2:58 PM 04/20/2004 - Chicago
I've been selling my paintings and other artwork on eBay for a couple years, and just this past January, I decided, after reading an article by Sesile Girelli (possibly the most successful artist selling on eBay), to try out Featured Plus for myself. This is an expensive experiment, because the additional charge for Featurred Plus (which places you auctions in the 'Featured' section... and the front of the line in the thousands of paintings listed every day on eBay) is $19.95 per auction... a significant bite out of a painting that might sell for around $35.00... essentially, giving away my work, while selling it... eBay taking all or most of the profit.
I am still a long way from having definitive knowledge of how to best use FP, but I have figured out a few things that have permitted me to earn enough money using FP to make it profitable, even with my auctions *not* closing up in the hundreds, like Girelli's, and some of the other very successful painters using FP. Here they are:
The first thing I thought of, when I decided to write this piece, was that I would be telling my competition what it was, that worked for me, and that I should keep this information to myself. Then I realised that the people with the motivation and nerve necessary to implement these strategies, would figure this all out for themselves in short order anyway, and that most people who might read this, would think 'no, that's all wrong, it would never work'... or they would think, 'yes, that is a good idea'... and then do nothing. So I am (heh...) safe.
I began my FP adventure after reading the 'Girelli Interview', and I began by posting a new oil painting every day. The first few auctions were stunningly successful, averaging close to $100.00 apiece. I also posted a single watercolour, and that closed without a bid. From this, I guessed that oil painitngs were the way to go... but by watching other FP sellers, I saw that there were a few people doing well selling watercolour, and also, acrylic paintings. For the time being, though, I decided to sell strictly oil paintings.
After the first week, my prices plummeted... most auctions closing at or around their opening bid of $39.00... or worse yet... closing without a bid. I was busy watching other people's auctions, and I began feeling persecuted... their work, which I thought *my* work was better than... was selling up over $100.00, and mine was lucky to get even a single bid. Heh!
After the first month closed, and I was totaling things up, I was a little surprised to notice that I had managed to make a small profit, in spite of what seemed like crappy sales... even after deducting the close to $500.00 bill I had accumulated with eBay... over five times as large as any bill I had ever seen from them before.
During the second month, I began to wear out a little, trying to finish an oil painintg per day, five days a week, so I tried selling some of my older work in oil, to give myself a break, but it turned out to be a bad idea.... people liked my new work a lot more than my older stuff... which once again, gave me auctions without bidders.
About 7 weeks into the new year, I began putting up auctions selling my watercolours... but not as FP auctions. Some I posted directly into my eBay store (listing price $0.05 per month, as opposed to $22.10 for an FP auction, and $2.20 for a standard auction... and they began to sell at around $35.00 to $40.00 each... something I was *never* able to accomplish in the past, when I wasn't using FP auctions... back then, I was selling watercolours for around $10.00 or not at all.
This was when I began to figure out (sort of) what was happening... really good oil paintings... I could sell in FP auctions for between $39.00 and about $75.00... with around $22.00 of that going to eBay, but at the same time I could sell a lot of watercolours and gouache paintings in non-FP auctions for around $40.00... that I could never sell before... with about $2.00 going to eBay. What I still haven't figured out, though, is why (even now, after 4 months using FP), if I put the same watercolour up as an FP auction, it won't get a bid, where an oil painting will sell.
The eBay store is important. It is the lowest priced way to sell things on eBay... but it doesn't work by itself (at least not the 'economy' version, which I am using, because it doesn't have any visibility to speak of, unless you have auctions up, so that people can first find the auctions, and then discover the store items, by seeing what other things, you might have for sale.
Another thing I figured out about the store, is that it is a good place to put auctions that don't sell the first time around, instead of recycling them through auctions again. After a couple months selling with FP, I began to realise that I was actually developing a client base, and that they were purchasing my store items, as well as from my auctions. The fact that a piece doesn't sell in the first ten days, does not mean that the piece is 'no good'... or should be priced lower... it just means that the right person hasn't yet seen it. I never reduce prices when I move pieces into the store inventory... with oil paintings, I ofen actually increase the prices, because the opening bid on the auction was too low to begin with... it was a 'teaser' price (to entice new bidders). Artwork is too 'narrow' a field, where taste is concerned, to always expect the right person to find the right painting, in the time-specific 10 day window, afforded by an auction.
Viewed this way... FP auctions do not *have* to pay for their individual selves... they are just part of an overall advertising budget... the 'ramp' that people use, because of its high visibility, to drive up into your eBay store and your non-FP auctions, with the FP price tag being spread out over all of the increased sales, in your eBay store, and in your other auctions, as well as the FP auctions themselves.
One thing I noticed about the people who were succeeding with FP, was that... as far as I can tell... they have been at it for a while... that it is no 'instant' road to success.... at least not in general. There may be a few exceptions to this, but I do not seem to be one of them, and it might be a bad idea to assume instant success, going in. Although I wound up not needing it, I had a $1,000.00 lump of money set aside, for my FP experiment, before I posted my first FP auction, just as any business would have money budgeted for an ad campaign, before they began posting ads in magazines, or on TV.
Another thing I suspect, is that FP will not work for everyone. Those people I have observed succeeding with FP, have their acts together at the easel, have well designed auctions, don't go overboard on the bullshit and schmoozing, and have excellent feedback ratings, which indicates that they must be taking exceptionally good care of their customers, once the auctions close. I think that going into FP without all your bases covered, might be pouring money down the drain. For every person successfully using FP, there are quite a few, who seem to be bombing.
I think that it is a good idea to keep a consistent number of auctions up... to maintain a 'presence'. I currently keep 40 to 50 pieces on eBay, with 5 to 7 being FP auctions, another 10 or so non-Fp auctions, and the rest being store inventory, at any given time.
Don't bet on everything I have put down in this article being gospel fact, or that I haven't overlooked a lot of important stuff. I've been using FP for less than 4 months. One thing in particular that I have found useful, is the Sellathon service, which can give you a lot of insight into who your bidders are (IP addresses and geographic location), and how they found your auctions... search, keywords, viewing your other items, or the cross-promotional items at the bottom of your auctions.
The 'bottom line' is that FP works, in combination with doing everything else right, but is no substitute for any of the other ingredients that have to go into a successful eBay art selling strategy... it is no 'magic bullet'.