Transcripts
1. Welcome to Art Sales On Autopilot: Hello and welcome to art sales on autopilot. A step by step course, We're setting up your own online business selling your art prints with help from a print partner. I'm so excited to be along with you on this journey of selling your are in this automated way in this class, we're gonna cover everything you need to know about this. We'll talk about choosing and buying a domain name, whether you want a blogger or not, to blawg choosing a print partner, which is really important preparing your image files and file organization, using mock ups in your shop, choosing where to sell, Shopify versus etc. In this case, and depending on where you decided to sell, I'll go over step by step, setting up a shop with Shopify, setting up a shop on Etsy, and I'll give me some bonus materials about promoting your new shop. And I realize now that I forgot one other module that we have in their module nine, which is tying your shop together with your blood or website. Oh, who am I? Hi, I'm Jewel Stillman. I'm an artist and creative coach, helping people just like you make a living online before we get started, though, I do want to encourage you to follow the steps in these lessons. As I've outlined them, you might be so excited that you want to jump ahead and say, Start your shop if I shop right away. But Shopify gives you 23 weeks before you have to start paying the monthly fee, so I want you to be completely prepared to get your shop up and running before those two weeks end. Who knows? Maybe you'll even have a sale before that. Two weeks is over. It happened to me the second time I opened the shop if I shop simply because I was prepared in advance. But there are lots of other smaller reasons why I have put these lessons together in the order that they are, and that is because each one is meant to build upon the last. So in the end, you have your own powerful automated shop selling your art when it's all done. Which reminds me your class project is to set up a shop with at least one art print you're selling with this automated method. So let's get to it. Shall we
2. Lesson 1: Choosing & Buying a Domain: all right, I'm super excited to get started. So for this lesson, we are going to talk about buying. I don't mean. And even if you already have a domain, you might want to go ahead and listen to this lesson because I'll be talking about it in regards to social media and what not to. But if you feel pretty secure about all that, then you can go ahead and skip this lesson. So if you don't have a domain, the first thing you want to do is choose a new domain name for yourself. Now I'm hoping that your top choices available as a domain and on the social media platforms you'll be using. For example, if you want to buy Fox and Philly dot com, and you want to use Instagram and Pinterest as your two main forms of social media to promote your business, you want to make sure that Fox in Philly are available on those platforms as well. Unfortunately, thes days that doesn't happen very often, but we'll talk about what you would do in that case. So don't worry too much. For now. Let's just bring storm some ideas. So one option is choosing a domain that's your name or a variation of your name. I own both jewels Tillman and Julie Tillman, because my birth name is Julie, but most of my friends call me jewels. But when I first started to sell our online, Julie Tillman was not available, so I decided to go with joyful studio dot com. Joyful Studio was also the name of my Etsy shop. At that time, I was also able to get joyful studio as an instagram handle. And my Facebook page, which were the social media, is that I was using most at that time. If you want to use your name and it's already taken, you can do a few things. So if your name is not available, you could do a variation of it like I did Jules instead of Julie, you could add your middle initial. You could add studio or art at the end, at artist at the beginning or some other creative version of your name. You could also come up with a studio or business name. If you're going to come up with a studio or business name, I suggest mind wrapping its Superfund and very effective and you'll come up with a variety of ideas around a certain subject in this case, your business, her studio or domain name. You generally start in the middle with your first idea and then come up with ideas from there. So in the end, our mind map may look, it looks something like this. So say, for instance, I specialize in horse art. That's my main idea. But I also like to make some dog art to. I connected that. And so I just come up with different names that I could think of that I would like around this horse Art and Argha art idea. I also specialize specifically in Mustangs, so I come up with ideas about that. I'm saying I I don't actually specialize in horse art, but this is just for an example, and this is really just the beginning. You could go on and on, making many more circles and coming up with many more ideas. You can also use a tool like Shopify, its business name generator, which I've also linked to you in the class handout. But it still helps to do some brainstorming and or mind mapping first when you've decided on a domain name, you'll have to check to make sure it's available. Depending on where you're buying it from, you can use a few different websites. First, let's talk about buying a domain with name cheap for most people taking this course, I do recommend that you buy a domain with name cheap. They offer Super of affordable website hosting. You can get started for as little as under $16 a year, and it can work with all the different shop options I'm going to recommend in future lessons. So as a new user when you use the link in the class handout buying, Hosting with named Cheap offers monthly hosting. Like I said, starting as low as a dollar 28 per month or 15 44 year first year, you actually get a free domain when you by hosting with name cheap, it offers the greatest flexibility for your website. It is slightly more techy than Shopify, but you also get more power, more capability and really control over your site. Obviously, you have the ability to add a wordpress dot org's website or Blawg theme, and like I said, the ability to get that free domain or you could transfer the one that you already own. I would say that name cheap is for the slightly more advanced, and we're willing to learn user. But in the long run, buying your domain on name cheap well, rather, buying your hosting with name cheap and getting that free domain and and selling