsdam, NY. During that time she wrote a Home Vintner column for the Courier Freeman and the Canton Plain Dealer. In 1975 her hearty burgundy won first place at the annual American Wine Society meeting in Toledo, Ohio. This home vintner created many formulas or recipes for not only still wine, but sparkling wine and beer. She enjoyed the friendship and fellowship that was created by working with other home vintners during those years. She is an avid gardener, an artist, and a free lance writer of many topics including but not limited to her popular, "The ABC's of Making Wine and Beer©" by Arlene Wright-Correll This jam packed information CD includes 15 chapters on how to make your own wine and beer. Loads of tried and true recipes, easy instructions, equipment identifying photos.
Includes three bonus articles "How to Host a Wine Tasting Party", "How to Build an Underground Wine Cellar" and " Everything You Wanted to Know about Wine, but Were Afraid to Ask". This $19.95 value is on sale today for only $14.95 at http://www.cafepress.com/arlene_correll/1063470
She is the author of many books which can be seen at http://stores.lulu.com/kate1031
Email askarlene@scrtc.com
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