Charts For Recent Sales And Top Performers For The Last Week

Thanks for sharing the data you collected! Wow, it was very interesting and helpful to read about it...

i'm not sure the - who sold what, is really any ones business though.

and again knowing how much a small print costs doesn't say anything. only the size that sold and its price. because the small price is not a reflection of the main.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Since I used to do market research for a living, I find this interesting although not really useful for any individual artist to "crack" the code of sales. Abstracts, maps, cityscapes, Public Domain patent art, graphic art movie posters all popular but does this mean it will be successful if you offer the same? Maybe or maybe not. You don't have any idea what marketing the artists are doing or the client base they have built. Let alone their style. Success breeds success and a unique, new style catches peoples attention.

There was a guy from Mexico a while back who put up 100s of horrible knock offs of movie posters thinking he was going to cash in and failed miserably because he forgot the most important ingredient - talent.

what i do wonder is - the people that sold the most - did they really? or were they counted more than once?

also knowing if 25% were paintings - would you start painting because you know that? i have no plans...

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Thanks for posting this. Great info. I suspected the artists that you listed were the top sellers. I also think each of them has their own style and niche. I didn't see any numbers for larger pictures sold. Like 24x36 or larger. I wonder how that plays into it. I usually sell 1 or 2 a month although last month I did not get one but had two lg ones sell in four days.i. Would guess the sweet spot is 1200 images to sell 4-5 large pieces a month.

Still great info. I wish we could see actual numbers from site instead of putting you thru all this analysis you did.

@Mike Savad
> what i do wonder is - the people that sold the most - did they really? or were they counted more than once?
Yes, they really did. For example, 38 sales on the first place: 32 different artworks was sold once and 3 artworks was sold twice to different buyers.

>also knowing if 25% were paintings - would you start painting because you know that? i have no plans...
I have created "art-by-type" chart in the first place to get answer on question: is FineArtAmerica good place to sell certain type of art? But results may be treated differently - all depends on how do you see a buyer and buying process.

i'd much rather know the average prices of the things they actually sold, not the smallest pieces. price ranges of say 30" and so on. in case my prices are too high. that's the only piece of info i can actually use.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Knowing what type of medium sells the best is a tool to determine which type of site is the best to offer ones works. If paintings sell the best and you offer photography then maybe this site isn't the best one to sell photographs on.

i suppose, but i do wonder how many were real paintings, and how many were digital paintings, either claimed to be real, or actually mentioning it was a digital painting. and if the algorithm caught that correctly.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I like stats. Fun to look at them. Here's what I discern: If you haven't been on the site for at least a couple of years, you better have a whole lot of images. Only one seller before 2014 and that one had over 1000 images. It is best if you were here before 2013 and have 1000's of images. Data tells me, keep producing work and don't give up.

Thanks for the good work!

I noticed something that could be considered a contradiction:

Most of the "top performers" sell digital art and the "Distribution Of Sold Art By Type" chart shows the percentage of digital art is only 10,27%.


Or it shows that there's hope for digital artists. :)

If you have no sales how do you know if what you are doing is working? I hear over and over it takes time, but what do you do with that time, and how do you know what you are doing is getting you any closer to a result? Or is it just too late for the newer members when there is now so much competition?

The data is interesting, but I'm not sure how helpful it is.

Yeah, I see Michael Tompsett on the sales page nearly every day. Mostly the sale is of one of his skylines with watercolor splatted on it. Beats me why they're so popular.

I'm surprised Dean Russo isn't on that list. I love his work. I see it sometimes in the catalogs I get in the mail.

only problem with being popular and one reason i hate lists like this is - copy cats. its not that hard to get an outline of the city and make a background like that. its a bit time consuming. and all you have to do is copy everything he did and you can sell like that too, and he would sell less. of course one would have to compromise their inner artist. but its not really just about having a few of them, you need a lot of them. he has a consistent theme he built up for years and at the time it was original. and that's usually how sales are made.

if we didn't have lists on the front page or forums, i think overall everyone would sell better because there wouldn't or couldn't be anyone taking ideas from each other.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

There's the rub right? Produce something that is easily copied and you end up competing on price. Unless you build up your name enough so people want something from the original artist. An uneducated buyer won't care.