WordPress will allow much more flexibility and control over your site. You'll be able to set up your website and or blawg and your shop and start your own email list and being control of your search engine optimization and so much more. Even if the idea scares you a little bit, I still recommend buying your domain via named cheap or rather your hosting I keep. I wrote it down as domain, but it's really your hosting and you're getting that domain for free. But anyway, for your little nervous, don't worry, I'll be there to walk you through it. So now let's talk about buying a domain with Shopify really quick. If buying hosting via named cheap with a free domain and setting up WordPress website sounds overwhelming to you, I was suggest just buying your domain with Shopify and using their themes and site alone, but just know that there really are some disadvantages. While Shopify does offer themes with blawg options, they're not very S c o friendly, which means it will be harder if not impossible, to get ranked on Google. Shopify is excellent at what it's meant to be a shop for your Web site, but it's not as great as an altogether shop website. Blawg, etcetera. Shopify also charges $14 up just for your domain name. It will say that the one advantage it has over named Cheap is that it's simpler and all in one place. So if you're really knew, it might be just fine to start right there. If right now you're feeling as confused as this witchy woman in a green house seems to be, don't worry. First of all, you don't have to decide this minute whether you're gonna go with Shopify or name cheap or both for your domain and hosting. I'll let you know exactly when you have to have your deal main purchased, and that's not right now, and I'm going to walk you through all of it anyway. So really, I would just recommend using name cheap to get started. You can you Shopify with name cheap, beautifully to, as I'll cover later, so let's just get to the next lesson for a nap.
3. Lesson 2: To Blog or not to Blog: so soon you'll have that new domain. And as I see it, there are three general things that you can do with it. You can simply set it to redirect to your shop. Then, when someone types in or clicks, you know a link. Teoh www dot your domain name dot com Whatever it might be, it will take them directly to either your etc or your shop if I shop and that's super easy to set up with. Name cheap. There's also a way to set that up within Shopify itself. Or you can create a simple website with an about page, a way for people to sign up for your email newsletter. You can provide some contact information, your artist's statement, maybe have a gallery or portfolio with some of your art and a link to your etc or Shopify shops, of course. And then you could also do all of the above. And at a blawg. There are advantages and disadvantages to starting a blawg, and I want to get really, really with you about them. Truthfully. One of the cons is that having a blawg is a commitment you'll have to decide to write posts consistently at least twice a month once a week would be even better if you're not gonna post consistently. Most experts agree it's just not worth doing, so you have to be honest with yourself whether or not you want to commit to that. If you think you have no idea what you could write on a block post, I will link to my list of 50 to bog post ideas for artists in the class. Hand out so you will at least have one year's worth of posts or two years if you only post twice a week. I'm sorry. Twice a month, another con. There will be a learning curve if you've never blogged before. I remember when I first started using WordPress that first weekend, I literally cried. I yelled, Failed on my husband. Poor guy. He was like, Why are you being so mean to me? Oh, it was awful, and I really I truly just about gave up, and I'm typically a very calm and centered person. I mean, I cry it commercial sometimes, but this was not the same thing, and I definitely don't yell, but thank goodness for you, Tube and all the people willing to create tutorials for us beginners. Now I love WordPress and I wouldn't use any other platform. And considering it only took a weekend and if I could have had a better mindset, it really wouldn't have been that bad. I think I was just fighting something, learning something new, which is weird, because I really do love learning new things. Anyway, one more con. There is possibly an extra expense up front. Yes, you can get a free WordPress block theme, but if you want to stand out from the crowd, you might want to invest somewhere between maybe 20 and $170 in a nice, responsive blawg team. I have a list of many different themes in the class. Hand out just to give you some ideas of where to find them, what to look for, etcetera. One more con. You might not think you're a great writer and, well, quite frankly, you might be right. I don't want to discourage anyone based on their writing skills, because, for one thing, I think it's something using it better at over time. If you commit to it. I know I have, but also you're an artist, so your block posts could be really image heavy and text light. It's your blawg. You can do it however you'd like. So don't let that fear deter you too much. Now let's talk about the pros. One pro that I think is probably the most important. It's another way to promote your art. Do you have a new body of work? You can block about it and then pin it to Pinterest and shared on Twitter and Instagram, etcetera. Each image of your new work can be linked back to its shop listing to right there from your blog's another pro. It's a great way to put connect with your potential patrons. Plus, people love to get to know the artist they buy from. So by letting them into your life and your art practice through your blog's, you're allowing them to get to know you. It's great for S e O a. K. A. Search engine optimization. If you want your art and website at the top of search engines, one of the best things you can do is to regularly add content to your site. A blogger is a great way to do that. You should learn a little bit about Seo, like naming Italian your images properly, using keywords in your titles and text, etcetera. But it's not hard, especially when you're just doing the basics, which is all you really need. Another pro. Blogging is great for practicing, talking and or writing about your art. While you may already have an artist statement, writing on your block can expand and why, or how you make what you make Writing block posts that talk about the meaning behind your art is a perfect way