Selling prints on eBay, is it worth it?

IconicPhotosUK · Feb 8, 2013

Hi

Is it worth selling prints on ebay or has the boat left when it comes to that market? Interested to know if people have success doing it.

Oly

mishele · Feb 8, 2013

Try searching the sell history of photography or even art on e-bay. Very little sells on e-bay and if it does, it's crazy cheap and I mean for like a $1.00. If you're looking to sell try a site like Etsy. I know people that sell all kinds of art type things on there and they do ok. I also know people that shop on the site. Good luck
Oh and welcome to the forum.

IconicPhotosUK · Feb 8, 2013

mishele said:
Try searching the sell history of photography or even art on e-bay. Very little sells on e-bay and if it does, it's crazy cheap and I mean for like a $1.00. If you're looking to sell try a site like Etsy. I know people that sell all kinds of art type things on there and they do ok. I also know people that shop on the site. Good luck
Oh and welcome to the forum.

Thanks for the welcome. I noticed Etsy last week but to be honest before that I might have only heard about it a couple of times. Is it a fairly new site or has it been around for a while?

imagemaker46 · Feb 8, 2013

All depends on what you are selling. I made a lot of money off ebay years ago selling photos I had shot. What I was selling wasn't being sold by anyone else, so there was a good market. I have tried to sell photos on and off over the past few months, usually adding my web address in the description, the photos didn't sell, but it was a free from of advertising my site to people that were looking.

mishele · Feb 8, 2013

What are you trying to sell? Fine Art?

imagemaker46 · Feb 8, 2013

Looking at the Op's website I would say that it's along the lines of fine art.

IconicPhotosUK · Feb 9, 2013

Hi, It is basically wall décor for home and offices.

Ilovemycam · Feb 9, 2013

A lady photog sells lots of silver gelatin and inkjet prints in the $26 per print range on ebay. I bought 4 of her prints myself. They were a bargain and I don't even collect prints. She sells lots of them. She has museum quality stuff - a few anyway. But her stuff is not 'fine art' pretty. Neither is my stuff. I have museum quality work, decent tech quality, it is just not pretty subject matter.

Another guy gets $40 a print for nudes. His stuff is not museum quality in my opinion. But people like nudes.

For well known photogs, they can get $400 to $800 or more per print. Just track the auctions to see how they do.

I will be selling prints on ebay in a year or so. First have to come out with a book. Then increase my museum presence. (I'm in 4 museums, but shooting for 35 in the US and a few in Europe and Asia. If my stuff sells fine, if not, don't care. I get 100 free ebay auctions a month, so it is free advertising for me if I want. I am working on many avenues of preservation for my work and not putting too much hope on ebay anyway. Ebay sales would just pay for a little ink and paper. I'll probably list editioned prints for $125 to $250 a print. And non editioned prints for $85 to $125... I haven't decided.

I am also working on a spiral bound hand printed limited edition book for about $2500 a pop. Don't know if anyone would buy it. But will donate to museums that accept my portfolio if they want one. $2500 is cheap for 63 hand printed archival pigment prints. But the person that is buying has to like em. Most people don't like my work, esp women. (cause it is not pretty photography) And 90% of the curators I deal with are women. So that is a struggle right there.

Look at Cindy Sherman. She puts on funny makeup, makes a odd face, has a background photoshopped in and gets $3 or $4 million for a print. Guess the women curators like that sort of thing?

I'd advise you to have a good net presence and have some fame behind you and it will help the print sales. If someone searches for you on the net, see what pops up. That is an area I'm working on. I'm pretty sterile. That is because I used a screen name until recently.

I offered prints to NY and some CA galleries for free and they would keep all sales proceeds and got only 2 replies of NO out of 29 solicited. The rest never replied. There are about 199 galleries dealing with photos in the US. About 10% may be out of biz, another 10% may not fit my work. That leaves the rest to work on over the next year.

I was not that serious about giving out free prints. Was just experimenting to see what happened. Sure I'd give them 10 or so to test the waters and build up my name. But I'll sell my own stuff when time comes.

BH has a good video about getting your work out there. Check it out. It is under their 'Event Space' section. For me it is not about $$. When I die my wife and DIL will trash all my photography as they hate it. So with me I am driven by preservation.

Good luck!