Of course this top ten list ignores all of the other images that show up on the recent sales page. The pie grows every year, you just have to figure out how to grow your slice.

the other thing it doesn't mention is - what did they sell? was it a bunch of cheap cards? good size prints? how much profit did they make?

of course every sale helps you in the search, but i did look up some prices and they were less than mine. however the more places your in, the lower you can technically charge. its hard to say if the lower price got the sale or the art did.

so the things i want to see is - not the smallest price but the prices of the sizes of things bought (just look at the prints, that's the size i care about). like if 30 inch prints were sold, was the the average price of those? medium, artist, how long they've been here, how many pieces etc - doesn't matter at all to me. and the person with only a dozen paintings - seeing that you need a 1000 isn't all that inspiring. the price is what i'm trying to zero in on.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

The data is a snap shot in time. Anyone that would make any great changes in what they are doing based on it would be ill advised.

There is a lot of interesting data here but it would more interesting to see if it was over a much longer time period.

I am not too sure it is any big breach of privacy seeing as all of this data is available to be gleaned by anyone that wants to it. As far as actually publishing a list, I am not real big on it simply because it makes it easier for people to state taking pot shots and making judgmental calls as to who deserves to be there and who does not, which in my opinion is out of line. The all deserve to be there by virtue of the fact that they are there, they make the sales.

If people are looking to become copycats, they don't need this data at all. All they have to do is go to the recently sold list ad watch it for a few weeks.

"If you have no sales how do you know if what you are doing is working?"

I must not understand this question? If have no sales, what you are doing is obviously not working.


"I hear over and over it takes time,"


This is one of those ideas that has somehow become embedded in the culture of FAA and it about as wrong as it can get.

It does no take time, it takes impressions. If you are here for ten years and only ten people see your work how many sales would expect to get vs the guy that is here for ten days and ten million people see his work? How this idea that you have to be here for x amount of time to see is beyond me. I started selling right from the first week I was here.

Go watch the recently sold page and see how many "newbies" are making sales in just a few months, weeks or days of signing up.

No would argue that the longer you are here and the loner you "advertising" hangs around the net, the more likely you are going to sell. But the idea that you have to sit around for weeks, months or years to make sale is absurd. And of course the longer you are here them more images you should have so that too will boost sales.

But people need to not get caught up in this idea that you cannot sell unless you have been here for x amount of time. You fall into that trap and you are letting the system drive you sales and you are far less likely to do what YOU need to do drive your own sales.

Floyd, I don't have a giant client list to market to. You keep saying people can make sales from the first day but you never say exactly how that's possible. And don't say Facebook, there are many artists using Facebook with little or no results.

Let's test your theory, tell me exactly what I need to do to make a sale today and I'll do it.

"Yeah, I see Michael Tompsett on the sales page nearly every day. Mostly the sale is of one of his skylines with watercolor splatted on it. Beats me why they're so popular. "
All the top sellers sell paint splattered work. It must be the newest "gotta have it".

'm surprised the gentleman who sells religious paintings is nowhere to be seen on those graphs as his work is on the "recently sold" page daily and sometimes several times a day.

Cool. Another nice big canvas sale and it wasn't even a skyline.

I contend the market for non-skylines is even bigger than skylines.

.....
David K - expecting instant results is not the smart way to build a business. You need years of small steps to build up your online presence.

"David K - expecting instant results is not the smart way to build a business. You need years of small steps to build up your online presence."

I don't disagree, but Floyd does, I keep waiting for him to give specifics.

I personally like the idea but some artists may not want their information analyzed, but nothing wrong with knowing the markets and what is popular. Knowing the stats for popular sizes and formats is also handy as you can work around these sizes.

David,

I'll tell you how you make fast sells, produce something people want, and market it to those people (online isn't always where they are looking). Its that's simple, but simple isn't the same as easy. What takes years is figuring out what people want, who those people are, and where they are looking for what they want.