to really hone. How to express what you're aren't means another pro is that you can promote your shows, events and mawr on your art. Blogged Your art Bog is a great place to promote everything from upcoming shows, podcast interviews, mentions in the media, art fairs, mentions or interviews on other blog's pop up sales gift guides. You been featured in etcetera, and finally, lying is a great way to make more sales, because everything I mentioned above helps you get more traffic to your site and more eyes on what you make. It only makes sense that having a blawg can also mean getting more sales up your art Now you can blawg on either a name, cheap slash wordpress website or a Shopify shop, but not if you Onley go with etc. Of the two name. Cheap of WordPress offers way more power and flexibility than than Shopify because it wasn't meant to be a blawg. It's meant to be a shop site. The good news is you can use your name cheap and WordPress website for your website and blawg and connect it with either Shopify or etc. As your shops and really link them together. In reality, you can use both the Shopify and etc with your name, cheap slash wordpress website. But I recommend starting with one or the other. I mean, this is already sort of overwhelming as it is. To start with two would just be too much, but you can always add a second shop down the road. That's what I did. I started on etc. And then I started. I created my Shopify shop later. I do know this is a lot to take in, but what do you think? Are you going to blogged about your art? If so again, I recommend getting the name cheap and Wordpress website and then connecting it to whichever shop you choose or both in the end. Either way, in the next module, we're gonna talk about choosing a print partner who will print and ship your art for you. This will end up being the autopilot part of the art sales on autopilot. Hey.
4. Lesson 3: Choosing a Print Partner Final: So in this lesson, we are going to be covering choosing a print partner. These are the companies that automatically sync your products in your etc. And or Shopify shops with their APS. And so when you get an order, they will print and then ship all of those orders automatically on your behalf. It's awesome. Now I'm going to get really, really here for a minute. There are so many different printers that will print and ship your work for you. I started with print fall, but thought maybe they were too expensive. Or maybe there was just a better company out there like it wasn't just the price, but maybe the quality would be better somewhere else or the different products that someone else might offer. So I began this literally dizzying journey of comparing all of the print partners I could find. I looked at the price I would have to pay to get the items made versus how much I could sell them for. I looked at shipping prices. I looked at the ability to white label shipments so they look like they're coming directly for me rather than the print partner. I looked at production times the variety of items, the quality of items. I ordered samples from at least seven different places. I looked at how they integrated to the integrate with shops like Shopify and Etc. And on and on. I swear, every day I'd say to myself, Well, this place has higher product costs, but they're shipping is lower. These people make prints for dirt cheap, but they're shipping. Prices are insanely overpriced. I like this company because they offer printing on so many items. But will I ever even try to sell? Those things may be keeping it simple is better and around and around I would go, I will say that the one thing I found was that the quality of Prince and Prince on campus were all pretty similar. So at least I didn't have that to worry about. In the end, I just stayed with printable. I feel like overall print full offers me the most bang for my buck. The quality of both the prince and campus are wonderful. The integrate with Shopify, etc. And many other e commerce platforms. If I ever want to go at another platform in the future, they have print fulfillment centers on both coasts in the U. S. And one in Europe, bringing down the cost of shipping and speeding up shipping times. They make it super easy for users like you and I to upload and seller work passively. And from what I can tell, they realize that the more we succeed more, they succeed. And they're doing just about everything we can to make it easy to choose to work with. Um, like other print fulfillment centers I'm going to discuss later. Print ful will print your art and designs on a variety of products. They're adding new products all the time. They also offer sales on products. But as right as of right now, they print on things that campus two types of paper shirts, hats, mugs, totes, leggings, pillow socks, phone cases, dresses, skirts, baby onesies and mawr. But I realized that print full won't be the right fit for everyone. For one reason or another, you might want to go a different direction or just look at the other options yourself. I get that having been down that rabbit hole myself. So here are a few of my other favorite printed partners that you might want to consider art of where was probably my second choice, and it was a tight race. I like a couple of the products that they offer. Printing on that print full doesn't, so I may actually use them for specialty items from time to time. But that's the cool thing about Shopify and etc. And we'll cover this in a future module. But you can have some items fulfilled by printable and others by art of where or another print partner, for that matter. It gets a little tricky with shipping and whatnot, but it is doable. Print Aura was another front runner in my mind. The only downsides for me personally were that they only printed on posters. No higher quality wall. Our options price for price, including things like shipping, adding shipping labels, etcetera. They compare pretty evenly with print, full and art of wear. I like that they shipped from the USA and Canada, keeping shipping costs down in those countries, and they do use some sustainable materials, which I really appreciate. Speaking of sustainability, some local print shops might also be able to offer this type of partnership. More than likely, you won't be able to set it up so that selling with them is more passive or automatic, like the after mention companies. But if the idea of working locally and maybe more sustainably appeals to you more than the automation part, you could look into this for sure as an alternative. Okay, let's go on to the next lesson.
