How To Sell Paintings On Amazon India In 2024 (Step by Step Guide)
There was a time when people believed in work in which a person goes to office work 9–5. People wouldn’t even understand what an artist was. They used to criticize them for not having a real job. However, in this digital era, where occupation is linked with passion, likes, and appreciation, an artist is appreciated for their work. People believe that an artist is the one with a creative mindset, and they work hard to attain success.
An era with technology is filled with artists like you, who believe in showing their hard work to others. Amazon brings you a platform on which your art is appreciated, and your business and passion can gain success. You can post your work on the Amazon platform with your Amazon account and reach out to your potential clients and followers.
Over time, Amazon has developed into a global market where practically anything may be bought or sold. Millions of clients are discovering their company paths and succeeding online because of its widespread appeal, large consumer base, and several advantages. You can see some best ways to market your business online.
Use the Amazon edge to create a business in the internet market, whether you are an artist or an art curator. While Amazon picks, packs, and distributes items to clients throughout the nation, artists merely need to create high-quality work. You can also become a seller on Amazon by registering yourself on their Amazon Seller Account.
How to Sell Paintings Online
Paintings are one among the oldest forms of art known to human existence. One uses all forms of tools from fingers, brushes, palette knives, sponges, and many other tools, all to shape something that just sits there, yet lively and colourful. "Painting is an attempt to come to terms with life. There are as many solutions as there are human beings." - George Tooker, a contemporary American painter. Paintings are no less than poetry, they depict so much without the use of words.
They hold unimaginable meanings even in their tiniest detail. Da Vinci said that "Paintings are both better at telling truth and better at telling lies than poetry". Artists had a limit to the quantity and ability to reach people to maximize their growth through selling their creatives. Limit when, how, and where they could change their work of art into currency. To get them into others' hands, one had to visit fine art galleries and exhibitions or find a space on the street.
Not just artists, but ordinary people who wanted creatives to themselves had very little access to where to look for them. People had to physically walk into a place to witness the beautiful paintings painted on a clear canvas and buy them. It's beautiful in a way but also time-consuming, isn't it? Say no to all the mess and tiring process of selling and buying art. Thanks to the media which brings everyone to one place, the Internet.
Sellers can reach not just their locality but across the world, making their paintings to be witnessed by many eyes. Every day people can sit on their couch, sipping coffee, and yet choose a perfect painting that goes well with their wallpaper!
You can read 22 Amazing Reasons Why a Business Should Go Online to understand why one has to take their business online. As the saying goes "If your business isn't online, then your business will go out of business". One such place online for artists is provided by Amazon, where one can expose their creativity to be appreciated and bought by collectors.
Why Choose Amazon?
Amazon, a tech giant launched exclusively for books, expanded its horizon beyond one's imagination. This massive E-commerce platform is now known to everyone for selling anything as tiny as pins to massive paintings. With its huge market potential, it easily makes it a beneficial place to be for artists. No matter your field of interest in arts, there's an opportunity for everyone.
In 2013, Amazon welcomed artists to showcase their creatives and sell them to potential buyers worldwide by opening the Amazon Art section. To make it more elegant they invite Guest Curators to make it appealing like a gallery in the digital world. As online selling trends grew with time, the line between artists and popular curators almost thinned to null, making it easier for those entering into art space.
The majority of people today live on the internet, making it easy to study their moves and provide them with whatever kind of paintings or crafts they prefer. It's the best possible way to reach an audience relevant to your sense of style. Artists or curators can use this platform to produce great quality content, while Amazon takes care of the packing and delivery to customers across the globe.
Amazon Handmade and Merch by Amazon
You could be a craftsman who makes physical items like jewellery or pottery, or an artist who makes paintings and digital art. There's room for both of you to make bucks by selling your work online. Refer to How to Take Your Offline Store Online (Simple Method), to know why it is necessary to reach millions online, and how to reach those millions of people waiting for your artwork to be explored.
Amazon has two different options for artists to deliver their work with different kinds of norms. Amazon Handmade and Merch by Amazon. To be able to sell your art on Amazon, one must go through a pre-approval process. You should be aware that only certain types of art get the eligibility to be showcased. Three-dimensional delicate works of art, like sculptures, are prohibited. Only original paintings, digital art, drawings, water-based paintings, and anything two-dimensional are accepted.
