Thanks for checking out my awkward first blog post on my new website!
Basically I’m just going to kind of talk about what is going on and why I made some tough decisions regarding the future of my art business.
I have a few points I want to cover so that I dont get too off topic in this.
There are a lot of reasons for this but I want to summarize it with a few main points and then kind of leave it at that, both of these platforms are great and aught me a lot but they just aren’t for me any more.
The first reason is a very straight forward one, Money.
The first Consideration i had was to make my prints less expensive for my customers without sacrificing any profits (or even increasing my profits in many cases) and printful does just that with its much larger platform and far more competitive base pricing on products as well as having a very reputable customer service network for my customers if it is needed. Price was also the first factor when it comes to selling my original paintings, On Saatchi they charge a 40% Commission on sales meaning any prices need to be automatically increased by at least that much just to get the same Amount I would ask for normally now i am using now cuts out the middle man and allows for us to negotiate offers instead of setting a hard price on each piece.
The second reason, marketing.
Frankly it is very hard and awkward to try to market to multiple different sites with totally different audiences and niches and ultimately the sites dont really do much for someone like me with the technical ability to just do it all myself. given the analytics I have from Redbubble and Saatchi they both do a very poor job at helping to promote my content and have no real way for me to promote myself within their platforms meaning I was basically just giving them free advertising.
Third, less overall work
It takes a lot of time to create listings for products and then even more to promote them. I would rather do it on my own website where I have added in a ton of helpful integrations to make my life easier when it comes to maximizing my content and promoting it moving forward that these other sites just dont offer. the ability to add a new product have it automatically sync to third party marketplaces and social media is an unparalleled advantage and time saver.
there are ultimately two things that made me chose this route. the first one is slightly embarrassing and extremely frustrating but basically my old website has back end incompatibility issues with woocomerce and cannot use it for a store.
The second and totally real and not just the excuse i gave myself to get out of re building my old site from the ground up without a core feature is Branding.
honestly though all joking aside thefractalrealms.com just isn’t a very marketable website name for an artist and is literally just the name of my writing universe in URL form, it was never the best for branding my art anyway. for my writing series? Sure, but for my art its not really the best place to promote.
This means that all of my online presence will now be centered on one place, This website. Im still going to be active in all the normal places but this will be the Hub where all that activity comes from and directs to. Ultimately right now its just a blog and a store but since I’m the one developing the website it could really go anywhere. right now my main goal is to release my current body of work and then work on setting up a promotion system for new products but this is literally just the launch of my website so who knows where it will take us!
I added a blog as a last minute decision kind of on a whim, mainly as a place where I can ramble about things, mainly art, and use these posts as a springboard for content and community building. Do I know I’m probably just talking into the void? Yup
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