How To Sell Art On Etsy – Complete Guide

How To Sell Art On Etsy

Are you thinking about selling art online and do not know how to start? 

Have you thought about selling your art on Etsy? 

It is easy to sell art on Etsy, and best of all, it is very affordable.

I will go over everything you will need to know about selling artwork on Etsy in today’s post.

Etsy has become one of the largest marketplaces on the internet for artists to sell their artwork and handmade crafts.

Etsy for artists has built a large community of art collectors searching for one of a kind art that can not be found anywhere else.

Etsy has made it easy for artists to sell their art online with its user-friendly platform and low selling fees.

After you have your Etsy shop up and running you will want to focus on some basic marketing strategies to help you generate traffic to your listings.

Go through the steps below to build a solid foundation for your new online art business.

Sell Art On Etsy With High-Quality Images

I can not emphasize enough how important image quality is for selling your art online.

The people viewing your art online have nothing to go on except your images. They can not look at your art at different angles, hold it, or see the exquisite texture.

Make sure that the image is not grainy and represents the colors of the original accurately.

Investing in a good camera and photography tutorials will go a long way.
Practice taking photos with different lighting.

Digital cameras allow you to take hundreds of photos for free.
Discover what room and lighting work best for your art.

Many artists have done well by taking different shots of their art so the viewer can see the artwork from different angles.

Staging your art on a wall is another good idea.

Staging your paintings allows the viewer to see what the art will look like hanging on their wall or placed on a shelf.

Don’t settle for something that looks “ok.”

You take pride in your art, so make sure you take pride in the images you show online.

Best Cameras For Photography:

• Nikon D800 Digital SLR Camera Body (36.3 M/P)
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-G85
• Canon EOS Rebel SL2 DSLR Camera
• Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-RX100 V Digital Camera (20.1 M/P)

Related Posts:

• How to Photograph Art to Sell Online
• 7 Tips Photographing Artwork to Sell

Related Online Course:

Craft Photography Fundamentals by Candice Stringham

Selling Paintings On Etsy

What You Will Need:

An Etsy Store – Etsy stores are free to create, and listing fees are $0.20 per listing.

High-Quality Camera – visit Digital Camera Bundles. These bundles have everything you need for photographing your art, including lenses and tripods.

Photo editing software – PicMonkey is an online photo editing software that is easy to use. 

After you created your Etsy store you can start selling art on Etsy.

To Create an Etsy listing, login to your Etsy Store and click Crete Listing.

The first step is to upload a digital image of your art from your computer.

The recommended image size for listings is 2000px for the shortest side and a resolution of 72DPI.

Etsy allows you to have up to 10 images per listing.

Next, you will add the title of your painting. It is important to add keywords in the title description and the tags. More information about keywords will be explained in more detail later in this post.

Fill in the about this listing section:

• Who made it
• What is it
• When was it made

Add a category so shoppers can find your Etsy listing.

Decide if you want the listing to renew automatically or manually.

Type of product:

• Physical
• Digital

Description of the product

Next, add the price, quantity, SKU (optional), variations if any and if you all personalization.

The last step is to add the shipping information then click publish.

Space Your Postings

A new Etsy listing will be showcased at the top of the search results for a short period.

The more engagement an Etsy listing receives, the longer it will stay on top.

This little boost gives your products increased visibility, which will increase your business brand and might increase your sales.

Consider creating a posting schedule throughout the week and see what days and times work best for you.

You might find better results if you post an item once every three days rather than posting three things at one time.

Download the Create An Artist Brand Workbook by clicking on the image below.

This workbook will guide you through your branding orcess so you can seperate yourself from all of the other artists selling art online.

Brand Your Etsy Shop

In order for you to be discovered online, you must take the time to market and brand yourself.

Take some time thinking about the background colors, font style, logo, and policies you will have for your Etsy business.

Branding starts with being consistent with your listings so people will start to recognize your art when they are scrolling through Etsy. The images you upload should be consistent and the descriptions of your products should be similar.