5. Lesson 4: Preparing Files and File Organization: all right. Here we are in part for preparing files and file organization. If you've offered prints for sale before, you might not even need this module. But I thought I'd go over some of my own practices because after doing this for several years now and finally getting a system in place that works seamlessly for me, I thought I would share it with you. Pleasant. Want to cover some of the images you'll need for your shop? So let's get to it. First of all, whether I'm scanning or photographing work, I always try to get the highest dp I as possible. I like ah 600 dp i as a bare minimum. Once that images on my computer, I save a copy of the original untouched image in a separate folder on my external hard drive, where it never gets touched. This is an emergency backup only because I've lost other artwork in the past, either. By forgetting to save a high DP I copy or just by sheer forgetfulness, deleting on accident etcetera, let me tell yet it's the pits. So then another copy of that original goes into my working folder. Once there, I edit the image if needed to be as clean and print ready as possible. I keep that large copy for print ful, and I create a small, low resolution like 72 DP I version for sharing on the Web. I also insert that low rez image version into a variety of mock ups that display my art rooms into frames, etcetera. We're going to get big into using mock ups in the next module, so don't worry about that too much yet. We'll get to it once I have that set of images ready to go to another folder titled Ready to List. I can't always do the editing and listing in the same day. Plus, I like to work in batches so this system works for me inside that same ready to list folder , I have another folder titled listed on Etsy. So on those listing batch days, once I've listed it on Etsy, I simply move that group of images into the listed on Etsy folder. Now inside the listed on Etsy folder. I have another folder called listed on jules tillman dot com. After I list on S E. I also list my art on my own website in my shop. If I shop and once those listings are complete, the images again are moved into this last folder. Once all the images are in that last folder, I know they've gone through the entire process from editing to listing, and they're basically done. Ultimately, I love to have my working ready to list and listed on Etsy folders empty so that everything is totally complete. Of course, you know it's not always the way, but just to give you a mental image. And if you feel like this flow would work for you, feel free to use it. So just as a final reminder to prepare for opening your shop, whether it's etc, or Shopify or both, I suggest you start preparing at least 10 images of artwork that you'll want to sell in your shop. For each of those images, you'll want to have that high resolution image for print ful only. You don't want to put that out on the Internet for someone else to be able to just print off and, um, basically steel, and then you'll want a low resolution image for your shop, something small under 1000 pixels by 1000 pixels, probably under 800 pixels. That's like 72 dots per inch, plus 2 to 8 and walk ups for each artwork that you plan to sell. And at least one, if not more, or even all of the mock ups should really be print Pinterest friendly, meaning tall and narrow. Pinterest likes images 600 by 900 or really that 2 to 3 ratio and then eventually you will need some other images for your shop, like a logo. Some headers, your profile picture, etcetera. You can hold off on these for now because the list of the actual images that you'll need and the sizes that you'll need will vary depending on where you actually choose to sell. And then even within Shopify, which team you use. Just keep in mind that they will need to be created and are available to you when you open your shop. And that is something that you can outsource if you don't feel comfortable doing all right on to the next lesson.
