Sell art supplies online

How to market art supplies on social media

Art is great for building a social profile because it lends itself to visual advertising very well. A visual social network like Pinterest or Instagram would be best for building an online presence. Remember that some social network demographics skew younger - so pick the social network that works best for your customers. You might consider expanding into more social networks as your business grows, but in the first stages it’s best to focus your attention on one social network.

When you start setting up your social media profile, you’ll want to research your niche extensively. Be on the lookout for the type of content that’s likely to generate engagement with your audience, the language your audience uses, and the style of posts in your audiences’ communities. Exploring hashtags and user profiles that cater to audiences similar to yours is a great way to learn about a niche. Pay close attention to the hashtags your audience uses and the types of posts they’re likely to share.

No one wants to follow an account that just posts ads. Remember that pushing your products to hard in the early stages of building your social profile might alienate some users and come off as shallow. It’s best to stick with building a following in the early stages of your business, and worry about selling later on. Exploring profiles, hashtags, comments, and posts from your intended audience is a great way to get a feel of the voice of your brand and the language you can use to connect with your audience. Above all though -- your content is what matters.

Building a devoted social media following takes time, but it will be worth the time it took to build when you start selling. There are easy-sounding shortcuts to getting followers but you want to avoid these for the most part. Put it this way - if it sounds too good to be true - it probably is. Tools like like-bots and fake follower accounts can give you high follower counts fast, but you’ll also risk triggering social media bots for spam detection. Plus these users rarely engage, so aside from the number of followers, there’s very little value to these followers.

Find art store suppliers and using drop-shipping to sell

There are some merchants out there who have the means to manufacture art products themselves. If you’re able to manufacture products - awesome! But if not, selling art supplies through a drop-shipper might simplify the process for you.

Drop-shipping is a business model where the storage and shipping of products is handled by a third-party company. This means that when customers purchase from your store, you supplier ships the product directly to them, on-demand. This is a great model for first-time entrepreneurs, since it allows you to focus your attentions and funds on marketing while letting someone else handle the shipping and storage.

With drop-shopping, even new entrepreneurs can expect high-returns, since they’re only paying for product after they’ve made a sale. This makes drop-shipping art supplies and low-cost, low-risk business idea that’s perfect for first time entrepreneurs.

Business Model

AliExpress has a large variety of art products, from painting supplies like easels, paints, and brushes - to water colours, pastels, pens, and paper. There’s also a wide variety of aesthetics to choose from, so make sure to pick a product variety that matches your niche.

Sets of paint-brushes can sell for varying prices with major retailers, depending on the types of brush being sold. On AliExpress, you can purchase paint-brush sets for less than $10.Selling these products at a markup of double the price, you can expect returns of around $10 for each sale.