You need to send them a detailed application about your work which beforehand needs to be manually reviewed before it gets to the selling part. Since Amazon is a large sea of sellers, keep your hopes low to enter as one. The whole acceptance process can take up to 12 weeks, but it's gonna reach over 200 million people monthly. I bet it's worth the wait. Once you are in the game, you can list your work and get sales.
Who can sell on Handmade by Amazon?
Amazon Handmade is for those who make works of art like handmade jewellery, gifts, paintings, etc. The name itself tells that it's 'Handmade', crafted with care and precision with gifted hands. The work should be crafted by one or a team of up to 20 members. You benefit from their reach to people and the popular 2-day delivery system. Paintings can easily fit inside this space.
Not all can be able to sell under Amazon Handmade since it has guidelines and rules to be followed. It is limited to individual creators/marketers, NGOs, and those working for a social cause. One needs to keep the work real, not made out of the kit and should be handmade using hand tools and minimum machinery. There are limits to what can be sold here as well.
The fee on this platform is not a normal seller one like $39.99, instead, it's a referral fee of a minimum of $1 on every unit purchased or 15% of the total purchase. It may stack up prices at times, still better than the usual $39.99 offering.
Pros and Cons of Handmade
Pros, firstly, there are no hidden charges, whatever the cost mentioned is to be payable. The other is the vast Amazon customer base, it's an ocean of people! This means the artists have a huge potential marketplace to reach millions. The artists get an equal playfield, where they get to showcase among other popular curators.
Cons is it's a bit on the expensive side, with 15% of the referral fee on purchase. It's an open playfield, which brings in more and more artists, thus increasing the competition. One's brand might be difficult to market over others. Not everything is sellable on Amazon standards, isn't it?
Merch by Amazon
Amazon Merch is for digital artists, it's a first-party seller option available for creators. Where one can add prints of photos and artworks. Most of the mechanical work will be taken care of by Amazon themselves, from printing the item that has the artist's design to shipping it to customers. This way artists no longer have to worry about recreating something very often. But can continue making new content while still earning long after the previous being sold with time.
Merch do's and don'ts:-
- Use of original artwork, and not violate the copyright or trademark of someone else's
- Art with explicit content is not to be uploaded
- Promoting hatred, and violence in the designs is not encouraged
- To ensure the spellings on the design match with the spellings on the product description
- Request reviews and display external contact information
- Use RGB creatives, dimensions of 300 dpi, and size being maximum of 25MB
- Don't use anything with low resolution, watermarks, and blurry
The process of selling digital artwork is similar to selling handmade paintings, but it is less tiring and offers more breathing room.
Step To Sell Paintings on Amazon step-by-step
Selling paintings on the Amazon platform isn't rocket science, follow a few required steps and you are ready to go. Here are the steps to be looked into:-
- You need to provide the required documents to become Amazon Seller
One has to create a Seller Account to start their journey on Amazon. You'll have to prepare certain documents before you sign in for the platform, hence keep these ready:
- Business Information: You will have to give information such as your business name, address, etc.
- Email Address: The one you intend to use for company purposes
- Credit Card: Your credit card should be valid internationally and should be with a proper billing address.
- Phone Number: The one needed for company operations
- Tax ID: Write your Tax Identity data, which includes your Social Security number and Company's Tax ID number
1. Register As An Amazon Seller
- Visit Amazon Seller Central
- Create your account using the required particulars.
- OTP is sent to a registered mobile number and verified.
- Choose your store name
- The remaining information shall be entered on Amazon Selling Dashboard
- Your signature needs to be uploaded
- Lastly, click on 'Launch Your Business
That's it, you have successfully set up your Amazon Seller Account.
2. Optimize your listing
- From the Seller Central Dashboard, you can edit or enter product details under 'Manage Inventory
- Provide details of what you want to sell.
- Upload a proper coloured image of the product described
- The features of the product should be visible
- The height and weight should be 1000 pixels or larger ta enable zooming
- The image must not exceed 10,000 pixels on the longest side
- JPEG and TIFF formats are accepted.
While creating a product page, put yourselves in the customer's shoes and think if they would buy your product with the amount of information and the way you have presented the product.