And there is no denying that building a name for yourself does matter. Its the only thing that explains how two people producing an image of the same thing, with similar technical and artistic ability can command totally different prices. There are plenty of people who collect art for status reasons alone. Which is why they have a Picasso on their wall, rather than a better piece of art from someone nobody ever heard of.

"Its that's simple, but simple isn't the same as easy."

And that's why no one really makes fast sales. It takes time to find that market for your art. I think that's the thing Floyd is missing. He comes to this with tons of experience selling art (and a long client list I'm sure). Those of us that are new to this business are going to stumble in the dark for a while until we find our way assuming we ever do.

"Listed below are 250 randomly selected prints which have been sold within the past 24 hours. Please note - this is a small sample of the total sales during that time period. "

Keep this in mind. I had three sales today (card, small print, large canvas) and only one of the appeared on the recently sold page when I checked.

..

ps - just sold a pillow. I don't know where these are coming from but keep 'em coming!

Hello All,

I am new to this and have not sold anything on FAA as of yet. This tells me the obvious. What I am doing is not working. It also opens the doors up to some assumptions. Is it not working because my artwork sucks or is it because my marketing sucks? I have plastered enough about FAA on my facebook page but no one is buying my prints. I have sold some originals through facebook and it seems I spend so much time studying about marketing and branding it is taking away from the time I have to actually create.

I have been testing the waters concerning POD but with so many different sites out there and each trying to get an annual membership from me and with me being the father of 5 children, my number one priority is to make sure I can put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads before I can shell out for annual memberships and a more professional online presence via blog, website, and other social media platforms.

I know I am sick and tired of just sitting here with my wheels spinning and not getting me anywhere. So far, the past three months have been a waste of time I can never get back and all this reading on market trends, analytics, insights, etc. is draining me of creativity and just down right making my head hurt and confusing the ever living tar right out of me.

Any help any one can give to at least point me in the right direction would be grateful.

Sincerely,
Kilian Nance

thing is about social marketing is - you have to have a lot of people to send these too. facebook almost always has friends and family, and hardly any buyers. they grow gradually but you have to be social on the site to be seen.

being seen - i would replace the avatar with a less blurry version of your face, and lose the baby. the first thing i think of is - you have snap shots of the family, and i'd pass your store right on by.

art isn't a place to get food for the table. especially if you have to many kids. art is a hobby for the most part, and maybe some spending cash. a real job is what you want.

having only 25 images of totally random things won't get you far. without getting into details or a critique (wrong thread for that), your work largely looks like phone doodles. while some of its is good, most of it looks incomplete in comparison. but nothing i would hang on a wall. it doesn't look finished or polished. some of the work has no descriptions or tags. many aren't adjusted to fit on the product, heads are cut off for example.

many don't have enough tags. some have poor crops.

many are mislabled in the wrong category - such as the sketches. one of them is a copyright issue ie garfield.

a total of 430 views since june shows me your not pushing your work hard enough

forget about analyzing things, just make things. make things in a consistent style and manor. things you would buy if you saw it in another store. you'll have to invest the $30 to upload more. spend more time describing things.

art is not as easy as people make it out to be. making the occasional thing and expecting it to sell just like that, just doesn't happen. the people that really make the sales made a product many people enjoy. they've been doing it for years and have the style and methods down pat. the rest is advertising and marketing. if your just starting out in art and expect to sell just like that, it usually doesn't work like that. it takes years to build a following. for now concentrate on polishing your craft.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Show me another business that has a $30 barrier to entry. Ok well, yes, making a cardboard sign and begging is cheaper.

Buyers don't care about your needs or family situation. They care about showing off your art in their living room or office.

"Let's test your theory, tell me exactly what I need to do to make a sale today and I'll do it.'

Well David, that may be part of your problem. You want some kind of guarantee, or just instant success with out properly preparing your self for that success.

Go to school, get some sort of foundation and basic skills in running a business, advertising, selling and then go read all of the blogs on my profile and there is your answer.

And no where David, did I ever say there was such things as instant sales.

