Before an online art shop, sell at shows (5 reasons why)

DON’T SKIP THIS STEP

The first thing every new artistpreneur wants to do is sell from an online art shop, sell through social media, and sit at home while they make passive income. 

Me too. 

But there are a few key steps you can take BEFORE you create your online art shop that’ll speed up your success. 

First, sell at art shows. 

Before you click out of this post, hear me out. It sounds like the harder way to the top of the artist success ladder, but I promise it’s a shortcut!

These 5 reasons will explain how:

1. You’ll learn who buys your art. And who doesn’t. 

Knowing your audience is the first step to selling absolutely anything. 

When you’re at your table during the event, you can see exactly who is walking right past you, who is stopping to look or chat, and who is buying. 

The person who walks right past you is the type of person you want to repel in your marketing. Of course you’ll have to watch for a pattern over the course of the day — or maybe over a few separate shows. You’ll find a pattern in the type of person who is (no matter what) unattracted to your work. 

Take note. What are they wearing? What are they talking about? What’s their age? Are they masculine or feminine? 

Take notice of the pattern that emerges for the other two types of people, too: the lookers and the buyers. 

Once you’ve learned who your three types are (sometimes this functions as buyers, lookers, and then evvveryone else of multiple “types”) you’re ready to craft your marketing! 

You need this information on your customer profiles before you can craft messaging for your brand, your sales copy, your marketing, everything.

Talk directly to the buyers in your marketing, include the lookers sometimes, and actively repel those who walked right past. 

Don’t waste time trying to please everybody when you know damn well not everybody will buy your work. Don’t be afraid to have some people stumble upon your Instagram and go “ew, yikes.” If you encounter these people, that’s a good thing! It means you’re speaking directly to your buyers, and only your buyers. 

Before you can do this well, you have to know WHO you’re talking to when you sell online. 

You can’t look anyone in the eye or judge their character when you’re separated by your keyboard. You can’t get social cues from their face or body language during internet sales. Learning about your ideal customer is SO MUCH FASTER when you do it in person. 

Art shows will help you gain this knowledge faster than any analytics tool will, and on a deeper level.

Want to read more on finding your target market? Read this article here.

2. You’ll learn which of your pieces sell most, and which direction to take your style. 

When people do buy from you, which pieces are they buying? 

Of course you can measure this online the same way as at shows. But the learning process is again faster in person because people buy more at shows than they do online (especially in the beginning of your career).

There are a few reasons people buy more at art shows than online:

First of all, people come to the event knowing things are for sale and they’re ready to leave with at least one purchase. Secondly, they get to see your artwork in person and easily picture what it’ll look like in their home. Third, they can conveniently leave with it immediately if they choose to buy. Fourthly, they can ask questions directly to the artist, solving any objections they might have and learning the backstory of the work! 

I sell more at an event in a day than I do online in a day hands down. 

And sales numbers are easier to read when there are more of them! So speed up your process by analyzing them from art shows before you try to analyze them online.

So after the show, consider what’s been bought and what hasn’t been. 

What type of work are they buying? 

If you had mini paintings and 12”x12” paintings, and the mini ones sold more, that tells you what you need to do to make more money. Sell more minis and less larger pieces!

What sells more, make more. What doesn’t sell, make less.

Of course, start with artwork that you personally love, so that whether people choose your paintings of portraits over your paintings of plants, you love both anyway. 

But good business involves listening to your customers. If there is a greater demand for minis, supply the minis. If there’s a greater demand for portraits, supply the portraits. 

When you create your online art shop, you’ll know which products to list based on your study of sales at art shows. 

It’ll make the tech easier and give you less work to do when setting up your store.

3. More money to fund your passion

As I outlined in the last point, it’s easier to sell in person at art shows than it is from behind an online art shop.

But another advantage to quick sales besides useful data is, of course, MONEY!

Don’t go blowing it on new boots or a backpacking trip across the Appalachian Mountains (just me?). This is money you can use to invest back into your art business.

You can use these new funds to hire a designer for your online art shop, pay for an email marketing service, pay for your website’s domain name, buy a course to learn how to manage a website, and much more. 

Or outside the realm of a shop, you can register your craft as an LLC, take a painting class in a new medium, buy fresh art supplies, or cut down on hours at the day job to give yourself more time to create. 

The hard truth is that you need to invest money (and/or time) to make money. 

So invest in yourself! Invest in your new art business!

It’s so worth it. 

And art shows give you that quick cash in hand to spend on your new venture. 

4. You’ll network with other artists at shows.

Going to art shows will help you make friends and learn from more experienced artists. Opportunities abound where artists come together, and community is more strong in person than online. 

You’ve heard the sayings:

• “It’s not WHAT you know, but WHO you know.”
• “Your network is your net worth.”
• “Everything you want in life is a relationship away.”

Aaaaand, these are mostly true in my experience. It’s hard to do things alone. It’s still hard with a group, but some things become easier.

For instance, a lot of the art shows I find are sent to me by my friends and other artists. If I didn’t have them to show me, I never could have applied. And a lot of the things I’ve learned about selling art, I’ve learned from watching other artists sell and asking them what they do differently. A lot of the painting techniques I use today, I learned from watching process videos made from other artists and going to paint parties.

Don’t try to do everything alone.

It will take so much longer.

Be intentional about who you want in your circle. Add new folks to your network that you would love to be friends with. 

One of the easiest ways to do this is to go to art shows! Even if you’re not selling your own work there, just attending will help you make new and useful connections. Have a quick chat, get their contact card and keep the conversation going online after the show is over! I’ve made quite a few artist friends this way, and they are all in my area. 

If you want sincere recommendations, the hookup on the best supplies in town, a heads up for upcoming opportunities — art friends will give you that leg up. 

Don’t skip out on this part of your career (and life!). 

5. You’ll learn where you need to improve with your sales. 

Do you know what to say to close a deal? To make someone want to buy? 

What will you write on your sales pages of your online art shop if you don’t know what will make people NEED your artwork? 

At an event, you’ll know immediately if what you’re saying works or doesn’t based on if someone walks away with a painting or not. 

Online, you’ll wonder if people aren’t buying because your sales copy sucks, if your checkout process is complicated, if they had a question they needed answered first, if your page never really loads or is slow, if they were suddenly interrupted, or a host of other factors that you can’t see. 

In person sales make it much more obvious why someone does or doesn’t buy. 

And there are less reasons not to buy. Your art is there, they can ask questions, there’s no page to load, no online marketing strategies to overcome — they just listen to what you have to say about it, see the price, and make their choice. 

So what you say about a piece is one of the only factors to affect the sale. 

This is how you’ll get good at selling!!! 

Selling is so important!!!!

This trial and error practice for sales goes faster by lightyears when you do it in person. Less guesswork, less stress. 

It’s a true shortcut!

After doing art shows, you’ll be much better equipped to create your online shop! You’ll: 

• Know who to target with your marketing

• Know what to say to them

• Know what style or subject matter you’ll sell

• You’ll have the money to fund your site build or shop listings

• You’ll have a network of artists to turn to if you need help!

If you skip right to making an online shop, you’ll run into a lot more issues and it’ll take much longer to learn the same things.

Working an art show is like going to school for how to sell your art and be an artist. You learn many of the fundamental skills like marketing, sales, communications, and presentation. 

It really boosts your confidence to gain knowledge and get your work in the hands of real people. 

Make sure to involve yourself in this sphere of the art world before you dive head first into making an online art shop!

Art shows are non-negotiable. They’re a huge shortcut!

Are you already doing art shows? Here’s how to maximize your results AFTER the show to amplify all these concepts.