Ebay

Simone - if you do sell on another site : You order the print from here yourself - & FAA will ship it to the purchaser.

I've only sold originals on eBay. It never really occurred to me to try to sell FAA prints there. I, too, would be interested in knowing if anyone has tried it and what sort of success they've had.

Thanks so much for the responses. I don't think ebay is for me, too many cost involved to make it worthwhile. Thanks.simone

That's one reason I haven't tried it. You have to raise the price to cover eBay's fee, try to estimate FAA's shipping costs, then tack on some extra to cover eBay's fee on shipping costs (stinks that they do that), then yet more for PayPal's fees. Now your print is priced $20+ more than it appears directly on FAA. I'd imagine if a buyer noticed they paid more on eBay they wouldn't be happy. Your alternative is to eat the cost of the fees but, depending on your markup, that could be all your profit and more. If you just want to use it as a form of advertising and exposure it might be worth it in the long run, but it would be nice to hear from someone who's tried it to see if it would be effective. Considering the lack of response I'm guessing not a lot of people do this. A similar thread about selling this way through Etsy seems to be a lot more active, so perhaps Etsy's more effective than eBay for this.

When you sell you own images on eBay you are the publisher, you have to supply the product yourself. You need to establish a wholesale source to supply your buyers with that product.

I was on eBay before there was an eBay!! lol eBay got stated by buying out an online retail auction site called OnSale. I was a member of OnSale and bought and sold a lot of products including computers and prints. This was before there was an FAA or an Amazon. I was also a member of PayPal before it was bought by eBay. I was using PayPal within the first six or 8 moths that they opened their doors.

I have built four power stores on eBay over the years. I don't how to say it other then using plain words: I have made a ton of money on eBay selling prints. I make about 3 times the profit margin on eBay as I do on FAA. I sell both my own prints and prints that I buy as an authorized dealer for several publishers and artists.

You can not buy your own prints from FAA and resale them on eBay (or anywhere else for that matter), not at a fair price to your buyers. FAA is NOT a whole sale to the trade printer. They are a retailer to the public.

Every member of FAA that wants to sell their FAA images to a local buyer, through shows and galleries or any other form of direct sales, including eBay, needs to have a wholesale printing source. You may find one in you own town. But that is not necessary. I am in California and used a printer in Washington DC for years. I emailed him the file and he shipped directly to my buyer. After he retired I found a printer in Los Angeles, 300 miles from me, an another one in Denver that I have used.

I have posted this example several times. I sold three 22 x 28 stretched canvas to one buyer. If I had FAA process and fill the order the cost to me would have been $453.67, including shipping with, ZERO PROFIT. That is what just my cost would have been.

I bought all three and had them shipped by my own printer in Los Angeles for a total of $225. I sold them for $450. I made gross $225 profit. I paid 13% for all eBay fees (on the $450 selling price) giving me a net profit of $391.50.

So you chose which one is a better deal: ZERO profit using FAA or $391.50 profit using my own printer and selling through eBay.

There is no way you can buy your own prints and sell them on eBay.

Now that said, I am NOT saying leave FAA and open an eBay store. In fact, because I am phasing into full retirement I am phasing out my eBay stores and beefing up my FAA listings. What I am saying is there is a very distinct advantages of having a FAA and an eBay store. If I was not retiring and I 20 years younger I would beef up my eBay stores AND my FAA presence.

An eBay store will give you ten time more "visits" in one day then you are getting on FAA. Remember, most of your visits are bots on FAA. They are real humans, shopping for products on eBay.

Every product you sell on eBay you get the name, address, telephone number and email address. You can build a nice opt in email list from those sales and use that list to push your AW on FAA.

Every package you send out to your eBay buyer you can enclose a bounce back piece of what ever you want, including pushing your AW on FAA. I do that now.

You CAN NOT post links to you FAA account or even talk about it in your eBay account. But that does not matter.

But you can say, "this item may be available in larger size including stretched canvas giclees. Please contact seller for additional information". When the buyer contacts you FROM OUTSIDE eBay you can either direct them to your FAA account or sell them a product and have it produced by your own resources (your wholesale printer).

You will get direct telephone calls form some shoppers on eBay as well as direct emails. But if the email is not direct and is through eBay mail, you can not send them links and promote your FAA site. But that does not matter.