I have said there are people here that have sold here the first few weeks, maybe even days of joining. And they have.

"Its that's simple, but simple isn't the same as easy."

Yup, and how simple it is, is directly related to how well you prepare yourself to get the job done that needs doing and how hard you apply what you learned.

Well Floyd, you did not disappoint, that is exactly the kind of response I was expecting. Make sure in the future when you claim that there's no reason somebody can't sell right from the start that you include that statement as a qualifier. I wasn't looking for some kind of guarantee, I was trying to get you clarify that statement you keep making (your blogs don't) and in a way you did. I have to wonder, exactly how many people that sell regularly on FAA went to sales school, I'm betting that number is just about zero.

"And no where David, did I ever say there was such things as instant sales. "

You make this statement all the time Floyd "I see no reason why someone can't start selling right from the start". and you always say it in response to people that say it takes time.

Anyway, you can have the last word, I'm done with this conversation.

i can't imagine in my life of ever wanting to go to a sales school, or would even know where one was. its also doubtful that they would go into selling art, managing art and so on. selling art is a lot different than selling soda or any other product. because its not just about getting people to your store. they should want to go there. so you have to build brand name recognition first, or customer loyalty. you can only get loyalty if you've been in business for a long time, in which its totally unfair to tell others that's what we need.

and brand name takes a long time to get your own name brand out there. and its either very expensive, or very time consuming. some work will sell on its own. but its very hard to do that. the salesmen that sell stuff are used to selling things that already have a name. selling something no one has ever heard of before - that takes a good salesmen. having items that people have heard - all you need is money and resources to advertise out.

the artist has to get their name out - and that's the hardest thing to do.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

" I have to wonder, exactly how many people that sell regularly on FAA went to sales school, I'm betting that number is just about zero."

And why would that be important? How they gained the knowledge is meaningless. Maybe they have an agency, a selling partner in the way of a significant other. Or maybe they are just lucky. What does that have to do with you or me?

What other people are doing seems to be the big crutch around here. There is a whole thread going on that right now. What other people do means nothing to what you or I or any other individual is doing unless they are going to share.

I gained most of what learned about selling from actually selling on a commissioned only job. And I mean commission only. There were no minimum wage guarantee. You sold or you did not eat. Period.

I wanted to get better so I went to school. I didn't care if anyone else on the sales staff went to school or not.

People keep waiting or looking for someone to give them the magic secret or the big key to selling on FAA as if it would only apply to FAA. That is nonsense.

You want the big key to selling? Here it is. Stop looking for anyone to post it here and go out and get the education you need to do it for yourself.

I have never said go do what I do. I have said this is what I do, now go get yourself to the basic knowledge that will allow you to figure out what will work for you.

"the artist has to get their name out - and that's the hardest thing to do. '

Yup, it is the hardest thing to do. And that is exactly why they need to have a as much EDUCATION as possible on the how to get their name out there.

@Mike Savad

>>> i'd much rather know the average prices of the things they actually sold, not the smallest pieces. price ranges of say 30" and so on.

I will be posting tonight few charts that will contain the following information:
* Artists' markup for different sizes of recently sold art (for all type of mediums)
* Artists' markup for different sizes of recently sold art (for digital art)
* Artists' markup for different sizes of recently sold art (for drawings)
* Artists' markup for different sizes of recently sold art (for paintings)
* Artists' markup for different sizes of recently sold art (for photo)

Stay tuned :-)

Looking forward to making the top ten someday.

One of the microstocks sites I'm on loves stats. They give you a "database exposure" index, "portfolio" exposure and sales per image,

The stat I'd like to see is overall sales over time. Be nice to know the raises and falls of sales on the site. It would certainly help to understand why some days sales come fast and furious and other days nothin'.

How about creating an index based on the top ten performers? Combine the top ten and track their performance as a group over time. It would give us a comparison. In theory if the top sellers are having a good week, we should also.

I'm not sure more and more details are a good idea so am going to ask further up.

