Ready-To-Frame Motivational Prints

 Arleyart.com is a platform where Arley Clark, the owner, sells his unique motivational art. Arley, born in 1947 and raised in Bremerton, Washington, has always been inspired by words of wisdom. This includes quotes, phrases, song lyrics, and even advertising taglines. Throughout his career, motivational or thought-provoking messages were always on display on his office walls. Frustrated by the limited selection of display-worthy plaques, posters, or art prints available in the market, he decided to create his own. Upon retiring from a management career in the sporting goods industry, Arley decided to check the market for his kind of motivational art, leading to the birth of ArleyArt​1​.

 For Cat, the causes closest to her heart are central to her brand. While she recently refocused to work on AAPI themes, this isn’t the first time she’s made a statement with her work. Ferme à Papier launched a Saving Faces collection highlighting the stories of women and underrepresented groups.

 Cat’s brand values influence the types of projects she takes on with brands and clients. “In collaborating, I think it’s important to not only stay true to your brand,” she says, “but to be able to listen and be proactive to whomever you are collaborating with.”

 When setting retail price for art, consider more subjective aspects like value, demand, and popularity of the art or artist. Ferme à Papier

 How do you sell art online—and actually make money doing it? Making a living as a working artist is possible if you know how to value and price your work. Pricing art is challenging because it doesn’t necessarily fit neatly into typical pricing strategies.

 Running any business that will be sustainable in the long term involves being profitable at some point. To achieve this, you will need to price your art accordingly. If you’re just beginning to experiment with how to sell your art and don’t have a widely known name, you can start with a simple formula to price your original art:

 Your cost to sell and market the piece + material costs + other expenses + your markup (profit) = retail price

 For this method, it’s helpful to factor in the time you spent creating the art. It is typical for artists to undervalue their time and work, especially at the beginning.

 Knowing what your products stand for and what you aren’t willing to compromise are key components in driving decisions about pricing.

 Where the formula above fails is that the value of art is subjective and not necessarily dependent on concrete details like material cost or labor hours. Famous artists can fetch exponentially more for a piece that has roughly the same creation costs as that of a new artist. Check the market to compare your pricing to similar artists at similar levels and adjust accordingly.

 💡 Tip: If you are selling through a physical or online gallery, the gallery will usually take half of the final selling price. You can usually work with gallerists, who are experts at valuing and pricing art, to set a price that makes sense for you, the gallery, and the market.

 The cost of printing + your cost to sell and market the print + other expenses + your markup (profit) = retail price

 Your markup may be on a scale depending on whether you sell open- or limited-edition prints. Other expenses may include office supplies, software or app fees, professional services, studio rent, and more.

 “Knowing what your products stand for and what you aren’t willing to compromise are key components in driving decisions about pricing,” says Cat. For her, printing on sustainable paper was a must-have, even though it would drive up material costs and ultimately the retail price. Communicating these decisions to the customer is important, especially if your prices are higher than average.

 The best way to sell your art online is through your own ecommerce store. First, take a few minutes to create your store. At this point, you can set it up as a trial and tinker with it for two weeks before committing. You’ve already done a lot of the work if you’ve established brand guidelines, pricing, and business model (originals, prints, or merch)—this part is simply assembly.

 When setting up your online art store, choose a Shopify theme that lets your art breathe—large images and lots of white/negative space. Themes are like templates that you build upon, layering in your own images and copy, and tweaking colors and layout to suit your business.

 Studio (free) is a theme that puts artwork first, framing it with bold blocks. It’s best for artists who produce in collections.

 Demo of a website theme on desktop and mobileShopify is the easiest way to sell art online. It’s designed so anyone can set up a custom online store with no coding or design skills necessary. However, if you’re interested in customizing your theme even further to suit your business, consider hiring a Shopify Expert to help you with design or development work.

 The Shopify App Store is packed with apps that plug directly into your online store to solve specific pain points, add unique features, and help you run your store more effortlessly—allowing you to focus on the creative aspects of the business.

 Print-on-demand apps. If you sell your artwork via prints and merch, apps like Creativehub, Printful, or can sync with your store, taking the burden of shipping and fulfillment out of the equation.

ArleyArt Custom Photo Items

 Gallery apps. An app like POWRful Photo Gallery can feature past or out-of-stock works, serving as a portfolio or full catalog of your work for galleries or brands looking to partner with you.

 Social marketing apps. As a creator, you may lean toward visual social media platforms like Instagram to help market your products and build an audience. Keep site content fresh with an app like Instafeed that pulls Instagram images into a gallery on your site.

 Product page apps. If you’re offering a specific piece of artwork with overlapping options (size, frame or no frame, paper type, etc.), use an app like Bold Product Options to layer item variants.

 What’s the best place to sell art online? Aside from your own online store, it’s where your ideal customer is already hanging out. If you have amassed a following on a particular social channel, for example, that might be a great place to start.

 Having an omnichannel strategy is important for protecting your independence as a creator. A standalone site allows you to own the look and feel of your space as well as the audience you build. But layering on other channels can help you access additional markets and build your personal brand as an artist.

 Online marketplaces like Etsy, Amazon, or eBay can plug directly into your online store, allowing you to sync sales and reach wider audiences.

 Social selling channels let you sell directly to fans who are already following you on their preferred platforms. Create customizable storefronts on Facebook and Instagram that integrate with your Shopify store. Use your TikTok content to “drop” new works and drive fans to your online store, or create TikTok ads.

 Social selling channels let you sell directly to fans who are already following you on their preferred platforms. Create customizable storefronts on Facebook and Instagram that integrate with your Shopify store. Use your TikTok content to “drop” new works and drive fans to your online store, or create TikTok ads.

 Wholesale or consign to other online boutiques and galleries. You can browse wholesale markets to find compatible retailers that want to sell your art.

 Collaborations with other artists who sell art online. Get exposure to their audiences by producing collab work to sell and promote on both your site and theirs.

 Cat now sells her work through multiple channels, but she cautions to start slow if you’re just learning ​​how to sell artwork. “Having multiple avenues came as an evolution to what first began as a wholesale business,” she says.

 While her retail channel is on pause for the moment, Cat now sells direct to customers and works on custom projects for clients and brands, in addition to her wholesale business. “If I had tried to balance all of these from the onset,” she says. “I believe I would have been overwhelmed.”

 Selling your artwork isn’t limited to online—you can sell via physical retail too. Because Maria works frequently in traditional mediums, much of the impact of the texture and scale of her work gets lost digitally. “It’s actual physical work, so when we do exhibits, you can walk into a gallery and see that I’m a real person who has technical skills and can do paintings and large scale installations,” she says.

 Artists can also connect with fans and find new audiences by taking work offline. You can use in-person experiences to drive people back to your online store.

 Open your studio to the public when you launch your website, or keep consistent weekly open-studio hours to invite fans into your process.

 Before Ken opened his permanent gallery, he dabbled in pop-ups as a means to build his reputation and validate the business idea. For those selling original works, some element of in-person experience is critical, says Ken. “It’s very rare to find a successful art gallery that functions entirely online.”

 However, advances in technology like 3D and AR for online stores and the trend toward digital experiences may mark big changes for the art world in the future. It’s important to follow consumer trends while you learn how to sell your art and grow your business.