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Creating An Online Market For Your Art
by Fiona R Ogilvie
http://www.froart.com

Imagine a marketplace that has no boundaries or limits, one
that doesn't require you to cart canvases and sculptures to
showings in other towns. Imagine a gallery with hundreds of
thousands of visitors a month, where you can arrange and
rearrange your art endlessly on the walls. Imagine an
enormous fair with no table fees, a venue where you only pay
if your artwork sells. Imagine the largest sidewalk art sale
in the world, open 24/7, 365 days a year - with no worries
about the weather.

Sell Your Art At General Auction I realized just how popular
eBay auctions have grown the other day when I overheard my
daughter tell a friend, 'Oh, I'll just eBay it'. The name
has become synonymous with online auctions, but there are
dozens of similar sites where you can sell your art. You
simply set up each piece as a separate item for auction, and
post them to the system.

The most popular auction site on the internet is eBay. You
can sell just about anything on eBay, with a few exceptions
that are against their terms of service. In order to sell
your art on eBay, you'll need to sign up for a merchant
account on the site.

You can post each of your works of art for sale separatelya
and accept bids on them. You can also choose to set a flat
"Buy It Now' price for each piece of art you're selling, and
bypass the auction. Accepting payments is easy. eBay is
affiliated with PayPal, the original pay by email service.
It allows you to accept credit card and EFT payments without
a commercial merchants' account.

eBay offers the convenience of a large audience, ease of
payment, and present templates that make it easy for you to
post scans of your work to attract customers. Of course, the
very thing that makes it an attractive marketplace also make
it an easy place for your art to get lost in the shuffle.

Artist's Gallery Sites Very similar to auction sites, except
the focus is on original art. A gallery site may charge
commission on any pieces that you sell, or may charge a
subscription fee to allow you to post your artwork on their
site. The gallery software will let people view your entire
collection of art, or just one piece at a time, as well as
letting them bid on a piece of work, or contact you to buy
it outright. Most let you set up a gallery free, but offer
special promotion for paying members.

They provide: A market focused on artwork, a payment method
and escrow service, contact and exposure to other artists.

A third popular choice for selling your work online is your
own web site. When you choose to build your own web site,
you have total creative control over the look, feel and
behavior of your site. You can choose how to display your
art, what sort of payments you'll accept, and how often
you'll update your offerings.

The biggest disadvantage to building your own web site is
that you're on your own. You'll need a merchants' account,
though you can start off accepting payments through email
with a PayPal account. You'll also need to design and build
for yourself. By the same token, you won't owe anyone a
commission on any of your art that sells.

They provide: Your web site host may offer access to a
payment method, scripts and tools for building your web
site, gallery software to help you get your artwork online
quickly and attractively, statistics and counters.

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