If you don't want to develop a wholesale printing source, you can sell 8.5 x 11, 11 x 17 and 13 x 19 by purchasing an inexpensive 13 x 19 inch printer and printing your own images and selling them only in those sizes. You can ask a little more for them by signing them. If I was looking to expand I would buy a printer and print my own pieces up to 24 x 36 or at least 16 x 20. There is huge mark-up on canvas giclees when you print them yourself. I have seen the 24 x 36 inch printer and it is a small enough footprint that it does not take up that much space.

You have to price your prints on eBay to include all of the costs including seller fees, insertion fees and PayPal fees. Even at that you should make a larger percentage of profit then you are currently getting on your smalls on FAA.

You probably do not want to get into framing. But you may want to offer them matted.

I offer some in 8 x 10 prints matted to fit an 11 x 14 frame and 9 x 12's (or 11 x 14s) that fit a 16 x 20 frame. I forget what those dimensions are off the top of my head but you need to figure out what you want to do for yourself.

You do not have to run auctions on eBay. But you are missing a great marketing opportunity if you don't. You do not have to discount your prints on eBay, but you are missing a great marketing opportunity if you don't.

You set your full retail price, not just the market you want.

If you want to go full hog, you can make arrangements services that will allow you to offer framed prints with hundreds of matting and framing choices. However I would not recommend that.

I recommend that you open an eBay store and use it to develop sales on FAA. I am not suggesting you go full bore. It is much easier to let FAA handle all of the framing, acrylics, metal plates and stretched canvas except on those occasional direct sales that you can handle easily yourself.

The old eBay that was pretty much all about selling garage sale items no longer exists. It is a whole different ballgame. 95% of the products are sold via the BIN: Buy It Now process, NOT auctions. Auctions will still give you a lot of exposure but they do not sell like they used to.

The last time there was an eBay thread, all sorts of people came in and trashed eBay. That's fine. But what was funny, the biggest critics admitted they had never had an eBay account and had no experience with it.

The bottom line is you can structure your eBay presence the way you want to. You can be the deep discounter or the high line gallery. You chose, not eBay.

The one I like is the guy that implies that eBayer sellers are so dumb they don't even know they are losing money!

Another ones says most sellers get ripped off all the time. I have never been ripped off on eBay. Never, not in all the years I have been a member. You simply do not ship the product until you have been paid.

Another one say that no one with any money buys anything on eBay. A good friend of mine (along with his brother and sister) inherited a vintage car collection of some of the most exotic cars ever built. Because he used to be in the car business, he was charged with selling the cars for the estate. He sold all of them on eBay. Millions and millions of dollars to dozens of buyers all over country and one buyer from the UK. He got top dollar and on some of the auctions he got more then he dreamed he would. Not one transaction had even a small problem. After all eBay fees and all other costs, he netted more for the estate then they ever dreamed they would.

I sell high end collector prints all the time. More so in years past because I have all but dismantled my stores. I used to have over 50,000 listings on 9 auction sites. I am down to under 10,000 now.

So yes, you can make money on eBay and you can use eBay to make more money on FAA and no, it is not too much hassle. It is a process to get stated, but it is not a hassle compared to the possible returns. The big thing is you have to have product to sell and you have to to get to 100 positive feedback as fast as possible.

The two important levels are 1000 listings and 100 positive feedbacks.

1000 is not as difficult as you think. Unlike FAA each size is a listing. So each image is three listing. If you offer them matted, that is that many more listings depending on how many sizes you decide to sell them in.

Now here is the kicker. I accomplished everything I did on eBay working only 3-5 hours a day 5 days a week on average. I can run an eBay store in the time that some people spend hanging around the threads. lol

So, yes you can make money on eBay, and no, it is not too much hassle. And there are not too many costs involved. Remember, you will make a much higher percentage on eBay then FAA. So costs are much lower on eBay.

This is not eBay or FAA. This is eBay and FAA. The combination can be killer!

Wow Floyd, What a wealth of great information you gave. Don't retire before completing your art sales learning curve book for us. I've bought many things on E-bay but haven't thought of using it to compliment my FAA account or build up my client base - good points.