Create a template for your art listings to save time when you are uploading new products.

The template you create will make it easy for you to stay consistent with each listing.

Related Posts:

Art Branding Basics Increase your Art Sales

How To Write Art Descriptions That Will Sell Your Art

Related Online Course:

Brand Your Creative Business by Megan Auman

Utilize Etsy’s Categories And Tags

Tags (keywords) are the words that shoppers use on Etsy to discover new products.

Using tags that best describe your product will help Etsy showcase your posts to people who will be interested in purchasing your creations.

Optimize Titles And Descriptions With Keywords

Keywords are the same thing as Etsy’s tags. Adding keywords that describe your art will make it easier for people to discover your products in search.

Related Posts:

How To Use Keywords Effectively In Etsy Descriptions

How To Optimize Your Etsy Listings With LSI Keywords

Related eBook: Get Your Keywords Together: How To Do Keyword Research With Only Free Tools

Create Etsy Categories

Categories make it easy for your shoppers to discover similar items that you offer instead of scrolling down a hundred listings.

There are a lot of Etsy painings for sale. Make it easy for your viewers to find what they are searching for.

For example, if you paint wildlife, landscapes, and domestic pets, create a category for each group.

The categories will make it a more pleasant shopping experience for your buyers.

To learn how to create categories (Etsy Shop Sections), visit How To Create And Manage Shop Sections.

Promote Your Etsy Listings On Your Art Blog

Your art blog will be your traffic generating machine. In time your blog will attract and drive your target audience to your Etsy listings.

When people land on your website, you can direct them to your Etsy shop or a particular sales page.

It takes some time to see blogging results, so it is important to start it once you open your shop.

When your blog starts to be ranked by search engines, you will notice traffic to your Etsy shop will increase.

The more people you can drive to your artwork, the better your chance will be to sell it.

Related Post:

• 5 Content Marketing Benefits for Artists
• 6 Blogging Benefits You Can’t Ignore

Related Online Courses:

• Build a Successful Creative Blog by April Bowles-Olin
• Blogging to Sell Your Products by Megan Auman

Grow Your Email List

Start building your email list from day one.

Gather emails from opt-in forms on your blog and social media accounts.

Ask everyone who has purchased if they would like to receive updates.

Send out weekly, bi-weekly or monthly newsletters to keep your following up to date with your new Etsy listings.

Your email list will be the biggest asset to your online business.

Related Posts:

• Ultimate Email Marketing Guide for Selling Art Online
• How to Build an Email List from Scratch Fast
• Best Places to Add an Email Opt-in on Your WordPress Blog

Related Online Course:

Simple Email Marketing for Makers by Megan Auman

Promote Your Art On Social Media

Social media has made it easy for marketers to share information about their products and services.

Decide on a couple of social media networks you would like to promote your Etsy listings.

Take the time to learn everything you can about the platform so you can build a large following.

Do not make the same mistakes many artists make. They feel that if they just upload an image, they will land a sale.

That is not how social media marketing works.

You need to produce valuable content your audience will be interested in and inspire them to want to learn more about the topic you are writing about.

Related Posts:

• How to Create a Social Media Marketing Plan – Sell Art Online
• How to Create a Social Media Marketing Calendar

Related Online Course:

• Selling On Social: A Complete Guide by Mei Pak

Study Other Artists

One of the best ways to learn is by watching others.

Take some time to research other artists on Etsy and see what they are doing to build their business.

After researching a few different Etsy artists, you will discover some common strategies they are using.

Take note of these and see if you can incorporate them into your strategy.

Do not try to invent the wheel. If a strategy is working, use it.

Another great feature Etsy offers is the Etsy Community.

You can join a team, browse the forums, or start a discussion.

It is easy to find the answer to any question you might have with the Etsy Community.

Build Your Reputation

Selling art is a customer service business.

You are providing products and services to people.

