It’s time to clean out my studio, and offer paintings at a discount for you holiday shoppers! November is apparently the largest retail month, so I’m going to join in with an online-only, unframed studio sale.
Starting November 1st, I will have web pages set up for this sale that will allow you to select a painting, pay online (using PayPal’s site) and enter your shipping address/information.
I am also going to experiment with online advertising, buying targeted ads on Facebook. (“Facebook Flyers”) For those of you that sell your art (probably the majority of my readers), I will let you know how that works out. If you have any online sales/advertising tips, please chime in with comments. I have noticed a wide variety of sales approaches by other artists, from eBay to specialized art sales sites. What works for you?
I am going for volume here, so these unframed prices are big discounts (hope this doesn’t hurt me later!):
$100 – 6×8
$150 – 8×10
$175 – 9×12
$250 – 11×14
$275 – 12×16
$500 – 16×20
Ed,
You are so exactly echoing my thoughts for cleaning up the studio! I had a sale maybe 3 or 4 years ago — but framed — and by invitation only to my family, friends and patrons. I have been asked about when I would do this again — and usually respond that an artist cannot have a sale very often, otherwise people start waiting for the sale. Thank you for the idea of on-line and unframed. My husband and I had been talking about many pieces that have not found their owner, what to do with them (usually I donate pieces to charitable auctions). I had said I’ll take them out of the frames so I can make use of the frames! I had planned to just cover them and stack the paintings (most of which are pastel – which are easy to store). So, again thanks. I’ll be checking back to see how you fare with this and what resources you use. Hope you don’t mind!
Hi Marsha, all good points, so true. I am concerned about the low price point, and setting those expectations since my gallery prices are 5x these. Then agan, this is a sale! i think I may open this up to my blog audience first–which are almost all artists themselves–and only expand to my regular buyers if necessary.
like I said, either way I will blog about it as other artists may benefit.
Hi Ed. I’ll be very interested to see how this works for you. I’m trying a few new things as well- but an on line sale sounds like a great idea. I share your concerns about the price point but I do thing selling unframed and to a different audience makes that ok- and as you said- its a sale! Look forward to hearing about how it goes.
Ed: Where can I find your Virtual Open Studio Sale?
David in Dallas.
@David: Thanks for your interest! I’m working on the sale pages as I write this. I will announce the URL on this blog by tomorrow.