Let me start out by saying that the thoughts below are my own opinion. It is important for artists to make their own decisions about where/when to post their art. This is simply a reflection on how I came to my choice. This also could change in the future (and I will do my best to update in future posts if that happens).
I am going to start by responding to the comment that seems to come up most often when I mention where people can find my art.
YOU SHOULD POST THIS ON ETSY.
So, I should probably start by saying that I do have an Etsy Shop, which as of the date this is published in currently empty.
I actually tried Etsy first. It definitely was the most familiar site for artists and I was already familiar with it as a buyer, so it felt like the best choice. I ordered a bunch of stickers with my artwork on them from Moo.com – at first so I could put them on my water bottle – but after some encouragement from friends, decided to order more. Dear reader, I still have almost all of them (the only exception is my first batch which I sold to a friend).
Once I had the stickers in hand, I set about taking pictures, writing descriptions, trying to figure out keywords, etc. I also paid my fees for each item. As of August 2022, Etsy charges $0.20 USD per item, a 6.5% transaction fee, and 3% + $0.25 USD payment processing fee (there is also a fee for ads if that is how a buyer makes their purchase). So with much excitement, I put them out into the internet.
And nothing happened.
So I tried what any artist would do: I went to Youtube and the blogs trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. I watched and read for hours, then proceeded to change my keywords, re-take photos, and edit descriptions.
I thought maybe my products weren’t up to par (someday I would like to make my own stickers, but I would need a serious equipment upgrade). So I tried adding a few more products using Printful’s drop shipping option. This was pretty cool in that I could now add clothing items to my little shop in a variety of sizes. But it still felt pretty limited. So I again paid the posting fee.
And again…nothing.
Now there is a chance that I could maybe make a sale or two now because I have created a lot more designs and have tried becoming more active on Instagram, FB, and Twitter. But as an artist just starting out, I’m still not sure of that.
I also started my Etsy shop around the time they launched the Star Seller program as well, which felt like an enormous hill to climb as someone who was just starting out and creates art after working a day job.
So after this initial disappointment, though with a few fun prints of my art along the way while learning Printful, I decided to try something else. Which brought me to Redbubble.
WHY I CHOSE REDBUBBLE
So now we get to the heart of this post, namely why I chose Redbubble over the other sites. Here are a few of my reasons:
1. Familiarity
This was definitely the main reason at the time. I had bought items from Redbubble myself previously, including from other artists I followed online. And the quality was pretty good. Also when I started checking out other artists posts on Instagram and Twitter, Redbubble showed up fairly often in bio links or as an item posted to a feed. Thus, from my own experience and observations of others, it felt like a safe choice.
2. Ease of setting up
As someone who creates art for fun, I needed a place to post my art that was easy to work with. Setting up a Redbubble shop was really easy. The only real issue I ran into was that names are limited to 15 characters (so my Redbubble is FernheartDesign). And adding designs was really easy as well. I could quickly add art from my iPad and edit the design’s title, tags, and description. Additionally once I had some designs on the site, I could copy settings to speed up posting similar artworks.
3. Availability of Options
After my frustration with Etsy and how limited it felt, Redbubble by comparison gave me a lot more options to display my designs on without a lot of extra work (or cost). After uploading a new design, I could add it to clothing, hats, bags, accessories, decor, and more. For each product type, I could edit the size/position of the image, along with background color and pattern for many products. I could choose which products I felt the design worked well on and those it did not. And this process was not time consuming. And since I have opened my Redbubble shop, the site has added new options for products and adding them to existing designs in super easy.
4. Cost
Not the biggest consideration for me, but cost definitely played a role. It was free to set up my Redbubble shop. Posting new art cost me nothing. I wasn’t charged for each new product type I wanted to offer my design on. And when adding a new design, you can select what you want your profit to be at (I think the default is 20%, which is typically what I aim for).
WHY I DON’T HAVE MY ART ON OTHER SITES
The answer to this really related to the reasons I already discussed. I don’t want to pay money to sell my work beyond what it costs to manufacture the items. I’m not as familiar with sites like Society6, Cafepress, and FineArtAmerica, which I know artists use, though I may expand to others someday. And where I am in my life right now, the idea of learning another website feels intimidating.
Though honestly, if I was to try something else, I would love to sell designs on my own website or in local shops. And if/when I make that shift, I will be sure to update on the process.
Fernheart Designs 