Thanks for the information Floyd. I have considered ebay, although I've bought and sold camera gear there I had not tried selling any images.

I believe there is reason I am hearing you give this information at this time. I have read EBay is a good place to gain customers in the beginning with discounted images. I don't have prints from old masters like you Floyd or 10,000 pieces of art to select from. I guess the only way to find out is to try it.

What is your return policy? What is the advantage of gaining 1000 listings and 100 positive feedbacks?

Can you tell us what the other 8 auction sites are?

Thank you Floyd Snyder for all that information...one has to start somewhere and small, building it up with time...awesome of you to share !

You don't have to have ten thousand images. And you do not have to discount your art!

I have the make offer feature active on all of my listing. And I do run auctions. Only about 2% of the auctions I run are successful, meaning they close with a sale. I don't care if any of them end in a sale to be honest with you. I run actions because there is still a huge eBay following that like auctions. The see something they like at auction and the click on the listing. On that listing page there are several links to my eBay store.

A large percentage of my store listings have the Make Offer feature activated. But about 50% of the sales or higher are at the listed price. People do not want to hassle with the Make Offer process. The just hit the Buy It Now button and buy the item.

But whats the big deal? If you don't want to discount, don't discount. But I see people in FAA offering those One Time Promotions all the time, most at a discount. I also see FAA members posting coupons and discounts all the time.

I find it hard to believe that the vast majority of the artist on FAA would not accept a negotiated price on their prints if given the opportunity. I am sure some don't and would never think of it. But I believe most would.

The fact of the matter is most people, ALL people like a bargain. The idea that only eBay buyers and all eBay buyers will only buy at a deep discount is jut foolish.

One guy in that last eBay thread was trashing eBay users, calling the bottom feeders, cheapskates and all sorts of trash talk. I asked him how long he has been selling on eBay. He said he had never sold or bought a thing on eBay and never would. But he was an expert, and knew everthing there was to know about eBay. lol

You do have to get to 1000 listings but you can do that with a few hundred originals offered in different sizes, matted, or other way of selling them. You are not trying to duplicate what I did. You are trying to build an eBay business that arguments you FAA AW.

I tracked my sales from the fist listing I made on eBay to see what the progression was going to be. My first effort took the longest because I did not know what I was doing. I went to several eBay classes and learned a lot. But the people that taught me the most were not the instructors, it was the more experienced eBayers in the same class.

One of them told me of 100/1000 rule. I went back and applied that to what I was seeing and it was dead on.

Once I got to the 1000 listings number, sales picked up significantly. Now that is to say you are not going to sell anything until you get to 1000 I sold something almost every day once I got to a hundred or so listings. But at 1000 there was boost in sales. And obviously the more product you have the more you are going to sell. That is true on FAA as well or in selling widgets. Same thing applies.

The 100 Positive Feedbacks is critical. There is a mentality among a huge number of eBayers that until a seller has reached 100 positive feedbacks they will not buy from them. And there are sellers, believe it or not, that will not sell to people with less then 100 positive feedbacks.

I sold to everyone including first time buyers. The are a little more difficult to handle on occasion but nothing even close to problem that would make me not want to sell to them.

My guarantee policy has been the same for the 40 years I have been in business, long, long before computers let alone eBay. 100%, no questions asked, money back guarantee. I have been doing that all of my retail life and I am sooooo ahead of the game on returns. I never seen returns as a problem. I seen them as an opportunity to build client loyalty and trust.

I kicked butt in my custom framing department because no other frame shop in the area would guarantee custom framing. I would send out jobs that cost hundreds of dollars. If they came back and said the green just didn't match, I changed the mat or gave them their money back, their choice.

I still do that. No questions asked, full refund. I even return the shipping cost to the buyer when they send it back when I really don't have to according to the rules of eBay and the terms of the quarantine. They do have to return the item in good shape. But I have even given full refunds to people that didn't repackage a framed print and it arrive smashed to pieces. I always put myself in that buyers shoes. I have had companies try to avoid returns and tell me that is just tough luck that the item got broken and they could no honor the guarantee. I never wanted one of my buyers to feel that way about making purchase from me.

"terms of the quarantine."

Don't you just love spell check when you get in a hurry and just pick the top suggested replacement? The results are so funny... some times.

