I have been wanting to get on more POD stores for a while. My main store of course is Fine Art America and my website directs to them. FAA is a great platform and there focus is mostly fine art prints of which have all been stellar and spot on color reproductions. I wanted to be able to print on more items though, and while FAA does have items like tote bags and throw pillows, it is still hard to get a following there. There are so many artists on FAA, that newcomers get lost in the crowd. I have done searches using my tags and still don't pop up in the searches, so I know it is going to be difficult to get found by the random buyer there. I do promote my site quite a bit and I attribute those random sales to that. Most of my sales there are custom commissions which I have printed through them because of the quality of the end product. That quality though comes at a price though and FAA isn't cheap. In fact their pricing may even deter some potential customers and their shipping is pretty expensive I find. I do like that I can have my own website through them and they have a lot of tools for marketing. Another nice thing about FAA is the uploading process is simple and efficient and I rarely have trouble with the website itself. Here is a link to my website that is linked to my FAA profile,
www.beckysdigitalart.com. One unique item that FAA has that the other PODs don't is the weekender tote bag,
http://beckysdigitalart.com/products/zentangle-inspired-art-wolf-colored-becky-herrera-weekender-totebag.html. It is a really cool larger tote bag that could double as a beach bag or overnight bag.
Moving on, the next POD I have been on for awhile is
Society6. Society6 caters to the younger crowd and has ton of different options for their product lines. While you can get your typical fine art prints at Society6, they really shine in the unique products that can have art printed on. They have t-shirts, hoodies, iPad, Phone and laptop cases and skins, mugs, tote bags, pillows throw blankets and more. They are also a bit cheaper, so it is easier on the budget. They have sales very frequently and also offer free shipping occasionally, which is a huge bonus. The profit margins are decent, but not spectacular. I do like that they recently revamped their uploading process because it used to be a huge pain uploading various resized and cropped images to fit the various products for sale. That being said, I have had huge issues with their site being randomly down, displaying incorrect pricing, not being able to upload or having all my tags and info disappear. I attribute this to the introduction of the new uploader, but I have had issues with incorrect pricing and not showing new items in the past. I still like Society6 and will continue to use them. I took a long time for me to get my first sale on their site, but it finally happened! Hopefully as I get more items up I will be found more easily in the searches.
Now on to the newest POD site I am on,
Red Bubble! I just set up an account with them a few days ago and have only uploaded a handful of images, but in that time, I have already had a sale! That is already a bonus for this site. I have also done searches for my items using the tags that I put on the art and low and behold, I come up in the searches and pretty high too on some products. That there is a huge bonus and hopefully will help sales. They have a ton of products available, such as hoodies, t-shirts bags and even dresses. Below are some samples of the products available already on my store. I will be uploading all my old artwork as well as new items in the coming weeks. It is so easy to upload and customize the different products and I have had pretty much no trouble at all with their site unlike Society6. There are many more products available and I will make the effort to have my art represented on each product the best I can. I already have a link to my Red Bubble store here on my blog, up in the menu bar next to Society6. There you can click on the various links to all the different products available. Pricing is good and they also offer frequent sales and free shipping. I have not yet purchased an actual product from them yet, but I will soon to test the quality and buyer experience. They do get good reviews and have a money back guarantee, so I am confident that the experience and quality will be great. Let me know what you think?
In the future, I have my eyes set on Zazzle, Imagekind, Cafepress, Threadless and a few other sites, but it will take time. I will update my experiences as I go. For now check out my
Redbubble,
Society6 and
Fine Art America sites and let me know what you think.
Thanks for stopping by!
--Becky Herrera
www.beckysdigitalart.com
