Selling Online | Part One: The Mystery of Internet Ups & Downs

To start this new series, I thought I'd write a blog about something I've been noticing for a while now, because it would be interesting to hear your views and experiences on the subject too. I'm also hoping that it might contain some useful information for those of you who are thinking of setting up a business online.

I've been selling my work on the internet since 2005 and during that time I've noticed one thing: it's never stable and never stays the same for any length of time. It always seems to be 'feast or famine' where sales, views of the website, new customers, and illustration or painting commissions are concerned. This applies to sales outside of the internet too, but not as much as it seems to online. Personally, I'm lucky because I don't just sell my work on the internet and so I'm not relying on it totally for my income; I was selling at galleries and taking on commissions in the 'real world' long before I decided to sell online.

I also have income from many different sources:

* Galleries

* Commercial illustration work

* Painting commissions

* Royalty payments from the licensing of my images

* Online sales in the shop or from work found via my website

Selling and licensing my work in a variety of ways means that if one area is a little quiet for a while, I find that I'm still receiving an income from another area, so it keeps things ticking along nicely. Can you imagine if I chose only one way of selling my work? If that particular source of income dried up for a while or if there was a quiet period, I'd be in real trouble financially!

Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was the irregularity of exposure (by which I mean new people finding, following or buying your work) and selling on the internet. Take my Etsy shop for example: the month of May 2010 was (I believe) my best month ever for sales on there, and yet as soon as June came along I sold nothing. Not a single thing. Until today, when I sold one of the larger original illustrations! But Etsy has always been like that for me from the very beginning: I'll have a flurry of sales or a really good couple of weeks and then.......silence. You can almost see the tumbleweeds blowing across the screen. Then - as suddenly as it stopped - it starts up again with a new flurry of sales.

And that's the part I just don't get. WHY? I've tried to work out whether I'm busier at certain times of the month or year. I don't think so. I don't think there's really a pattern. Is it because I've been featured somewhere, for example, on a popular blog or art website? Sometimes that can help, but these little 'flurries' of several sales often seem to come from nowhere and for no reason.

I would have thought that it's far more likely that I would have one or two sales every day or every couple of days, in a very 'regular' way. But no matter how established/well-known I have become, it's always 'all or nothing'. Of course, this isn't necessarily a bad thing - the days or weeks where I'm selling lots of pieces manage to tide me over during the times where I'm selling nothing. The total volume of sales over the course of a year isn't a problem (although of course there's always room for improvement and I wouldn't say no to more sales; never resting on your laurels is part of the fun of running your own business!), but it's just perplexing as to why it's like this! I'd be interested to know if any of you experience the same thing, or whether you find that your business is much more 'regular' in terms of sales.

As I mentioned at the beginning, it's the same with website views, new people finding my work, and even the type of pieces that are selling or where those sales are coming from. We'll talk more about that - and the venues I've found to be most successful - in the next part of the series.

Comments

[Abi]

This is interesting - every artist & designer I have ever spoken to have said they either have nothing, or lots at once, both commissions and sales...

But interesting that this is more evident online; I wonder if there's any technical reasons behind it?

[steve mehallo]

nn,

I'm in the same boat. I have fonts available and they sell in unexplained splurts. My product line - especially my 'font me' mug - also: unpredictable splurts.

I've noticed write ups on other blogs affect sales; but otherwise, not predictable at all. Really hard to target one's business when it's like this. Who do I go after, what will sell? It's sink or swim - but it does add up over a long period of time.

I've noticed that a quality, usable product - on my end - sells better than an impulse buy. But that's about it.

Throw in that people these days are being far more selective about their purchases (who knows where the economy is going) will affect how much one's product - for example, your art - will sync with what one wants to own ... personally.

And there's no way you can get in people's heads to see what they may be thinking of buying.

You just have to do your best work - which is what you always do. And hope your 'taste' syncs with the buying tastes of others.

That's my take.

[Gen Woodford]

Hi Natasha

I've only been selling my work for the last couple of months. I tried a week on ebay - zilch, then I switched to Etsy... and Voila!
I seem to be averaging 1 to 2 sales per week. I've had 13 sales to date and I'm pretty pleased because I thought it would be alot slower than that. I'm too new to have noticed any slumps, it's been fairly steady. All my customers bar one have been from the USA, and the one that wasn't was from Dublin. I do have something listed on Folksy but there's been no response there at all. I have caught alot of attention by using twitter and meeting up with interior designers and other artists on there and also letting them know when I've listed something. I'm afraid that's as much info as I can give you with such limited experience!! Hope this helps!!

Gen

[Tim]

Very interesting, but only have time for a glance right now. I am marking it and coming back. Thanks for this.

[Jordans 3]

The blog article very surprised to me! Your writing is good. In this I learned a lot! Thank you

[Lupin]

This rings so true for me! My year has a "busy season" and a "quiet season" but within that the ups and downs are a total mystery to me!