I was going to correct that but it is too funny. Not only that it gives the spelling cops something to do. lol

Wow! Thanks for the wealth of information, Floyd! I've been selling on ebay for years but "garage sales" items as you mentioned. I'm new here on FAA and will take a serious look at ebay as well as I build up my portfolio. Thanks again for sharing the wisdom you've gleaned by experience!

Wow, thanks so much for all the valuable information. Sincerely appreciated.

Simone

This was in my facebook time line this morning..I thought I would pass it along.

http://www.shopify.com/sell/paintings?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpm&utm_content=1-1DP&utm_campaign=paintings

I have no experience with them, perhaps someone on FAA does.

That looks like to me like they are selling storefronts. And they may be very good. But then you have to market and advertise it to get people to find it.

You already have a store front at FAA, your AW.

The beauty of eBay is they have millions of shoppers every day. Sure, you can increase you sales by advertising your eBay Store, but the eBay search combined with the Google search is going to get you most of your customers. That is why you should run some auctions. You will come up more often in the searches.

The eBay search is based on the titles. It is important that you get key words into those titles. Landscape, seascape, western, etc, etc. You should also name you images something that contains a search terms. Example: Pretty Yellow Rose. Okay but not so strong. Santa Barbara California Rose, much better. Lot of people searching on Google for Santa Barbara. Not so many for Pretty Yellow.

eBay also gives the members a choice to search the titles and the descriptions, so you can tell a story about your image and make sure you use search terms. I have never excelled at that on eBay. I went for quanity. When you are selling only your own images, you do not have 10,000 or 20,000 images so you have to do a good job in those descriptions to get you found more often. Not unlike FAA in that regard.

Incidentally if you are looking for more exposure for you FAA AW images, I have started two different groups aimed at helping us get our artwork in front of more people.

The first one is up and running and has 70 FAA members already. It is named FineArtAmerica

https://www.facebook.com/groups/521753177970410/

There is a thread here with more details http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=2001926

This group is for FAA members only.

If you do western art, I have another group that just stated, only has 15 or 16 members and it is limited to only western art.

The group is called Western Art Buyers & Sellers and the link is https://www.facebook.com/groups/1403150156590398/

The tread is located at: http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=2015864

I know for a fact that both groups are for sure reaching a lot of people. I have been sharing the images posted with several groups I belong to and I am getting all sorts of comments, likes and most important - Shares!

Read the example I posted in the Western Art Buyers & Sellers thread. I posted that image and with in a few minutes it was shared 3 times. That proves we can broaden our reach and get our images in front of more people way beyond FAA which is the goal.

@ Floyd - I didn't read all of the info you provided above since it's all so lengthy, but I do have a question and maybe I missed that you addressed it already?

My son is an ebay seller and just received a note/email from them staying he will now need to give them his SS# since he has sold over 200 items. The gov wants their cut and he'll be receiving a 1099 for 2014. It also stated that they are doing this with anyone who either has over 200 sales or has sold over $2,000 worth of merch. He is now over 200 and close to $2,000.

Do you know anything else about this?

--Donna Proctor

Only what I read in the paper about the IRS targeting eBay as a place were they feel there is huge "underground" economy taking place. They have targeted other on line places also. And to be honest with you, they are right. It is going on.

As I understand it, there is a level of income from selling even in swap meets and garage sales where the IRS thinks should be reported as taxable income. But they have not quite figured out how to reach those people.

With eBay, they can force eBay to force reporting onto their sellers. This and the sales tax on internet sale has been something eBay has been one of most aggressive at fighting against. I have contributed several thousand dollars to the fund that has been set up. eBay and some of the larger retailer are involved.

But we are talking about a tax starved government. They are only going to get worse and they will continue to go after every single penny they can as long as it is cost effective.

My accountant made me declare the fist penny I made online on my taxes. He said that it was one of the key triggers for IRS to spring an audit.

The sales tax things is going to put a lot of smaller business out of business on the Internet. They simple will not be able to track and send payment to the number of states they sell in. In my case that is all 50 states. eBay will have to write software for their sellers to do that for them unless they want to lose a lot of sellers. My accountant is already gearing up to do it for me. But at the same time he is also encouraging me to go into full retirement. lol