Put Your Photos On Something
By now, if you are a frequent reader of photoPXL.com, you will know I am all about the print. I have my prints all around my house as well as my downtown gallery. When we bought our new home a few years ago, I thought with all the wall space I’d be able to change pictures everywhere. Well, my wife had other ideas.
As most of you have done, we listened to our wives or better halves and compromised. I was able to put a number of my fine art photographs all framed and on the wall. Then I got to thinking. I thought we should have more items to sell at the studio. Debra, (my wife) found a website, society6.com, that might just be the answer to our needs.
Society6 is a website where you can take your art and photography and have them transferred to different materials and then sell them. Wow, a pretty cool idea! If I couldn’t get my prints on the wall then maybe I could get my images on the bed, shower curtain, throw pillows, iPhone cases, and a lot more.
There are a number of companies out there similar to Society6. After reading reviews and looking at available products, we settled on Society6. Debra and I went through a number of my images and found a few we would like to use.
We set up our own store and added some of the products we liked, along with some of our images, and then ordered samples. Frankly, I didn’t think I would like the products as I just couldn’t visualize how things would look. We ordered a shower curtain and bedspread using an image I made at Zion National Park. We chose a double exposure black and white image from Grand Central Station in New York City to make a pillow, notebook, leggings and a travel mug with.
You can visit our small Society6 store by clicking HERE. The pages don’t load as fast as I’d like but I am told that is because the images are being generated onto the products. I was impressed first on how fast the orders were returned to us and also by the quality. Below are more examples of our products in use in our house.
We have displayed these products at our open houses at the gallery and found some interest in them. We will attempt to generate more interest in these products over the coming months and also add a number of different images to what is available. Our thought was to make them kind of generic, similar to what we are showing now.
I am going to add an image with our logo and contact information and make notebooks where this will be part of the cover. These can be giveaways at our open houses. (We haven’t had any open houses since the pandemic but hope to continue with these offerings once we are able to to do so.) There are small welcome carpets and we could add a message to these too. Debra and I will be sitting down over a glass of wine and brainstorming on what more we could offer.
I suggest browsing their site if this kind of thing is something you may be interested in. It seems with some products we are locked into their pricing and margin model and I would like to add more markup and offer them at a bit higher price. On some products like art prints and such, we can set our own margins as shown in one of the illustrations below.
I will also explore some of the other companies similar to Society6 to see what they offer and how easy it is to order from them. I want to mention, also, that Rabereyes.com has a storefront to sell my prints. This is a whole other business and I can offer a wide variety of mediums as well as frames on this site. I have complete control on pricing and margin, and we have been fairly successful with this solution. It took a lot more time to set this site up, as images need to be uploaded to certain specs as well as a lot of other information that need to be included. The price we paid was a few thousand dollars but includes a lot of services for the price. Check out what ArtStorefronts can offer. We recommend friends and clients there often.
It takes a bit of work to keep the site up, and I have about 100 new images that I need to add to the site in my spare time. I’ll do a story about this aspect of business at another time.
Bottom line, check Society6 out. Set up your own store and order some products displaying your images. We love the bedspread and shower curtain. The tote bag as well as leggings are another favorite. Debra really likes her t-shirt. Have some fun with things and remember not all your artwork has to go on walls.
Kevin Raber
October 2020
Kevin Raber
Indianapolis, IN
Photography is my passion and has been for 50 plus years. My career in photography has allowed me to travel the world, meet some of the most interesting people on the planet and see things I could never have dreamed of. My goal is to share the passion of picture taking through photographs and teaching with as many people as I can, hoping it brings them as much joy and happiness as it has me. I do this through photoPXL.com, this site, as well as Rockhopper Workshops, and other projects, as well as teaching as Artist In Residence at the Indianapolis Art Center.
