Simply Religious Print for Sale on eBay
By Brian Auer • June 7th, 2008
I’ll be experimenting with alternate methods of selling prints over the next few months. One method I’ll be pursuing is via eBay. I’ve started by listing one of my photos for sale as a signed and limited edition print. I’ll be adding new items every week or so, and after a few months I’ll share what I’ve learned.
In the meantime, if you’re interested in acquiring a print, check out my latest offering. I’ve started the listing at $470, which is lower than what I would typically ask. I’m offering this particular print at any size up to 36 inches, signed, and limited to 30. So if you want it, get on it!
Brian Auer is a photography enthusiast from San Diego, California. He's also the guy behind the Epic Edits Weblog. As a hobbyist photographer since 2003, his passion has been to constantly improve his photography skill set, to share his own knowledge with others, and to become an integral part of the photographic community.
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I was just thinking of doing something like that myself a few days back. Good luck on your sale!
Good luck Brian, I’ll be keeping an eye on your experiences with the auction. I have thought of eBay before but didn’t think an auction would make it to many fine art buyers - just people looking for pictures of Jesus on a piece of toast.
As for selling a print only, I would think a presentation of printf/frame would be best for the fine-art eBay crowd (if they exist) and perhaps invite buyers to contact you regarding print-only sales if that is what they want. Of course you would have to make it clear that you would set up a private auction for the buyer and stay within the realms of eBay as per the ToS. Of course, a frame sale would mean more shipping, figuring out how to handle glass (let the customer purchase their own?) and worrying about the customer pulling apart the frame to insert glass. Maybe a statement along the lines of ‘Frame, mat and print are warrantied against defects only if glass is installed by a professional framing business’.
I’ve often contemplated over the framing thing. It definitely makes life more difficult when trying to ship things, but I also leave it out because I want to allow buyers to frame according to their needs. To tell you the truth, if I’m buying a piece of art I’d want to frame it myself so I can match it to wherever I’m placing it. Maybe it’s just me though — you could be 100% right about ebay buyers wanting the whole package.
Very cool. I’m definitely interested in eBay as a photo-sales option and learning more about your experiences there.
One thing that always confuses me, however, is the use of the term “limited” or “limited edition” in the digital age. There’s really no actual limiting factor when dealing with digital photos and printing. I mean, even a good negative can be scanned and then reproduced in large numbers. So how do we as photographers define this? What are our responsibilities or requirements when using such terms? (I’ll be honest, not understand this–along with a severe lack of time due to a show I’m currently working on–was a big factor that kept me from submitting to the recent Fine Art Photoblog call for entries.)
As a consumer, if I’m buying something that’s touted as “limited”, then it comes with the expectation that what I’m buying will remain scarce. After 30, you’ll not sell this photo again or is there some other caveat involved?
No criticism here, I’m just trying to learn the ins and outs of this stuff.
Good luck on ebay. I tried selling a few photographs last year and only managed 1 sale. Most of my sales have come through my personal site, etsy and galleryxchange.
Stephen, that’s a great question you’ve asked — I’ll cover it in a dedicated blog post so others can join the discussion.
Im in the same boat at Jdawg… Last year i put about 100 pictures on Ebay and only sold 5. I have actually sold a lot through social networking sites.