Do you happen to be an artist or someone who’s looking to buy art or some wall decor? For creatives, the days of having to schlep all your artwork from brick-and-mortar gallery to store, just to sell a few prints, are long gone. Today buyers and sellers from all across the world meet in virtual marketplaces to exchange creative work like paintings, prints, photography, digital art, t-shirts and just about any other design you can imagine.
So where should you go to buy or sell art online?
1:Amazon
Amazon is a place to buy and sell pretty much anything, and it’s one of the largest e-commerce platforms out there. The Amazon Art section features some of the best paintings, prints, photography, drawings and mixed media on the Web. The site also has experts from art, fashion and design share their favorite picks in the the Amazon Art Collections.
2: eBay
On eBay merchants compete over various product offerings like electronics and sporting goods. eBay has a popular collectibles and art section where you can find antiques, art, coins, comics, sport memorabilia and other collectibles. The eBay blog is also worth keeping up with if you are active in the marketplace, use its PayPal payment service or are interested in other related tech and startup news.
3: Etsy
Etsy is one of the greatest creative marketplaces online for buying and selling art and other unique goods. On Etsy you can set up your own store to sell your designs, paintings, sculptures, photography, prints and additional artwork. Also, if you’re lucky, your art or shop could be featured in the Etsy blogleading to a ton of new exposure and likely sales. The Brooklyn-based company has also recently reorganized its business structure into a B corporation, a new style of for-profit company that looks to address the impacts of its decisions on the social and environmental settings surrounding them.
4: DeviantArt
The world’s largest online art community, deviantART, showcases over 285 million pieces of art from over 31 million registered users and art enthusiasts. The site was founded back in 2000 and now attracts over 65 million unique visitors per month. DA is a great place to find interesting digital art, photography, film, animation, comics, anime, stock images and more. deviantArt also has one of the most popular Tumblr blogs, and you can submit your art for consideration and massive exposure – if you’re lucky enough to make the cut.
5: 500px
500px is an amazing photo sharing community and marketplace that was started back in 2011. The popular section has a stunning stream of new photography accompanied by the hand-selected editor’s picks. We’ve covered several photographers from 500px like astrophotographer Aaron J. Groen and surrealist George Christakis.
6: Zazzle
Zazzle is a marketplace for buying and selling custom art, clothes, electronics and other products that started in 2005. The Zazzle “Make Engine” is a tool and marketplace for customizing just about anything you can imagine from posters to t-shirts to coffee mugs. You can keep up with interesting designs and artist’s on the Zazzle blog.
7: Cafepress
Do you like to drink a lot of coffee? Cafepress is a place to buy and sell awesome mugs and other drinkware along with t-shirts, stationary and wall art. You can find some snappy iPhone cases too if you need that kind of protection. I also like to keep up with CafeStyle, the CafePress blog about designers, trends, product spotlights and deals.
8: Redbubble
Redbubble is an art gallery and community for wall art, clothes, cards, iPhone cases and other customizable stuff. The Redbubble blog is also always filled with awesome design inspiration, tutorials, artists’ interviews and other eye candy.
9: Fine Art America
Do you consider yourself a fine art connoisseur? If you’re looking for museum quality prints, canvases, frames, acrylics, metal prints and other poster materials, check out Fine Art America. The site helps you create a business around your art and photography by printing and assembling your orders while handling all the packaging, shipping and everything needed to get your art to the customer.
10: Creative Market
The Creative Market is a sellers platform for handcrafted design content from independent creatives from around the world. The site includes photos, graphics, fonts, web templates, CMS solutions and blog themes like for WordPress.
11: Threadless
If you’re looking for some hip threads for the summer, this is your place for fresh t-shirts, hoodies, tank tops and more. Artists can also sell prints on high quality gloss paper or canvases. The Threadless Tumblr blog is a great source of design inspiration. There, stay tuned for the design competitions where you can submit your own work for extra exposure.
12: Society6
Society6 is a place to find and sell creative art and fashion for men, women and children. The site has some cool art, also featured on the Society6 blog, including framed prints, stretched canvases and some awesome wall clocks.
But did I really just spend 30 bucks just so Bill Murray can tell me the time, dressed up as a general?
So which site should you visit? Depending on your work or the type of art you’re after, each network has its unique specialties. deviantArt, for example, is great for digital artists. 500px is the place to be for photographers right now And if you’re going to make a coffee mug, how could you not release it on CafePress?
If you’re looking to sell your artwork, you should consider using several of these platforms simultaneously to give yourself as many opportunities and potential revenue streams as possible per collection. In the digital age, you can really take advantage of this while marketing the same content to larger audiences and testing the waters of multiple online marketplaces. If you become famous, that’s when you could make your collections more exclusive as demand for your artwork increases!
