EBay Tips 1: Be Prolific!

Making a Living on eBay: Be Prolific!

A little while ago I published my top ten tips for successfully selling your art on eBay. Tip number 1 was ‘Be Prolific’. Here’s why:

Consistently putting up artworks to auction gets customers used to viewing your paintings on a regular basis. Remember that most buyers of art like to take a good long think before they hit the ‘Buy’ button. They might like your style, but maybe they want to wait until you have a painting that will match their sofa. You need to have plenty of paintings listed, and keep a regular turnover of paintings on your site. These measures will help create a ‘buzz’ for your site, by making it an interesting place to come back to.

Being prolific also makes sure that you keep a healthy cash flow. If you only list one painting a month, you’ll never be able to give up the day job. Why? Because, unless you are very, very established as an eBay artist you will struggle to get more than £50 for a painting and £50 a month will just about keep you in materials, but not much else!

Of course, to be prolific, it helps to work fast. This hints at another basic truth of art on eBay: art that takes 100 hours to complete still sells at the same price as art that takes 1 hour to complete. If it takes you a month to complete a painting the eBay is probably NOT the place for you to sell your artwork. So if you work slow, consider changing your style. Ebay can be a discouraging place, especially if you sell an artwork for a hourly rate that would be illegal in the third world…