Take care of your customers, and they will take care of you.

Strive to provide excellent customer service.

Everyone who purchases from you will have nothing but good things to say about you and your Etsy Shop.

How To Make Money Selling On Etsy

Making money selling your art starts with knowing what the costs are for doing business.

You will create a profitable pricing strategy when you know how much it costs to create and sell your products.

Art Business Costs:

• Cost of supplies
• Cost of shipping supplies
• Cost of shipping
• Marketing costs
• Home business costs (internet, electricity, etc.)

Your selling price will be determined by how much it costs to create the product and how much profit you would like to earn for each piece.

For example, if it costs $15 to create your art and you would like to make $20, you would have to sell it for $35.

You will have to consider knowing what people are willing to spend on products that are similar to yours; this is known as market value.

Before you start listing your items for sale, you should take some time to research what other artists are charging for their paintings.

Search for artists who are selling art that is similar to yours.

Write down all of the prices you have gathered and price your art within that range.

You might not be able to sell your products at the price you are hoping for at first, but your art’s value will increase as you start to build your brand.

Related Posts:

• How to Price Art – Ultimate Art Pricing Guide
• How To Price Your Artwork
• When to Increase Art Selling Prices

How To Sell Prints On Etsy

Selling art prints on Etsy or digital downloads of your original paintings is an excellent way to supplement your income.

Esty makes it easy to sell giclee prints from print on demand sites like Printful.

You can easily integrate Printful on your Etsy shop, and when a buyer purchases a print, Printful will fulfill the order and ship the product directly to the buyer.

You can even print your prints at home and sell them on Etsy, just like you would with your original paintings.

What You Will Need To Sell Prints On Etsy

An Etsy Store – Etsy stores are free to create, and listing fees are $0.20 per listing.

High-Quality Camera – visit Digital Camera Bundles. These bundles have everything you need for photographing your art, including lenses and tripods.

Photo editing software – PicMonkey is an online photo editing software that is easy to use. 

Printer – or service to outsource the printing jobs. 

How To Make Art Prints For Etsy

There are a few ways you can create reproductions of your paintings to sell on Etsy.

The first way is to invest in a printer that would print high quality prints.

When an order comes in you would print the print at home and ship it to the buyer.

The costs of a good printer, ink and paper can add up and if you do not sell enough prints you might not make a profit.

To read more about printers visit 7 Best Printers For Printing Fine Art Prints.

The other option is to outsource the printing job.

If your art prints are in demand, you might want to consider having prints made at a local printing shop.

In most cases, you might get better deals if you purchase in bulk at local printing stores. The downside is if the prints do not sell, you will be losing money.

The best solution is to outsource your printing jobs with print-on-demand services.

Professional print-on-demand services like Printful offer high-quality giclee prints on different sized archival paper, frames, and prints on canvas.

To learn more visit, How To Sell Art Prints On Etsy With Printful.

Outsourcing the printing to professionals will free up your time so you can create more artwork.

Some artists are doing very well selling digital downloads of their artwork on Etsy as well.

All you have to do is create a digital download listing, and when a buyer purchases a digital download, Etsy will send them a link for the download.

To learn more visit, Selling Digital Art On Etsy Complete Guide.

Be Consistent

The last tip I would like to cover is staying consistent with the quality of your art and art marketing strategies.

Building an online presence will take some time, but if you are consistent with your efforts, you will speed up the process.

Keep in mind that everything you do today will reflect the growth of your business tomorrow.

Final Thoughts On How To Sell Art On Etsy

It takes more to sell art online than just publishing new art.

Your job starts after you have uploaded your images.

You will have to work every day on marketing your art for your business to grow.

The artists you see online selling art are the artists who learned how to market their art.

More How To Sell Art On Etsy Related Posts

• How To Sell Digital Downloads On Etsy
• Selling Digital Art On Etsy
• Where To Print Prints From Etsy
• Selling Art On Etsy: What You Need To Know