Where to sell photos

[olshroom]

Ovewr the years I have accumulated many very good photos. If I wanted to offer them for sale where should I go to do that?​

 

[480sparky]

pixels.com

 

[olshroom]

pixels.com

Thanks Sparky. I will check it out..

 

[Allan]

Selling fine art prints is not easy. Many web sites have selling options. there are fairy’s and art shows where you can sell framed prints. selling prints is not easy.

 

[Randy]

Shutterstock . Com

 

[Mitchell]

Jim, what type of sales do you envision for your photos? If these are stock types of photos, Randy's suggestion of Shutterstock.com is a good one. If you are looking to sell some of your fine art prints for big money, that's a tough road on the internet and would likely be more productive on a local level through art shows or galleries.

 

[Cslucas34]

I have had success selling from a combination between Etsy, my website, and people messaging me directly on my instagram. Etsy seems to do well if you set it up correctly and learn how the algorithm works.

 

[Walter Rowe]

The challenge you will face is the deluge of other photographs and selling sites you compete with. How will people find YOUR pictures? Why will they choose YOUR pictures? I’m not being critical. I’m being honest. I have a Fine Art America page (pixels.com). I’ve sold a few prints. It has covered the cost of the account and little else.

If you create an online selling page on any of these sites, you also need to have a sustainable marketing strategy that will get your work in front of people and keep it there.

No marketing = no sales.

 

[Mike Buckley]

No marketing = no sales.

To expand on that, when I first created my Zenfolio website years ago featuring my photos of glass, I made the images available for sale. I priced the images rather high for three reasons: Relatively few photographers know how to photograph glass effectively so I also assumed relatively few images of glass are available for sale. Photographing glass properly can in certain circumstances take a lot longer than photographing other tabletop subjects. If anything became a hassle whatsoever in dealing with customers, I wanted the financial reward to be well worth the trouble. I made another important decision in the context that I had spent a career in sales and no longer wanted to do any more sales and marketing: if my photos didn't sell themlselves, I didn't want to sell them.

So, I also decided that I would try for one year to make the images available for sale. If just one image sold, that would likely cover the premium paid to Zenfolio for everything having to do with using their website to sell images. If no images sold in that first year, I would stop paying the premium to Zenfolio and instead use their least expensive plan that simply allows me to post images at their site.

I fully expected that no images would sell that first year. That's because my plan was to do absolutely no marketing for the reason mentioned above. I was right; no images sold in that first year and I shut down that aspect of the website.

 

[olshroom]

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions. It sounds like it could e a lot of work and perhaps hair-pulling to promote your photos. Thank you all again.

 

[Randy]

The hard part is getting viewers to see the pics

 

[480sparky]

I merely offer my work for sale. I don't do any more work than that.... put them up for sale. Yeah, I know, I should market my work. But it's just not worth it to me. I sell something once in a while, so I have a little bit of fun money.

 

[Randy]

I have been shooting high school sports for 16 years and sales have been good selling thru a company called MaxPreps. I wear a MP shirt while shooting and since the kids know about MP their parents find out. Free marketing. This is way more about marketing than photography.

 

[SteveK]

I am retired now, but I used to target book publishers, magazines, greeting card companies, calendar companies and sold through stock agencies around the world. Marketing was very important. I would put on a suit, and go to Washington DC and NYC every year, where I made appointments to see publishers. I would also visit my stock photo agencies.

 

[Panther]

In my experiences, a lot depends on what you shoot....
Amateur sports (wrestling for example) has lots of room for sales because the wrestlers all need promo shots in order to move up into the more mainstream leagues.
Minor league football, baseball, and basketball *can* generate sales provided that you find a good enough team that has been around for years...

The same goes for burlesque dancers - they need a good portfolio so that they will can get invited to more venues.