What every artist should know about selling their art on POD sites
Kaj bi moral vsak umetnik vedeti o prodaji svojih izdelkov na POD straneh
When I was starting my artistic full time job it was clear to me, that I need to find ways to sell my art and become visible in this massive crowd of great artists from all around the world. Being an artist unfortunately doesn't mean spending days and/or nihgts in your studio and doing what you love best. Unless you were born with a golden spoon, you'll need to promote and sell your art.
I won't be talking about promoting today and I will limit myself to rough introduction of POD sites in general with more blogs to follow where I'll be talking about specific sites. Because the subject is really complex it would make an unreasonable long blog that you would't be willing to read and I haven't got time to write it in one sitting. So, let's start at the begining.
..........
Ko sem se odločila, da bo umetnost postala moja služba, mi je bilo jasno, da bom morala poiskati načine kako svojo umetnost prodajati in postati opazna v družbi neštetih odličnih umetnikov z vsega sveta. Biti umetnik žal ne pomeni, da lahko cele dneve in/ali noči preživiš v svojem studiu pri ustvarjanju. Če nismo bili rojeni z zlato žlico, se bomo morali dobro potruditi in ustrezno promovirati in prodajati svoje umetnine.
No, danes o promoviranju ne bom govorila in se bom omejila na splošno predstavitev POD strani, ki ji bodo sledili še blogi o konkretnih straneh. Tema je res kompleksna in blog bi bil nerazumno dolg, tako da ga vi ne bi imeli volje brati, jaz pa tudi nimam časa, da bi ga napisala v enem kosu. Tako bomo danes začeli povsem na začetku.
...........
What are POD pages? POD (in this case) is an abbreviation for Print On Demand. Which means that there are sites that offer you an opportunity to upload your designs and create all sorts of different products with your design.
You can use those sites for promotion (yes, not today) and two great aspects of selling your art:
- first is that you can order your designs and sell them at your on-line shop, or any other way you are used to sell your art. This way you don't need to worry about quallity of products and prints, since the site takes care of that, you just get your products nicely packed and ready to use or sell.
- second, you can make your designs visible and let the site handle the selling and you get payed for your design.
Pros and Cons
Both options have their pros and cons that you should be aware of.
Ordering your designs
With first option it's main pro is the fact that you don't need to search for a product. You don't need to worry where to buy it, what's the quallity, where to find adequate printers, the prices for a product and print and so on. With all this logistic problems you can easily give up having your art printed on products before even tried. Another pro is variety of products. When your local printers will scratch their head about how to print on a mug, those sites offer you prints on almost anyhing from rugs, shoes, bags, even glasses and watches.
Cons are linked to financials. For ordering products you need capital and when buying larger quantities and/or more expensive products you need to consider shipping costs, taxes and customs (if your country isn't in the same country as POD site). My advice is you should make calculations regarding all costs per product and the price you think it should sell for. That way you'll get a clear perspective of how much profit you can make per product and if it was worth it.
Let the site handle the selling
Second option's pros are reversed cons I mentioned before. You don't need any money at all. Most sites give you an opportunity to open a shop for free, without any fees and you can really do it in a couple of minutes.
Cons in that case would be the fact that you don't know who is buying your designs and mostly there is no information on product that you designed it. Royalties are relatively small - some sites give you an oportunity to set the % or amount of royalties, others have royalties already set, so it's take it or leave it. Before seting royalties yourself I advice you see other artists' prices because you don't want your price to be unreasonably high or low for that matter.
...........
Kaj so POD strani? POD v tem primeru pomeni kratico za Print On Demand - torej tisk po naročilu. To pomeni, da obstajajo strani, ki vam ponujajo možnost, da naložite svoje umetnine in oblikujete izdelke s svojim dizajnom.