6. Lesson 5: Using Mockups: okay, in this section, we are going to talk about using markets. Print will has, um, basic but decent product markups. I will admit some are better than others, in my opinion. Um, but using mock ups with more variety and scenes from places like Creative Market or possibly even better, using your own photography can help your customers or potential customers have a better idea of the size is that you offer and how your art might look in their homes. I kind of laugh at myself and wince at myself for the voters that I used to use in my etc. Listings. When I started selling art there in 2011 I actually signed up for etc. And 2009. But between a move to a new city I'd never been to before and being a new single mom and working and going to college. I didn't actually list anything on etc. For the first couple of years. But anyway, I would just use the camera on my tiny iPhone three. I think it waas and definitely over filter all the images in like true instagram fashion and then save them to my computer and list them on, etc. Like that, they were a hot mess. Here's some proof. I still really love these illustrations, but all the filters and black border just make me gag now. I thought it was so cool back then. But anyway, before that, I actually sold my art on eBay, which is really another head scratcher. But I would actually just scan the art or take a photo with my cheap digital camera. But even with the scanned work, I didn't think to create small, low resolution images to prevent people from just grabbing them and printing them themselves. I've learned and grown since then, as we all dio, thankfully. And while I do include a low resolution, small version of my art and all of my listings, whether on Etsy or my Shopify shop. Now I like to include images of my art in actual rooms. So in this example of my painting reflection, Prayerful has simply used the image I supplied for the print in a smaller format that populates directly into my shop. When I create a listing within print bowl onto etc. Or to my Shopify shop, it doesn't look mocked up at all, but they do have mock ups that I can go on, grab from their site and populate myself. But what I did and said was I went and bought a set of room mock ups from creative Market alling to create a market in the lesson. Pdf. But anyway, um, like in this middle example, I placed my painting soft memories in one so that people can really imagine how one of my prints might look in their homes. Creative market has a huge variety of rooms, styles, dimensions, layouts and mawr in their mock ups, which is why I like them so much. And in that links pdf. I've included several different types of mock ups. Now on the right. My friend and fellow artist Adri Luna had a photographer shoot pictures of what she calls Artzt relations their tiny watercolor paintings that you can actually move around in your home and create your own art with, um, it's really cute, but yeah, she had a photographer shoot the pictures in the home of a friend, especially with art that is not one of a kind. It's nice to take a photo or several photos and show them in homes like this, but it can get pricey. You could maybe do it yourself or do a trade with a photographer or something like that. But it would definitely be worth the investment if you're gonna sell something over and over again. But whether you're using mock ups or shooting your art in someone's home, your own or someone else's, you want to make sure that your art fits well in the style of the home or the room that it's in and that it's on brand for your shop and for you as an artist. In case you've never used mock ups before, I'm going to quickly demo two different types. There's just regular J pegs and then a smart objects, and I think you'll see why it's better to pay a little bit more for mock ups with smart objects. But you will need photo shop for that. Let's get to it. Okay, so first I'm going to show you how easy it is to you use a mock up with smart objects. So this is a mock up with a smart object, which is this frame over here, and all I have to do is go in, grab my artwork. I just select all and copy it and then double click on this area here that says your design . A new section pops up now. As you can see, my artwork is bigger than that image. But I just hit control T PC to transform it and just make it fit. That's right, and then hit Save and Bala. It's right there in the frame. Super easy. So now I'm going to show you a mockup that does not have a smart object. I love this image. It's great. I want my art in that frame. In this case, I just again select all copy my art. Just paste it right on top. Now I have to just sort of finagle it toe fit. And as you can see, my art is not the exact to mention. So I'm just gonna do the best that I can as close as I can. Scoot over. Come on. Now that that's done, this is how I do it. And there may be other ways to do it, but I just dio a little box over it where I think that the frame was at and you could actually lower the fill of a slayer to see. I got pretty good, and then I select inverse and then I just simply erase the outside. Go back, click on it and I mean, it looks nice, but it was more work. And if there's any sort of angle or anything like that, it can get even trickier so you can see why I like the mock ups with smart objects. Better so, as you can see, I think mark ups are an amazing and really affordable tool, especially if you don't have the space to properly photograph your work. I also love them because you couldn't better brand your shop when you buy a collection of images that all go together on etc. When you're creating a listing, you have at least 10 image spots to fill, and on Shopify, it's virtually limitless. You could have a ton. I've never actually hit a limit of how many images I could include anyway. So this is also a great way to show your art off and in a variety of settings. And yes, there are some free art markups out there online, and that could be a great place to start, especially when you're first starting out, but I do prefer to my mind so I can keep. My shop is branded as possible. And as I mentioned before, Prayerful does offer some free mock ups when you use their services. So that's nice. But I do want you to keep in mind that they are pretty basic in. Then all the other print full users might be using them to, so your shop could look exactly like someone else's shop. And you run the risk of that with the other mock ups, too. So it's not that terrible again. As I mentioned before, I put together a few mock up collections that you might find useful and to help you really stand out from the crowd. I've got a collection from interiors like bedrooms, living rooms, offices, etcetera to kids rooms, minimal mock ups and, like poster and frame mock ups. And they're all in the lessons. Pdf. And each collection has at least 20 different options for you, and I'm adding to them all the time, so hopefully you can find something to fall in love with