3. Two options available to sell paintings on Amazon
- Depending on your artwork needs you will have to choose between Amazon Handmade program and the Merch by Amazon program
- Both are unique and are meant for different styles of artwork
- Handmade by Amazon is for those who are handcrafted
- Merch by Amazon is to exhibit your digital art.
4. Choose the delivery method
- Artists can choose the fulfilment methods to reach their products to potential customers
- Fulfilment through the FBA method: The shipping plan will have all the necessary information like the quantity, the carrier, and the shipping address. Confirm Amazon where it needs to be picked up. Amazon will help it reach customers.
- Fulfilment through FBM: Here you will have to fulfil the order, as in you pack and ship to the ordered customer, whereas Amazon just sends you the order details.
How to Sell Paintings on Amazon Business
The Amazon Fine Art Store's discoverability and sales depend on accurate statistics. Customers will be better educated and artwork will be easier to find if the listing is brief and follows a standard pattern. Before listing artwork within the "Fine Art" category, sellers must get the business team's approval.
The global sale of distinctive works of art by artists and curators has proven to be a great success thanks to the internet. Under Amazon’s Fine Art category, people can sell the following items:
- Paintings
- Sculptures
- Tribal/local art
By categorizing their artwork, sellers can sell it on Amazon, which is a terrific platform. By signing up as a seller on Amazon, you can offer original paintings, watercolours, and second-hand artwork. However, there is a pre-approval procedure for selling paintings online on Amazon.
To improve the discoverability of artworks, you would need to register yourself and provide a clear and comprehensive listing. You can choose to work as an art curator if you love art but lack creativity. You could assist artists who work together with commercial partners to sell their creations.
You can negotiate a licensing agreement with an artist to become the sole distributor of their works of art. Both parties may end up benefiting from this. You can sell limited-edition pieces as an art curator, but you have to look for them. You could be searching for a great artist whose works are available for purchase online.
How to Sell Paintings on Amazon Cost
When talking about the cost of selling your products on the Amazon platform, it depends on various factors like whether you sell as an individual or a professional, which plan you opt out of, the product category, and the rest.
Regardless of how many units you sell, the professional plan costs $39.99 a month, while the individual plan costs $0.99 for each unit sold. Each item sold on Amazon has a referral fee. The sum is determined by the type of product. Most referral commissions range from 8% to 15%. When referring to fine art,
- A minimum referral fee of $1; 20% of the percentage of sales proceeds, up to $100;
- 15% of any fraction of sales proceeds that exceed $100 but don't exceed $1,000;
- 10% of any sales proceeds over $1,000 but less than $5,000; and
- Any portion of the sales proceeds over $5,000 is subject to a 5% fee.
Using Fulfillment by Amazon or fulfilling your purchases will affect how much it costs to ship your products (FBA). When you self-fulfil orders, Amazon applies shipping fees based on the customer's chosen delivery service and product category before giving you a postage credit for the amount.
For FBA, the charge per unit does, however, include picking and packing your orders, shipping and handling, customer care, and product returns. The costs are determined by the weight and size of your product. You can look at Amazon Seller Pricing Plans.
How to Price Your Art
Making art is one thing, but pricing it after you've made it, when it's ready to leave your studio and be sold, whether directly by you or through a gallery, at an art festival, online, at open studios, through an agent or representative, or anywhere else, is quite another.
Creating art is about one's unique creative process and inner experiences; pricing art for sale, on the other hand, is about what's occurring outside, in the actual world where things are purchased and sold for money and where market forces heavily influence how much those things are worth.
Setting the price too high could result in your artwork piling up in your studio while setting it too low could result in you leaving money on the table. You'll have a better notion of how much to charge for your art if you thoroughly investigate your market. Take into account the artwork of other artists whose style, medium, colour, scale, etc. are comparable. Also consider the qualifications, background, location, and output rate of those artists.
Don't sell your studio-produced artwork for less than you would charge a gallery. Galleries invest time and effort into their sales, so they are typically unhappy to hear that you have been selling your work for much less.
Have faith in yourself and your abilities, regardless of how much of your work you sell or how new you are to the market. Buyers will rapidly figure it out if you don't. Insist on your pricing, listen to the buyer's response, and avoid any internal pressure to reduce it.
