Post #196407 by wicked on Fri, Nov 4, 2005 8:01 AM

ugh selling art on ebay , what fun.
I have had some limited success on ebay for my art in general not TIKI specific. I've been selling art for about 4 years now on ebay. Right noe the art market b is pretty much in the toilet because of inflation & the economy et all.

Things I have learned about selling on ebay myself and from others that might be helpful.
Of course none of it might work for you, or you may think I’m full of crap LOL!

1. KEY WORDS you only get a limited # of characters so use your keywords carefully! DON’T clutter up your auction with words nobody is going to search like "look" that kinda thing. Research the type of art your doing and figure out the key words that will bring YOUR customers in.
   Here’s a link to ebay Pulse self-representing artist, it lists the top searched words in that category.
   http://pulse.ebay.com/Self-Representing-Artists_W0QQsacatZ20158

Now obviously your not going to use cat or horse or that kind of thing if it's not in your painting, but words like folk art & paintings might be useable. Also Putting NR meaning no reserve is sometimes useful, especially if you only have 2 characters left LOL.

2. DON’T use the subtitle it’s only searchable if the person is looking in both the title and description, so it’s really just another way for ebay to bilk you outta more cash.

3. Open a store If you don’t have one it’s free for the 1 st. month. It’s a good place to put HIGHER END pieces you are not willing to come down on, or for prints.

4. Create an email list. When you have multiple bidders make sure you email the loosing bidders and say something like:
   ”Thanks you for your interest in my art. I am sorry you did not win this piece. If you would like to be informed when I have more art avlaible please consider joining my email list ( insert url to you list, you can do a free one from bravenet or that kind of place).
   Thanks again for your bid and I wish you luck in the future.”

5. PIMP YOU ART!!! I know we all hate doing it, but how else will people know you have something to sell? Set up a blog or a live journal thing, hell set up 2 or 3, different people look at different things. Join “My Space” or somewhere like that, to communicate with other people, you can also send out bulletins when you have art available.
   You can also find artist boards to pimp your art on, and places where your art might be of interest. BE careful joining boards just to pimp art. That tends to be frowned on. ( you’ll notice I don’t pimp my art here, I don’t feel comfortable doing that.)

What else can I think of hmmm…. I know I’m being very long winded, sorry I really am trying to think of anything I , or artist friends of mine have found helpful

OH, feel free to join NIBBLEFEST on ebay, we have a “contest” on the 20th of every month. You list an item for .99 then the person who get the most unique bids wins. I know starting something .99 is scary as hell, I tend to do smaller pieces for this, and figure it’s part of my marketing. I always list other things around the same time at higher prices and have links to my other auctions in my Nibblefest auction. It’s advertising. That how I look at it

http://www.ebsqart.com/forum/Nibblefest_at_EBSQ_(public)/forumid_76/tt.htm

if anything I’ve said strikes a chord with you or you’d like to ask me a question PLEASE feel free to PM me. And like I said you can also just figure my advice sux ass and ignore any or all of it!

noelle