7. Lesson 6: Choosing a shop Shopify vs Etsy: all right. Here we are in less and six. And the funny thing about this lesson I planned it all out and then etc. Went and changed up everything on me, but it was for the better. So it will be a little bit different than I originally intended, but in a good way. Also, there are tons of places you can sell art passively online. And I've included some lists in the cost. Pdf. But in my opinion, etc. And Shopify are your two best choices for where to sell your art prints on autopilot. And here's why. When I first wrote the Shopify versus Etc Lesson, it was really one versus the other. Now it's more of ah, they are both grade, so choose the one that's best for you right now, just like these adorable babies. PS Can I find these little outfits in my size, please? But seriously, to give you a couple of highlights etc. Makes it easy to get started. It's super affordable. In fact, when you use the link in the class handout, you'll get your 1st 40 listings free if you're starting a shop for the first time and they offer millions of built in buyers. People are coming toe, etc. To shop every single day. Shopify also makes it easy to get started. And because your shop will be housed on your own website, it looks very professional and branded. You can't do that with that. See, it does have an upfront cost, but you can at least get a 14 day free trial, which is more than enough time to get your shop up and running when you use the link in the class handout. But both at Sea and Shopify integrate easily and beautifully with print fall. So that's a win win back to my story about when I was first planning this lesson that's he actually did not integrate with brimful. And so that was a huge game changer, and it kind of levels the playing field a little bit. I still think that Shopify is more professional, but when you're just getting started as he's fine and whether you go with Shopify or etc. Either way, you'll need to learn a little bit about S E O or search engine optimization to help people find your shop. And like I said before, I actually think that you should consider having both on etc and the Shopify shop. But start with just one. Build that one up and then add the second shop later because it's a lot of work. I know that it will take some time and by the way, I have a class about listing your products on etc. In a way that I highly recommend. It will help you with that s e o factor. So my question for you is this which one would be a better place to start your online art shop? Right now, the answer will be different for everyone, but at this point, it kind of comes down to do you want etc. Is built on shoppers. If you already have a large end or loyal following, you may not need that. Or do you want to be a bit more professional and sell on your own website? If you already work with galleries or agents, Shopify might be the better place to start. No matter what your decision, though, in the next module I'm going to help go in depth into setting up your shop. If I shop to sell on autopilot and following that, I'll show you how to get it set up and at sea, both with print full, of course. So when or if you do open a second shop later on, it will be super easy. And you can always come back to these lessons and review okay, on to the next lesson.
8. Lesson 7: Setting up a shop with Shopify: Okay, So in this lesson, we are going to walk through step by step, how to set up your shop if I shop so that it sells passively with print full to me, this is the really exciting stuff. But first, remember what I said. You didn't have to have your domain chosen yet. Well, now is the time that you need it. Because whether you're opening a shop with Shopify or etc, you'll want your shop name on either one of those platforms to be the same as your domain name if at all possible, minus the dot com, of course. Okay. Onto the lesson. First, I just want you to be sure to use the link. Pdf to get Shopify free for the 1st 14 days. In order to sign up, you will need to have your shop name chosen and then just fill out the normal information that Shopify asks you for. You won't need a credit card to sign up for the free trial, which is nice. And from there you can start to customize your store and add your domain if you want Teoh. But you don't have to worry about that stuff quite yet. Your next step is to use the print ful link and pdf to set up your free printable account. Remember, print Full only charges you when you actually get order so it's completely free to have an account there. So now that you have both accounts, log into both in different tabs and first go to your print full dashboard and click on the store's button towards the top. Once there, scroll down to the bottom and click the button that says Connect to an e commerce platform , then choose Shopify, and that will actually open the Shopify App store, which looks like this from the Shopify App store. Click on that big green get button and Shopify will ask you for your shop girl the name that you chose. When you sign in with that, it will look like this. Once you've flogged in simply, click on the install App button. Then you'll be taken back to print full, where you will confirm the connection. You may need to sign into print full again to do that, but typically, if you're logged into both to begin with, you shouldn't have to re log in. Now that will take you back to Shopify again. You get thrown back and forth a couple of times here, but that will take you back to Shopify, where you can actually start adding items to your shop. It's so exciting, and actually you can add items from from within Shopify or from print full itself. So that's pretty cool. Now that you have Shopify imprint Full Sing DUP. This is where the work you did in advance organizing and preparing all of your images and mock ups comes in handy. With all those images, you can start adding your new items to your shop right away. Of course. First, you'll want to decide on what you're printing on like posters, high quality prints, campus or even some of the other products and how you'll price them. I personally chose to sell a variety of 3 to 5 high quality print sizes. Three. If the image my art image was square and five, if they are more rectangular and I have set prices for each size that allows profits that I'm comfortable with based on the art and the fact that it is a print, I find that more than five size options can actually feel overwhelming to both the buyer and the seller. But I do mention that other sizes may be available in my listing descriptions. In case they do, you want to buy a different size and I say maybe available, because if someone wants a really large print, I might not have an image of that art that is at a high enough dp I in order for me to sell it in a really large size but usually ideo, I just don't want them to think that they couldn't get it in any size they want and still have the same high quality anyway, when you are adding your products to your shop, whether on Shopify or etc. Remember to use keyword rich descriptions so that those descriptions not only help you get found in search, but they actually also help you sell your art. In Shopify, you could actually name the images with all tags, and that helps with the search engine optimization to so I'll demo that really quick. Okay, so I am in my Shopify dashboard editing a product that I have in my shop. If I shop and if you scroll down, you'll see that I've added several different images with mock ups. But another thing that you can do is when you hover over each image, you'll see this little Ault tag there. Just click on that, and within that you're gonna want to write a keyword rich description of your artwork. So for mine, I've included the name of the artwork, my name and then some key words that don't really make a sentence so much as