Where is the best place to sell prints of your photography? Having your art in a local gallery, online using Etsy, Fine Art America, or SmugMug?

I have tried all four of these, and I will share what I have learned the last couple years about each one, the positives and negatives. Is one option the best? Is it good to do all four options? Yes and yes! After seeing what I have learned, choose which options are best for you, blending them together. I tend to focus on one option the most.

1. Having your art in a local gallery:

It is gratifying seeing your art hanging in a local gallery, but is it great for print sales? I tried it one year, and learned some valuable lessons:

Pros:

• Clients can see your art physically to see the quality and colors of your print to know exactly what they are going to receive when they purchase.
• You can meet locals in person to develop a stronger connection, which creates longer relationships and more chances of repeat sales. Seeing you in person helps them get to know you better than only seeing you online.
• You can get more well known in your community because you are more visible.
• Having your art hang in a gallery adds value to your work and validates you as an artist.
• You can easily sell signed prints because you see the print before the customer sees it.
• You can offer limited edition prints.

Cons:

• It is expensive to be in a gallery: you pay for the print to be made, pay rent, and pay commission on top when your print sells. This eats into your profit. You will have pressure to sell a certain amount of prints each month just to cover rent and expenses. You will need to raise your price of your art to cover that, so it will be more expensive for your clients than from your shop online.
• You are limited to the size of the space you rent, so you will not be able to display your entire portfolio. 
• It takes time to make your prints and manage your inventory.
• You can only sell when the gallery is open, not 24 hours a day.
• Other artists are also selling in the gallery so there is competition.

2. Etsy: 

Etsy is an online platform where you can open a shop to sell prints of your art. It started for people making handmade creations, but now it is open to photographers who print their images. I have sold prints on Etsy, so I am familiar with the process of setting up a shop and fulfilling orders. This is what I have learned:

Pros:

•  Because Etsy is online you can reach buyers beyond your local area and it’s open to shoppers 24 hours a day.
•  You choose the type of prints you want to offer in your shop, from the company of your choice, and you choose your prices.
•  You can get traffic to your shop from Etsy because shoppers go there to buy.
•  You can do ads to promote your art.
•  When you get a sale you know the customer name, address, and email address.
•  Etsy pays you direct deposit which is convenient, and you can be paid daily. 
•  You can put your shop on vacation mode if you are unavailable to fulfill orders.

Cons:

•  Setting up your shop on Etsy is complicated and time consuming. 
•  You need to make your own mock-ups for your art, uploading 9-10 images per listing.
•  You might have to crop or distort your images to print at specific dimensions if you want all your print sizes the same on each listing.
•  You need to fulfill your orders, and pay to have the print made and shipped, so money comes out of your pocket.
•  Etsy charges fees to list and sell your products, which add up to around 13% of your product price. This takes away from your profit, and can surprise you if you don’t plan your prices accordingly.
•  You have to find a printer that can make the prints and ship them for you.
•  You have to personally handle customer service issues for orders from your shop, and you might not be reimbursed for your expenses of the order if Etsy sides with the buyer.
•  You need to fulfill your order on time to have a good rating on Etsy.
•  There are many different products sold on Etsy that are not art, so buyers shopping might not be interested in prints.
•  Many other sellers are on Etsy, and a buyer could easily exit off your page to another seller’s page, so you could easily lose a sale.

3. Fine Art America:

Fine Art America is also an online platform where you can sell prints of your art. But it is a print on demand site, where they make the prints for you. I have been on Fine Art America since 2015, so I know this platform very well and sell regularly on it. This is where I spent most of my time and where most of my sales come from. Why do I enjoy using Fine Art America? For me it all comes down to a simpler workflow which gives me more time to create my art, and being able to sell museum quality prints worldwide.

Pros:

•  Fine Art America prints your art for you so you don’t need to fulfill orders or worry about deadlines. So your website can run itself if you are out of town.
•  Prints are museum quality.
•  Prints are made to a custom size to the exact dimension of your image so you don’t have to crop or distort it.
•  You can choose which products you want to sell on Fine Art America (wall art, home decor, stationery, apparel, etc.)
• You can choose your profit for each product.
•  Fine Art America is a popular place to shop for art, it is high in the Google Search.
•  Artists worldwide can sell on Fine Art America, and your prints can be shipped worldwide.
•  You can get discovered worldwide as an artist.
•  You can start with a free account and upload 25 images to see how you like it.
•  It is only $30 a year to upgrade your account to Premium for unlimited image uploads and a Pixels personal website. This is the only expense. There are NO SURPRISE FEES fulfilling orders, so this is a great option for someone on a budget. Because you are not paying for fulfilling orders or getting fees from sales your bookkeeping is more simple.
•  You can use a custom domain name on your personal website.
•  You can show your entire portfolio to increase sales.
•  You can use your personal website to promote your art, and visitors can’t exit off your page to another artist’s page, so you keep visitors strictly on your art.
•  Setting up your shop is simple: you only upload your image and not mock-ups. Fine Art America automatically makes your mock-ups for you, saving you A LOT of time.
•  You can create discount codes for sales on your shop, offer limited time promotions, and participate in sitewide sales and designer print sales to get more sales.
•  Clients can subscribe to your email newsletter and you can manage email campaigns from your Fine Art America site.
•  There is a 30 day guarantee for buyers which protects you as a seller. Fine Art America will handle customer service issues for you.

Cons:

•  When you get a sale you will know the city the buyer is from, but not their name, address or email address.
•  When you get a sale you are only paid once a month, on the first 15th of the month 30 days after the sale (to cover the 30 day guarantee).
•  There are over a million other artists on Fine Art America, so there is a lot of competition making it a challenge to get higher in the search.
•  You can’t sign your prints because they ship directly to the customer.
•  You can’t do limited edition prints.

4. SmugMug:

I have a SmugMug website to show only my very best work to clients, so it does not show my entire portfolio. I do not use Smug Mug to sell prints because I am continually replacing images in this portfolio with new ones as I add to my portfolio. You can choose to show your entire portfolio to sell prints from SmugMug using BayPhoto, which has nice quality prints.

Pros:

•  You can customize your SmugMug site to really showcase everything about your business, adding pages about other products and services that you offer. For instance on my SmugMug site I have a page about my husband’s book and another one about my online course.
•  You have unlimited storage on your SmugMug site for jpeg images, so it can be used as backup storage (you can upgrade your account to add raw photo storage).
•  You can choose your profit margin for prints and decide which products you want to offer.
•  Your website has only your art so there is no competition from other artists.

Cons:

• The subscription for a SmugMug website is expensive ($110 - $384 a year depending on the plan).
• You can customize your SmugMug website a lot, but it can be complicated.
• Prints are made in only certain dimensions, so the image might have to be cropped, but you can move the crop left to right to work better with the image.
• You have to work hard at promoting your website to get traffic for sales.  

So, you can use all four of these options to sell prints of your art. It is working well for me to use SmugMug to showcase my best work for clients and different aspects of my business. And for prints Fine Art America has been very successful. I have sold 607 prints on Fine Art America so far (as of November 11, 2023). I have my Etsy store to reach new buyers on that platform. 

Use the platforms that work best for you, and spend time on the ones that give you the most success.

If you would like to learn more about how to sell your art using Fine Art America, check out my online course “Selling Photos Online: How I Broke The Code” here:

https://www.lieslwalshphotos.com/selling-photos-online-how-i-broke-the-code

I show how I became a regular seller on Fine Art America and what I do to drive traffic to my site to increase sales.