Is selling work on Etsy worth it?

[mentalcrisis00]

I just got a rudimentary website going on Wordpress and finally have something that doesn't look like a blog. I'm just starting out with actually selling my work and don't have a ton of money to pay for an official website yet. I'm spending most of my cash on trips at the moment.

I have been very bad at pricing my work, usually I double what I actually spend on the prints. If a print costs $10 to print I charge $20. Unless I spent a longer amount of time on the photo, say if I did a photo from a 4x5 negative that would be more time consuming than snapping a digital image.

I'd like to start selling my work online, I was wondering if anyone has used Etsy to sell their work successfully? I see an ocean of photographs on there, some of them good, most really bad but almost all of them are $10-$50 so pretty low priced. Would this be a waste of my time? I thought it might be good to explore any avenue I can, frankly people in Maine don't want to pay anything for art. I usually charge half of what I should and people still want me to cut them deals.

Thanks

[jnantz]

i haven't an account on etsy, but i now people ( not photographers )
who swear by that place. i have an account at imagekind
and have sold some image through there. they do a very good
job at their end .. and i can't complain about the level of service they have
given me ...

[Frank Petronio]

Etsy is too low end, and this is from someone who sells a darn good 11x14 for $75.

[Bruce Pollock]

I agree with Frank. I've had a 'store' on Etsy for almost three years now and have made 12 sales, however, the vast majority of these have been simple 8x10 C Prints of vintage rock concerts I attended in the 1970s (CSNY rocks!!). I have offered matted (unframed) B&W and colour prints and have sold a couple.

Generally, people are looking to pay no more than $10 for a print - even if it was by Ansel himself (or maybe Uncle Earl). On the upside, setting up the store and listing stuff to sell on Etsy is dirt cheap. On the downside, as soon as your new listing sinks to page 6, no one can find it or is prepared to go looking for it.

[Jason_1622]

I can't help on this one. I don't really sell my prints to the general public. I make my money selling rights/usage to magazines, newspapers and corporate clients. I try to avoid all the single sale retails stuff... just seems like a hassle, especially at the prices you are expecting to set your work at.

[sergiob]

I would really avoid selling my images for so little. I would try to make a show and start to get people to look at real prints they can fall in love with and if you have the necessary selling pr skills you will sell some the opening night. Selling your prints for 20 dollars is not making you a favor. You will not be able to get out of there in the long run. It is not exclusively a matter of being famous to charge well for your work, it is a matter of having the right attitude towards your work, and put the additional effort and expense of showing it properly. Selling thru the internet would be the last of my steps after setting up all the preliminary process of getting yourself known for your real prints.
If you don't value your work, who will?
Who am I to say your prints cost more than 20 dollars, if you say they do.

[JMB]

I agree with Sergio. I think that Internet and Web site presentations and sales are ultimately very bad for photography. The Internet attracts the wrong folks if it attracts anyone at all.

It is also simply great fun to show original photographs to people and to discuss your thoughts, feelings, and theories about your work and the work of others. I have had all sorts of grand experiences showing my work and making friends from all over the world just because people stopped from time to time to have a look at my photographs. As a matter of fact, I am not sure that the Internet is good for much at all in the long run. Hence, I think that I am going to give this computer away as soon as I finish this last sentence. Free at last; free at last; thank God almighty I am free at last. --JB

[Frank Petronio]

OK see you around then. I think the Internet has been great for my photography experience.

I don't think it's bad to offer prints inexpensively amongst friends, other photographers. I've sold plenty of $75 prints or traded even with people I admire. At least with my set-up, making a print is not that expensive material-wise.

But advertising the dirt cheap prices is harmful to your future should you want to be gallery represented.

[theBDT]

That is a rediculous statement. The real reason no one is willing to pay no more then $10 is because it is NO GOOD.

You fundamentally don't understand etsy if you make statements like that. I am on etsy, have been for almost three months. I get LOTS of "favorites" both for my store and for individual pictures. If people didn't like my pictures, they wouldn't bother to favorite them.

I have yet to make one sale through etsy.*

I've gone and researched the photographers that DO make lots of sales on etsy: I'd wager I'm better than most of them, and I'm CERTAIN many people here on largeformat are better than most of them. What these successful sellers usually have, though, is a VAST library of images, most taken digitally, sold for $10 or less and printed at Costco or Walmart "on demand" when someone orders them. They have almost no upfront costs. Most of their images are pretty trite, and fall into a very "consumable-art" genre.

The fact of the matter is, the citizens and shoppers of etsy are no where near as sophisticated as they present themselves to be. I've talked with many on forums and in chat on etsy, and they're all puzzled as to why I charge so much more for a hand-produced black-and-white print versus something I scan and dash off at Costco (one is $25, the other $10).

They prize themselves on being a forum BOTH for things hand-made and things vintage, but NO ONE there appreciates a hand-made vintage analogue process it seems. I think most of the shoppers on etsy don't even understand how much superior, in both tone and resolution, an analogue print made from 4x5 film is compared with something someone snapped off on a dSLR and then squirted out of their inkjet.

It is very dismaying, but you know... it's life: you can either take your ball and go home, or you can play the game everyone else is playing. I've bought some 35mm Ektar; I plan on dashing out a bunch of flower/field pictures... we'll see.

*well, my brother took pity on me and bought something on my birthday, and someone bought a print from me and never paid so two weeks later I had to cancel the transaction

[bsdunek]

Not on Etsy, but I do have my site on Zenfolio. Over two years I have not had one request, althought, to be fair, I want to sell mounted framed prints, not just digital prints alone.
I have my work in two galleries and am in fine art shows, and this is where I get the majority of my sales. My mounted and framed prints go for $50 to $150.
To me, the internet competition is so great that you often don't 'get found'.