just a list of keywords. So I wrote abstract painting, fine art print modern abstract watercolor painting. White, soft, pink, black minimal. Now you can write it in a more conversational style, and I think that that's a good idea to you, because whatever this says is what is going to populate when someone pins your artwork onto Pinterest? That's what will automatically populate there anyway. They may change the description, and you can also change the description if you're pinning it yourself, which I highly recommend. So instead I might write something like modern abstract watercolor painting in Pink and Black by Jules Tillman. It still has all those keywords, but it reads much more like a sentence and then just click done and you're done I mean, you'll want to go through and add the all tags for each image, but it's Azizi. Is that basically that's it. Sure, you'll have to go in and customize your shop of it. Choosing a theme and Shopify does provide several really nice free themes, and there are some that you can pay for. But the free ones are perfectly fine. To start with, you'll need to add a logo and depending on which theme you choose, your logo might be round or rectangular or large or small. But you'll want to add that logo, and you'll also need to just add more additional information that Shopify requires. It can seem like a lot, but once you sign up for a Shopify account, they are really good at walking you through step by step all those things that you need to do before you actually launch an open your shop. But once you've done that and you've added all your products and mock mock up photos, you are your Seto. Do the grand opening and start making art sales on autopilot with your shop. If I store and brimful in the next lesson, I'll cover opening an Etsy shop with painful integration as well. See you there
9. Lesson 8: Setting up a shop with Etsy: All righty. So in this lesson, we are going to walk through step-by-step how to open an Etsy shop with full print, full integration. If you watched the last lesson, this one is going to be pretty familiar because the steps are basically mostly the same, just with Etsy incentive Shopify only. There is one extra step because of how Etsy works with eventful. So my suggestion is to go through the entire lesson before you actually start any of the steps. Let's get to it. You can open an account with SE without actually opening your shop until you have all of your products listed and the other information filled out, like your profile, etc. In fact, you really don't want to officially open your shop until you've added all of the art that you want to list for sale. Lee anyway, a nice full shop upon your grand opening is the best way to go after you've signed up for that as T account, then you'll want to use the print val1 link in the PDF to open your free printable account, it is 100% free until you sell your friends item. So that's awesome. So once you're signed up and logged into both at sea and print fall in separate tabs. You want to create your first listing within Etsy. You need to do this before you sync your shop within print fall. Now in the future, once you've created the first listing and you've saved your shop and all that, you can actually create the listing in principle or in ETC. What I tend to do is create the listing in print full and then go back into ETC. And kind of make sure that everything is just exactly how I want it. But you have to create that listing within Etsy first before you sink at z n plentiful together because you can't actually think Print Full to your Etsy shop without any products for sale. And you can't list any products for sale within print full until you think your Etsy shop. So it's kind of like this catch-22. It's a little confusing. I know. Obviously in order to create your first listing, you'll want to decide on what you're printing on, like the posters, high-quality prints, Canvas, or even other products and how you'll price them. I personally chose to sell a variety of three to five high-quality print sizes. 3 if the artist square and five, if it's rectangle. And I have set prices for each that allows for profits that I'm comfortable with. But this is also where the work you did in advance earlier in this class, organizing and preparing all of your images and mock-ups, it really comes in handy. So once you've created that first product listing, you can pop over to your print full dashboard and click on stores. From there down towards the bottom in the center, click on a large button that says connect to an e-commerce platform then and choose Add. So you just click that little Connect button there, which will take you into ETC. And then it will show you this little pop-up that says connect to Etsy on that red button. And then you just want to read the agreement and click the allow access button. And now your shop as St. voila, so exciting. One thing to note, it's easy to sell originals that you ship and your prints that principle ships at the same time in the same Etsy shop, all you have to do is go to your store area in principle, and choose to ignore any original artworks or any other items that you have fulfilled elsewhere or that you fulfill yourself, they will simply be marked as ignored and we'll do just that, ignore them. Now you can start adding all of your new art prints for sale in your new Etsy shop. Just remember when you're adding your products to use keyword rich descriptions so that those descriptions not only help you get found or your art get found in search, but also actually help you sell your artwork. And that's basically it. Sure you'll have to customize your Etsy shop, adding a header image, filling out your profile, et cetera. Once you've created all the listings for the art prints that you want to sell in your Etsy shop with rainfall, you're set to open and start making ourselves on autopilot with your new Etsy shop and fruitful integration. I mentioned earlier in this course that I like to start with at least ten products for sale, if not more, but you can also just add to your shop slowly. In fact, many experts agree that adding at least one to two new items per week to your shop will help FCC that you are an active user and make your shop and your listings more relevant in search, which basically means you're getting found by more potential buyers, which is awesome. Once you open, you're ready to start selling your art passively. Because now when orders come in through ETC, they actually go directly to print fall who will fulfill those orders and ship them to your customer on your behalf, even marking the items as shipped once they're sent out, they also send you an email with a tracking number for your own. Let me tell you, it's exciting stuff. I know the opening a shop, whether in Etsy or Shopify, can take some time. And it's a learning curve for sure, but it is so worth it and so fun to sell your art. Sway if there's something I missed or if you have any other questions, feel free to ask me anything you like in the class discussion area. I'm so excited for you. Congratulations. You now have a shop or shops set up to sell your art prints. You rock. It's really time to celebrate. In the bonus section, I'm going to give you a bunch of ideas about how to promote your new shop and get those for sales. Rolling it again, I'm so excited for you. I hope you've enjoyed this course and let me know if you have any questions.