Te strani lahko uporabite kot promocijo (vem, ne danes), lahko pa vam pomagajo pri prodaji na dva načina:
- prvi je, da naročite izdelke s svojim dizajnom in jih nato prodajate v svoji on-line trgovini ali na druge že utečene načine. Ni vam treba skrbeti za kvaliteto izdelka in tiska, saj za to poskrbi (in jamči) stran. Tako dobite svoje izdelke lepo zapakirane in pripravljene za uporabo ali nadaljnjo prodajo,
- drugi vam omogoča, da svoje dizajne označite kot vidne in strani prepustite prodajo, pri čemer vi dobite plačilo za svoj dizajn.
Prednosti in slabosti
Vsaka od možnosti ima svoje prednosti in slabosti, ki jih je dobro vedeti.
Pri prvi možnosti je seveda prednost to, da vam ni potrebno skrbeti kje boste kupili izdelek na katerega želite tiskati, kakšne kvalitete bo, kdo vam ga bo potiskal in koliko vas bo vse skupaj stalo. Tako se izognete mnogim logističnim problemom in zapletom, ki vam lahko vzamejo voljo do tega, da bi svojo umetnost sploh tiskali na izdelkih in boste odnehali, še preden bi sploh poskusili. Prednost je tudi v velikem izboru različnih izdelkov. Medtem, ko se bo vaš lokalni tiskar zaskrbljeno praskal po glavi in razmišljal kako bi vam natiskal dizajn na skodelico, vam na teh straneh nudjo skoraj vse kar je mogoče potiskati, od preprog, čevljev, torb do očal in ročnih ur.
Slabost je predvsem to, da morate pri nakupu imeti zagotovljena zadostna finančna sredstva, pri nakupu večjih količin in/ali dražjih izdelkov pa morate računati še na stroške dostave, davkov, carine in carinskih postopkov ipd. Zato je dobro predhodno preveriti vse stroške, ki bi utegnili nastati ter jih primerjati s predvideno prodajno ceno, da čim bolj natačno ugotovite svoj dobiček na posamezen izdelek in če se vam ta način sploh splača.
Druga možnost vam zagotavlja glavno prednost, ki je ravno nasprotna od slabosti prve možnosti. Za prodajo preko POD strani ne potrebujete niti evra. Večina strani vam daje možnost, da odprete trgovino brez vsakršnih stroškov in dejansko to lahko naredite v le nekaj minutah.
Slabost takšnega načina prodaje je, da nimate pregleda kdo je kupil določen izdelek z vašim dizajnom, prav tako na izdelku (večinoma) ni nikjer označeno, da gre za vaš dizajn, provizije ali kot se jim reče v angleščini "royalties" pa so relativno majhne. Nekatere strani višino provizij določajo same, drugod imate možnost, da višino v % ali v znesku določite sami, kar je sicer bolje, vendar pri višini ni za pretiravati, ker ljudje izdelka, ki je bistveno dražji od drugih, ne bodo kupovali.
..........
Since creating every piece of artwork usually takes lots of time, you can sell just a certain amout of your original work and it's great to find other ways to use your original artwork as a design on different products.
...........
Glede na to, da ustvarjanje posameznega dela večinoma vzame veliko časa, lahko prodate le določeno količino svojih originalnih del in prav zato, je idealno najti še nove načine kako lahko uporabite svoja originalna dela kot dizajne na različnih izdelkih.
Well, all that said, you can check links below and see for yourself how my stores look on different sites and you can check my blog again because I will talk about my experience with those sites in the near future. And if you had any specific questions I can help you with, please contact me, I'm glad to help.
...........
Po vsem povedanem, si lahko ogledate moje trgovine, ki sem jih odprla na različnih straneh, obenem pa vas vabim, da še kdaj obiščete moj blog, ker nameravam v bližnji prihodnosti opisati tudi svoje izkušnje s posameznimi stranmi. In če imate kakšna vprašanja v zvezi z napisanim me kontaktirajte in z veseljem vam bom pomagala kolikor bom mogla.
"You will hardly become a millionaire by selling designs on POD sites but with some persistence, you can make this a steady source of income for you."
Ada Ivanova
