Selling photographs on eBay?

rdlugosz

Has anyone found a (successful) way of selling fine art prints on eBay? I've seen a few people selling prints and it appears (by looking through their feedback) that they are making sales, typically about $10 for an 8x10.

Anyone here doing this? How are you fulfilling orders (are you doing the printing? pointing them to a SM gallery where you adjust the price?)

Just trying to get a conversation going on this topic; looks like an avenue for potential sales...

edit: Just had a thought - Can you "drop ship" with SM's engine? Meaning, can I sell a print on eBay & then place the order (myself) through SM & have it shipped straight to the customer?

StevenV

rdlugosz wrote:

can I sell a print on eBay & then place the order (myself) through SM & have it shipped straight to the customer?

yes. I've done this at events where people have paid me up front. I've gone home, finished processing, uploaded and ordered it sent to them. SM just charged me as though I was ordering (which I was) and the nice part is that there's no receipt in the box that would show them the lower price I paid.

AZsnapper

Ebay
I've just listed a few pics on ebay, see what happens.

But, when you search completed items, you'll notice very few pictures sell. Even when you search particular users who specialize in photography, very few sell. And 10 bucks for a 8x10? That barley covers even cheap printing, let alone all your time taking the picture and then processing it. Unless you're hoping a few hundred will sell at that price.....

So, it appears that eBay isn't a very good venue for selling photographs. I wish there was an online venue for photography. I'm trying ebay so maybe I can try to drive some traffic to my site.

StevenV wrote:

yes. I've done this at events where people have paid me up front. I've gone home, finished processing, uploaded and ordered it sent to them. SM just charged me as though I was ordering (which I was) and the nice part is that there's no receipt in the box that would show them the lower price I paid.

rdlugosz

AZsnapper wrote:

I've just listed a few pics on ebay, see what happens.

But, when you search completed items, you'll notice very few pictures sell. Even when you search particular users who specialize in photography, very few sell. And 10 bucks for a 8x10? That barley covers even cheap printing, let alone all your time taking the picture and then processing it. Unless you're hoping a few hundred will sell at that price.....

So, it appears that eBay isn't a very good venue for selling photographs. I wish there was an online venue for photography. I'm trying ebay so maybe I can try to drive some traffic to my site.

I totally agree on the price being way low. I'm thinking that this may be a good way to have "specials" that could lure buyers into purchasing other images from our galleries at normal prices. Not sure exactly how to angle this.

As for the selling, it seems that "buy it now" auctions tend to sell more often than actual "for bid" photo sales.

Shay Stephens

I have had no success using ebay to sell photos or other art type stuff. I stopped trying about two years ago.