10. Lesson 9: Linking your shop to your blog and vice versa: Okay, so in this lesson, really quick, I just want to demonstrate how you can link your shop if I shop to your blawg and vice versa. And also, if you just have an Etsy shop instead I'll show you how to link that from your blogging website as well. Let's start with Shopify. So when you're logged into shop, if I click on online store and then customize and you'll be taken to your shops theme so years might look a little bit different than mine. But basically these links here are how I link back and forth from my shop to my website. So home actually takes you back to my websites home jewels tillman dot com Shop home takes you to the Shopify home page which is where we are right now and then I have links to the different catalogs that I have and then these air all links within Shopify and then my about page is actually go Well, my about page goes to my website This goes to a page on Shopify but it could also be on my website And this is also a link to a page on Shopify again down at the bottom I have shop home which links to Shopify. Search links to Shopify about leads to my website and home leads to my website. So let's go over to my website back end really quick and we'll check that out again with etc. It's not, as I'd say, cohesive or connected, but I have the link to shop on Etsy and let it to six you to my Etsy Page. Um I do have over my about section I do have a link back to my shop and link to my instagram a link to my other Etsy shop and down here at the very bottom about section I have a link to my website. So again it's not as connected as the shop. If I shop, you really have to look for my websites. Oh yes, and I have a link here in my little shop announcement section as well and links to all of my social, which I definitely recommend that you have those as well, but yeah, so it's not. It's not quite as connected as the Shopify shop, but at least you have those things linking back and forth to each other
11. Final: Bonus Ideas & Thoughts: all right, this is it. The very last section which are just your bonus materials. But before that, I just want to give you a giant virtual high five for completing this class. It's sad, but true. So many people take courses like this and never even finished them. But you did, and that is awesome. So what's next? Well, the part of this that isn't on autopilot is in the promotions, which is something that you will have to continue to do in order to make cells. Although if you're selling on Etsy, there is a chance they'll send some buyers your way, but probably not enough to make a living off. So here's and tips start by promoting on social media. Tell people about your new shop on Facebook, instagram, twitter, tumblr or Pinterest, etcetera. Wherever you are shouting to the rooftops, it might feel overwhelming if you try to promote on all of those when you're first starting out. So maybe just pick one or two. I usually recommend choosing to one that you love and then and one that your target market loves. You can also tell your friends and family just start spreading the word Also, I have to say I think that Pinterest is where it's at. The 250 million people who are on Pinterest every month are visually planning their lives, and that includes art for their home. So when you pin your art, its popularity can grow exponentially over time. You can't say that about any other social media. I have pins from years ago that are still circulating and driving traffic to my website, and my shops in the class candle include two other skill share classes. You'll definitely want to watch. I lied to those as well, but one is called etc. Listings learn to create etc. Product listings that get seen. Another one is called promoting your online business on Pinterest, especially for artists, makers and creatives. So I assume that includes you. Oh, and there's another new one that I have are new or one that's called create plus captivate . 30 days of engaging instagram photo prompts for Etsy Sellers makers at artists so yeah, all willing to all of those in the class handout as well and below in the discussions area . I hope you come check him out there. You have it all the tools you need to start selling your art on autopilot. If you've enjoyed this class, I hope youll rate and review it. I love sharing artists testimonials about this class, and I would really appreciate yours. I know that being an artist and an entrepreneur is not always easy. So I again want to congratulate you for making it all this way. You rock. Seriously, thanks again. See you in the next class.
Jules Tillman, artist | business coach | infp
