Selling Art on Ebay part 4: Auction listings

Mother's Bed by TET
Acrylic on Canvas, 60x50cm
Sold on Ebay.

In this article of my Selling Art on Ebay Series I'm going to talk about auction listings by using one of my own completed art auctions as an example to give you some idea of the traffic your auction is likely to get. I'm then going to talk about a few important techniques to ensure your auction at least gets some attention.

My artwork, Mother's Bed (pictured on the right) is an acrylic on canvas stretched over a wooden frame, measuring 60x50cm . I listed it on Ebay in a five day auction that started on a Tuesday evening and ended on a Sunday evening. My opening bid was $45.00 with a buy now price of $119.00.

In general it's good if you can get your auctions to end on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday evening because a lot of people bid at the last minute and those evenings are when they are most likely to be at their computers.

Over the five days my auction received 80 views and there was a total of ten people watching the auction.

Ten watchers is actually quite exceptional for one of my auctions. Usually I average between three and five watchers - and that's usually only on my cat artwork auctions. If I list something that isn't a cat painting I'm lucky if I get one or two people watching it.

Although I received a good number views and ten watchers no one actually bid on the auction until the last hour on Sunday night. Late bidding is pretty common with most auctions. Most people bid at the last minute because they know that the price isn't likely to climb too high from multiple bids or if they get into a bidding war due to the limited time remaining.

You might think with 10 watchers the bidding would be pretty competitive with several of the watchers competing to buy my artwork. However only two people actually bid on my art and, between them, there was only four bids. The artwork sold for $61.05 which is just over half of what I was hoping to get with my buy now price.

For one of my auctions that's pretty good. If I get half of the buy now price then I'm fairly happy. I certainly made a profit on the materials used to make the artwork. A lot of times with my auctions it's the first bid that wins so if you like my art, simply be the first bidder on my Ebay auctions and there's a good chance you'll be the proud owner of that artwork by the close of the auction.

Having said that, my cat artworks are getting more popular and getting more watchers so, maybe over time I'll start to see more competitive bidding and higher prices. That, generally, is the goal with selling your art on Ebay. Create an interest in your work among Ebay buyers and have them determine your prices through competitive bidding.

The buyer of the artwork was someone who had previously bought one of my artworks - so could now be considered a 'collector'. This is the ideal buyer. They've already experienced your after sale service, know you'll deliver the work and have seen with their own eyes your original art's quality. They have none of the usual buyer pre-sale reservations and are only interested in hopefully buying more of your work.

Previously I've written an article that gives you 15 tips on how to improve your art auction listings on Ebay so rather than cover the same ground again I'll highlight a few key points from that article that are worth reinforcing.

Categories

There are a lot of people who browse categories. They have favorite categories so you want to make sure you capture the people that do that.

First, be absolutely sure that you've listed your art in the right category because, if you list in the wrong category, then you're leaving yourself open to people who make a living from buying things listed in the wrong catergory for a bargain price, then relisting them in the correct category and making a profit.

Obviously you don't want someone else to make a profit on your artwork so list it in the right category from the outset. The right category is one which best describes what your artwork actually is.

For me I usually list my artwork in two categories which gives me two areas where buyers might discover my art. Note that listing in two categories does double your auction fees. If you're not too worried about that then I would recommend you list in two categories.

I usually list my work in; Art - Self Representing Artists under the appropriate sub category that describes my work. People who are looking for emerging artists are likely to look in this category.

The other category I list in is more general; Art - Paintings. Again under the most appropriate sub category that describes my work. This will capture people who are just looking for paintings and aren't worried if the artist is self representing or not.

Keywords

The next thing I wanted to talk about - and this is even more important than categories - is the use of keywords to help your auction get found in Ebay searches.

The majority of people find what they're looking for on ebay through searches. Obviously they search for keywords.

In order to make sure your artwork turns up in their searches - and idealy you want it to turn up in the first page of their search - you need to choose the correct keywords that best describe what your artwork is.

There are two types of keywords. Primary and Secondary.

Primary keywords are the most generic keywords you can think of that still describe what your artwork is.

For my artwork, the primary keywords I used to describe it were; art, cat, painting.

If you think about people searching for paintings of cats on Ebay. What is the first thing they're likely to type in a search box? I believe they're most likely to type 'Cat Art' probably followed by 'Painting' if they wanted to eliminate sculpture and other non painted works.

The majority of searches are done on title alone so make sure your generic keywords are in your auction listing's title.

Secondary keywords are, again, generic words that describe your art but they're slightly more specific to your actual artwork.

Going back to my cat artwork a secondary keyword for that would be kitten because the artwork features a kitten. If someone is doing a search for kitten paintings then my artwork should show up in their results.

Wording Your Auction Title

One thing you shouldn't do with your auction titles is include the name of your painting if it doesn't literally describe your artwork in any sort of general sense.

For example say the kitten's name in my artwork was Jack and the painting was titled 'Jack's mother'. No one looking for cat art is going to type the words Jack or mother in a search for cat art. Which would mean you've wasted a couple of words in your title that aren't doing anything to get people coming to your auction.

However, the other trap not to fall into, is having an auction title that doesn't make sense because all you've done is fill it with keywords.

When people see your auction in their search results, if all you've given them is a bunch of keywords, then you've missed an opportunity to get people curious enough about your work to want to click into your auction listing its self.

Try to form your keywords into a sentence that may get people interested in the work you have on sale. If you've included all your keywords it's okay to fill the remaining space with words that help your title make sense. For example, I might list my Cat painting's title as:

"Art: Very Cute Cat Mother and Kitten Painting"

Notice the title has all my Primary and Secondary keywords and includes a few extra words so it makes sense and hopefully captures people's attention. Think of writing an auction title as kind of like writing a headline for a newspaper. The more attention grabbing whilst still including your keywords the better.

Gallery Listing

The last thing to add is that you are selling artwork. The best way to sell art is by showing it rather than describing it. I would strongly recommend is including a gallery image of your painting in search results. It will cost a little extra but I would say it is an absolute essential cost when listing art.



Those are the major points I wanted to talk about with regard to auction listings. Being in the right category, and choosing good keywords for your auction title are probably the two most critical.

This is the last in my ebay series but if you do have any further questions please use the comments below or send me an email.


Footnote: This article is based on part four of a series of Ebay videos that I created back in 2007 on my Youtube channel. The videos were ad-libbed and received much criticism for my slow delivery and monotone voice however, those that stuck with them, always commented that the information its-self was good. The above article updates the content of the video and hopefully better expresses what I was trying to say. (I've always said, at the time I had no enthusiasm for making the videos and wouldn't have made them at all if I'd actually done what I should have and scripted them properly). If you want you can watch the video here - don't say I didn't warn you and please refrain from leaving a comment... I already know!