The selling format on sites like Etsy can sometimes create a mini "snowball" effect I think, where you sell a few things and relist them and people see the items you've relisted and buy stuff so you relist those things (though this effect is much less noticable on Etsy now it's so huge). But I often have the same sudden flurries on my website, or a sudden influx of custom order requests.

I've also had a very large number of occasions on which a not especially popular item from my shop will suddenly sell in 2 or 3 of my venues at once (sometimes even within hours of each other) to totally different customers.

It happens in real life too not just online. I used to work in a gift shop and though you could predict roughly what the week or month's takings should be based on the time of year within that the ups and downs were amazing, and you'd get the same sudden rush of people buying a product that had been sitting on the shelves for months.

[Kate Townley Smith]

There must be something that floats around in the air compelling people to all need the same thing at once. I'm and artist and calligrapher, and this year, my typical "busy season" wasn't busy, but I've had four big projects turn up for summer within days. And summer is usually my slow time. I'm looking forward to your series!

[Tim]

This is very interesting— thank you Natasha for a beautifully written, well thought out piece. I have some thoughts on the subject.

I started selling online about ten years ago, strictly on eBay. For those who were not doing this at the time, you missed what in my experience was the wildest, easiest, most profitable selling experience on the web. I had no web experience, no HTML skills, no marketing skills, and yet I could put anything on there at any price, get hundreds of views, many, many bids, and almost always get a price exceeding my hopes. It was great!

After quite a few years of this, on-line art friends much more knowledgeable about marketing / internet than me started murmuring about the demise of eBay. I thought they were crazy! But these were people I really respected, and so I listened just enough to start exploring other selling options, and to start learning about website design and marketing. Am I ever glad I did that!

Ebay died faster than I ever would have thought possible. The last time I tried it, I was getting somewhere around 20 hits for a week (as opposed to the good ol' days of up to 400!). Dead.

There are several points to all this. First, back in those days it was easy and consistant all year round. Now it is much more challenging, there are those ebbs and flows Natasha writes of, you do need marketing and web skills now. Second, I am recently thinking this is actually a good thing. It's more interesting. It's more fun. And the ebbs for an artist can be a time to breath a little, to think of new designs, to build up some stock for the next flow.

One other important point. The longer one does this, the larger your customer base. And for me, many of those come back. So the ebbs decrease, since those people buy for birthdays, or because they have a bit of extra money, etc., This is the primary reason I am thinking Facebook may prove to be important: it is the one site that allows you to keep in touch with people, without setting up something like a mailing list opt-in. I recently invited all my old customers to join my page, many did, and many wrote saying they had lost track of me (and some bought immediately). Once they sign up as a fan, they will be far less likely to loose track or forget you.

Most important thing I have learned: It's true, you should never put all your eggs in one basket.

Anyway, this rambled on, but I hope it is interesting. My work is quite seasonal in nature; but the longer I work online selling it, the less I note a seasonal effect.

[Niki Jackson]

Thanks Natasha for sharing this. Wow it was a great comfort for me actually because I've been experiencing a low lately compared to a big high early in the year. Now I feel much better about it and this has given me more confidence to keep going.

Thank you!

[oddgirl]

Thank you for the benefit of your experience. I am brand new at selling my art both on and off -line. I have so much to learn!

[Stacey-Ann]

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Natasha. I find it hard to deal with the down times sometimes but after reading your post I realise that many income streams is important if you really want to make a go of a proper art business. You've inspired me!

I look forward to the rest of your series.

Take care

[cathie Joy]

Nice article Natty.It's been slow as molasses for me lately so I am due for a surge :)

[Suzy Taylor]

Hi Natasha

Thanks so much for being so generous in sharing your tips. I'm in the process of seriously trying to raise my profile and get my stuff out there and was just wondering how you went about getting some of your images licensed. Did you approach people directly or did they contact you?

All the best

Suzy

[Natasha Newton]

Hi Suzy,

I hope that this series of articles will help to give you some ideas as to how you can raise your profile - I'll be talking a little bit about that in Part 3 with regard to Etsy and selling online generally.

As for licensing my images - so far people have always approached me, but I think the key to getting noticed for this type of thing is just to have your work 'out there' in as many places as possible, both online and in the 'real world'. First and foremost, make sure you have a good, professional website or blog that you update regularly with your best work. For your website in particular, be ruthless and cull any pieces you don't feel are as strong as the others.

I always feel that less is more, and it's better to have a website with fewer pieces of strong work - I know that I'm always put off websites that just have too much on them. Imagine if you're a busy Creative Director looking through an artist's work for images with a view to licensing - I would think you're much more likely to be attracted to a site where 20 or 30 really great images are displayed rather than one where you have to trawl through 100 or more!

Hope that helps a little. :)

Natasha

[Diane Marsland]

I know that you posted this last year but I have only recently been blogging and soon to sell online. I have an Etsy shop... a few days old. I find the whole thing daunting and realise that I have to do all the other stuff as well. It seems so much more difficult to make a living these days compared to the days when I worked in an Independent design studio. Not only do I need the creative skills but I need marketing, computer and everything else.....