Wanelo - Pinterest For Products

LOL yes absolutely, my comment probably came across as more snotty than I intended, but browsing wanelo smacked me in the face with t-shirts, clothes, shoes, handbags and jewellery. Yawn. LOL I am not your average shopaholic woman;) But I have no problem selling my stuff to the massess on iphone case etc...and I do sell a fair bit of it liek that as I have a zazzle shop so will post some things from there as well.

Unfortuantely success as a creative is hinged almost entirely on business accumen. Finding the balance would be nice.

@Bartz Yeah, I think that's what smacks a lot of artists including myself (especially when I was younger) in the face. I think it's kinda difficult for most creative-types to reconcile the art side of things with naked capitalism. They feel that they are somehow sullying their work by marketing it to the masses. Now that I am older, I don't worry about that at all. I'm trying to make money doing something I love. For me, that's really about as good as you can do in this short life.

When I say 'materialistic',' as my first impression, I find that's because I was hit in the face with 'trending' and as discussed earlier in this thread, I am not the animal that creates those trends. But yes, we are also selling materials, no matter how artsy-fartsy we feel about the hard work we put into it. So our brain is trying to balance getting work there in buyers' eyes while comparing the relative value of a canvas print compared to a witty t-shirt or an iphone cover. I bring those up specifically because in my browsing I started to consider creating those products as well. I noticed at least one member from here who has their art on iphone covers and I can't say I'd be so proud that I couldn't see my pop art or minimalism being sold as a phone accessory. In fact, my ego might even make up the story that I have enriched the world in a mobile way. Or I can settle down and just be glad my work went somewhere.
On a grander scale, we are all just niche-sellers, whether it's "hot wheels" or pet portraitures or like me(and many others), wandering the fields of artistic expression until something sticks. In a very competitive field, we have to seek exposure while somehow keeping integrity in our art. I blogged today, on here, about my experience in my first week here and I don't even know who might read it or who it might help. The important thing, as an artist, is that we get ourselves expressed, in whatever form. Surely it is an ingredient to growth as a human and as a 'retailer of fine art.'

We claim to see the world in a different way and intend that that vision drive our work, but we must also endeavor to see the world in a way that works.

Re: getting your own store, I can see clearly now that we will be locked into 'artistswebsite.com' unless we have a storefront totally independent of FAA. I'm not gonna fuss over that since Lance's Lotus Print or Rebecca's landscapes may catch a buyer's eye and also lend me an opportunity at exposure.

Re: following other stores, if you browse enough, you'll find someone or someplace that actually has products that interest you. I have already dumped my initial follows in favor of things more appropriate to my tastes and uh...networking.

If my contribution to this discussion was helpful in any way, cool. But I know that I am also working these things out in my head and they just got spilled onto this thread.

Good luck atcha!

Actually, if you think about it, the whole "materialistic" thing makes it more appropriate for what we are all trying to do here. The biggest complaint I hear about Pinterest is that people can just grab your image and pin it on their wall and not give you any credit or links so your image is just out there and someone else is essentially getting credit for it. With Wanelo, it is specifically for selling and shopping for products on the internet. All you are posting is a link to your image on FAA with hashtags (in answer to your question, Michelle) and maybe a description on your comments and boom. You're done. There are several threads on this forum discussing how to get actual buyers to look at your work. Wanelo is specifically for buying and selling. If I have to follow a couple of people and brands to post my work in a place where there is a buying audience, I'm cool with that.

I'll try to follow also. Anything that will get our pictures out there is fine with me. Hope to catch up with you guys!

Wow you have to follow 3 stores? Don't know anyone that has art there. So what did you guys do? Thanks

I've just joined wanelo as well, agree with Bartz that the whole materialistic thing is a bit repulsive, but if its an effective marketing method I'll try it. LOL and at least I won't have to worry about getting addicted to it.

I will start following others when I figure out how to:)

In the meant time, how do you actually get a 'store' established?

And for the description - do you use hashtags for each keyword or just a written description?

Lance and Rebecca, I did sign up for wanelo and followed you both. I am actually a little repulsed by all the materialistic sales on there, but I intend to weed through that and follow artists such as yourselves, because, by the way, you got have some good stuff on there! :)

How long does it take for them to 'give' you a store?

Yeah, I'm soliciting a little bit, but I've barely been on FAA a week and I already know that I need to set the stylus down sometimes and market.

Now we know. In the past either site would work; maybe that's something new. I only share my work from the AW to try and keep track of the usefulness of those kind of sites since they show up as referrers on Google Analytics.

Woot! That did it! You have to post from your artist website for it to show your image.

:) You're welcome.

Hmmm... Okay.. Maybe I'll try posting from my artist website and see if I get a different result... Thanks again, Rebecca!

I only post images from my artist website, on Wanelo or Pinterest. On Wanelo, click "Post", and enter the url for your product. It pulls the product image from the page and gives you a window from which to choose a collection and write a description. Use a few descriptive hashtags in the description. Next add the price. I use the lowest print price. Enter the target section: women, men, kids, home. Save and you're done.

If you did that first part and got the generic icon, I don't have a reason why that would happen. I did it as I wrote the directions just now and had no issues.

The Wanelo post I added is here.

Hmm.. I attempted to post a url link to on of my pieces and all that shows up is the generic FAA icon.. There is an FAA feed on Wanelo with several images from FAA artists that are linked to their image on FAA so I know it's possible to do this.. Not sure what I'm doing wrong..

Thank you, Rebecca! I'm definitely gonna be exploring the world of Wanelo some more.

Definitely it should bring traffic to you. I've got an account and was fairly active for a while. Uploading your own products is welcome there. I lightened up on it when I started using Pinterest, which for me is just more interesting. It's not all early 20's (and younger) demographics; they're just the ones driving the trends on the front page.

Your paintings are super cool. They'll be all over them. :)

Like this one for sure:

Yeah, definitely an e-commerce driven site. I actually think this could be a good thing (fingers crossed, knock on wood)..

I've gotten some traffic from there. It's Pinterest for the juniors mostly (it seems)... If you check out what's trending, you'll see what I mean. It is definitely a product driven site.

Here's the trending link: Wanelo