ticking down
Less than one and a half hours to go on the two ebay auctions of SK paintings. I can't help but be a little nervous as I'm hoping for more bids. I do price them so if they sell for the opening bid we will be ok with that, but obviously I'd like them to go higher. The current prices are pretty good for these pieces, so if that is what they sell for, it's ok. Plus I can imagine the buyers will be very tickled with their purchase.
I think of these periodic ebay forays as useful for several reasons:
1) a way to check the pricing -- if the pieces sell at or above what we would charge on the website we're doing ok or possibly undercharging if the pieces on ebay go for a lot more (album art and such skews it higher and I know those prices aren't indicative for his body of work in general).
2) a way to promote Steve as a visual artist to people (primarily fans) who might not know about it. I'm still amazed at how many people buy less common Church/SK cds (such as Beside Yourself) at really high prices off ebay when they could get them for less from the Church Merch (even with fairly high shipping prices from the Church Merch!) or Karmic Hit. That makes me figure the people doing that aren't really familiar with the various Church/SK sites.
3) a way to generate some cash relatively quickly without having a sale on the website. This time we aren't doing this for quick revenue, but the possibility is there if a times comes where it is needed. Steve's website prices are fair, so we don't want to have a lot of sales which tend to train people to wait for the sale to buy anything. Many artists never offer sales on their work -- our current plan is to offer one short sale per year, on Steve's birthday, as an added incentive to buy and also as a thank you to the people who have supported SK in his visual art venture.
Many people who sell their art on ebay say they like their listings to end on the weekends because that's when people do most of their buying, but I've noticed that traffic to Church sites goes down pretty dramatically on weekends. I did 10 day listings for both of these pieces and I always screw up when I do those. I was trying to get the end to fall during the week (preferably not Friday either) for at least most people, but my brain apparently wasn't working too well, because it's ending during the weekend for just about everyone! Oh well, it will just add another piece of data to analyse. Next time I think I'll just stick to a seven day listing though.
So in about an hour and a half we'll know how these pieces went.
**Update**
Well the auctions ended.
The self portrait was the first one to go and someone did bid right at the very end. That bid pushed the end price from $185 USD to $202.50 USD. Not huge but the additional amount covers all the fees, so that's good. It's going to a guy in the Cleveland area.
Within the last half an hour of the auction The Hellbound Heart picked up another watcher and I really thought that person was planning on bidding, but that didn't happen, so that one went for the $405 USD it had been at for several days. I'm a bit surprised it didn't have more bidders and that it didn't go for a little more, but the difference between the starting bid and the final bid more than covers all fees, so it's all good. And this one is going to Taiwan.
It's great to be able to tell people Steve has collectors of his original pieces in Australia, the US, Canada, various European countries including the UK, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan. That also gives him more cred in certain circles.
I think I should have put Vanity up for auction as I've now had three people email me trying to buy it. I actually did strongly consider putting it up, but went with THH instead. You never know though, if I'd put Vanity up it might have brought quite a bit more, but it's also possible that some of the people trying to buy it now wouldn't even bother with it on ebay. I do think there are some people who love ebay and some who won't touch it so it's good to use both at times.
I think of these periodic ebay forays as useful for several reasons:
1) a way to check the pricing -- if the pieces sell at or above what we would charge on the website we're doing ok or possibly undercharging if the pieces on ebay go for a lot more (album art and such skews it higher and I know those prices aren't indicative for his body of work in general).
2) a way to promote Steve as a visual artist to people (primarily fans) who might not know about it. I'm still amazed at how many people buy less common Church/SK cds (such as Beside Yourself) at really high prices off ebay when they could get them for less from the Church Merch (even with fairly high shipping prices from the Church Merch!) or Karmic Hit. That makes me figure the people doing that aren't really familiar with the various Church/SK sites.
3) a way to generate some cash relatively quickly without having a sale on the website. This time we aren't doing this for quick revenue, but the possibility is there if a times comes where it is needed. Steve's website prices are fair, so we don't want to have a lot of sales which tend to train people to wait for the sale to buy anything. Many artists never offer sales on their work -- our current plan is to offer one short sale per year, on Steve's birthday, as an added incentive to buy and also as a thank you to the people who have supported SK in his visual art venture.
Many people who sell their art on ebay say they like their listings to end on the weekends because that's when people do most of their buying, but I've noticed that traffic to Church sites goes down pretty dramatically on weekends. I did 10 day listings for both of these pieces and I always screw up when I do those. I was trying to get the end to fall during the week (preferably not Friday either) for at least most people, but my brain apparently wasn't working too well, because it's ending during the weekend for just about everyone! Oh well, it will just add another piece of data to analyse. Next time I think I'll just stick to a seven day listing though.
So in about an hour and a half we'll know how these pieces went.
**Update**
Well the auctions ended.
The self portrait was the first one to go and someone did bid right at the very end. That bid pushed the end price from $185 USD to $202.50 USD. Not huge but the additional amount covers all the fees, so that's good. It's going to a guy in the Cleveland area.
Within the last half an hour of the auction The Hellbound Heart picked up another watcher and I really thought that person was planning on bidding, but that didn't happen, so that one went for the $405 USD it had been at for several days. I'm a bit surprised it didn't have more bidders and that it didn't go for a little more, but the difference between the starting bid and the final bid more than covers all fees, so it's all good. And this one is going to Taiwan.
It's great to be able to tell people Steve has collectors of his original pieces in Australia, the US, Canada, various European countries including the UK, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan. That also gives him more cred in certain circles.
I think I should have put Vanity up for auction as I've now had three people email me trying to buy it. I actually did strongly consider putting it up, but went with THH instead. You never know though, if I'd put Vanity up it might have brought quite a bit more, but it's also possible that some of the people trying to buy it now wouldn't even bother with it on ebay. I do think there are some people who love ebay and some who won't touch it so it's good to use both at times.
posted by eek at 9:30 PM
1 Comments:
sounds like everything's on a roll. and steve's getting a lot of good exposure, too. :)
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