Before posting announced charts, I will check with FAA if it does not violate TOS.

i think if the info was totally anonymous, and you just got the basic stats you just mentioned, i think that should be ok. i wouldn't name names, keep that stuff private.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

@Mike

Charts are totally anonymous. I have sent a message to support anyway.

the charts are, just not that other list you made.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I'm interested to see - I'm pretty sure the info that will be displayed is public knowledge for anyone willing to put in the time.

Konstantin, I think you asked for feedback on the accuracy of your numbers from your last chart. I had 23 sales in that time period, not 13. Thanks for your effort! I will stay tuned.

Thank you for sharing, for I just made an account yesterday on this site, so this was very informative.

As Design Turnpike has pointed out, the recently sold page isn't "everything sold". It is a sampling.

I'm assuming that the data is being extracted from this page:

http://fineartamerica.com/recentprintsales.html

That page contains a random sampling of recent sales. A few comments about that page.

1. It's totally random.
2. It only shows a certain number of sales per artist.
3. It only shows certain types of products.
4. Some artists have requested to not have their sales shown on that page.

I'm not sure how much useful data you can extract from that page, as a result... but I'm also not a data scientist.

Sean

This is very curious, the first four top sellers have almost the exact same style.

So the stats cannot be that accurate, although they do give just enough detail for people to continue asking the same old questions... :-)

- Richard Reeve
ReevePhotos.com

I sometimes wonder where and how my sales originate?

Where do they come from, ....I do virtually no marketing online but still have a slow dribble of buyers.

I'm not on any social networking networks other than here on FAA.

I do though,....do this,....

I have put my FAA site web address and a brief comment on my portfolio images theme,.....on the bottom as a signature and it goes out to each and every one of my email recipients.

Now whoever I email all year,...automatically gets an invitation to go to my personal FAA webpage. (my marketing)
Seems to draw a nice response even from those I am not marketing to.
Has resulted in several sales.

It's a lazy way to promote myself I know.

Now once in awhile I will purposely send "non marketing" emails to selected organizations or businesses recipients,...(that I know will be interested in promoting myself into their face),,,...concerning a totally fabricated rhetoric type inquires ,...and see,...... if "" maybe"" their curiosity draws them to read my email signature and go view my portfolio.

My effort at exploring human nature.

Always interesting the comments that result from those who like and want to share my webpage.

Just my lazy curiosity kind of marketing.

Marty Saccone

Marty, I absolutely love your "marketing" technique! I'm all for lazy, lol. Thanks for sharing. It is perfect for me. I'm loathe to put anything on FB, and I don't do other social media. I'm also going to steer people to FAA as my primary website. It simply looks better. (I dislike the price box below the images on artistwebsites, beause it looks tacky. The layout on FAA is much more pleasing.)

Sean confirmed what I suggested before - the underlining data is a random sample. Survey results are only as good as the random sample they are based on.

Still the best data would be an index made from a sample of top sellers. It would be anonymous and would give a general indication of retail patterns. Then again, we already know that sales go up around the holidays and dip when people are on vacation or have to pay their taxes.

Data scientist? That would be a Statistician.

Off topic a bit, but data scientists are experts in extracting data from myriad data sources. Statisticians are experts at interpreting said data.

That being said, Sean has already detailed that the data source is incomplete so we can only get a partial extract for analysis. I doubt full data would be available as that could be mined by competitors for the site and would put the whole operation in jeopardy. It was a very clever move on Sean's part to only provide a randomized subset of sales.

- Richard Reeve
ReevePhotos.com

There is actually tons of sales info on this site if you hunt around. It's very easy to see what any individual artist has sold recently without going to the recent print sales page. You may not be able to see sizes and formats but volume and types of images sold are readily available. Personally, the only time I look up stuff like that is if I'm in a slump and I want to make sure others are in a slump too so I feel better.

Thanks Richard - I stand corrected. Learn something every day.

I still think it is a total waste of time to worry as much as some do about what other people are selling.

Who cares!? Unless of course they are going to share with you.

Are you going to all of a sudden change what what you do to follow the person that becomes the next big seller?

Interesting data, thank you for publishing, Konstantin.
Random sampling is quite all right for stats IMHO.