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If you're interested in buying art on ebay then this guide will help you find what you're looking for. If you sell art on ebay then this guide will help you optimise your listings based on how people use ebay's features to find what they're interested in.
Regardless of your knowledge of art ebay makes it more affordable than ever to collect original art of a very high standard by established and emerging artists. Ebay's Art Portal is comprehensive and has something to suit all levels of collector no matter what your budget.
Art by TET (e_tourist)
Why are you buying?
Do you want to buy art that will appreciate in value and be an investment for your future or do you just want to buy art because you like to have and share nice things with your friends?
Perhaps you want art that you like and will be a good investment?
If you are buying for investment reasons only then your approach will be different to buying something you like. If, however, you want to buy something you like and will be a good investment then you will have a few more choices to make.
First we'll look at…
Buying what you like.
If all you want is art that you like then you have the widest variety of choices. You could go straight to ebay's Art Portal and start browsing…but look at all those categories, where do you start?
Browsing categories is like going from art gallery to art gallery looking for something that suits your taste. You'll see a lot of great work and quite probably see a lot of work you like but well out of your price range. If you really enjoy looking at a wide variety of art it is a great way to shop. You may even discover an art style that you didn't even know you'd like until you saw it. However, shopping this way is time consuming and chances are you'll soon run out of enthusiasm for finding that piece that is just right for you. Browsing is best left as a last resort or when you have plenty of time to spare.
Advanced Search - it's like having your own, personalised art dealer.
Ebay's Advanced Search feature can get you looking at art to suit your tastes and budget right away. Click on the Advanced Search option and then at the bottom of the screen you may need to click the Advanced Search link again to get the full range of options available.
The first thing you should do is decide on your budget. This will insure you aren't tempted to spend on works outside of what you want to spend.
Next, you might want to consider the location of your artwork. Are you prepared to send money to overseas sellers? Are you prepared to pay international postage or even interstate postage? Postage is an important consideration since it is not factored into the price range search option above.
You can limit your search further by deciding if you only want to view certain types of listings such as 'Buy Now' or with PayPal as a payment option. You can even view listing with a minimum or maximum number of bids.
Finally, you can go back to the top of the search page and enter some keywords based on the type of artwork you like.
Make sure the category drop down box is set to 'Art'.
Keywords - it's all about what you like.
Keywords are the most crucial part of your search since the words you choose are those that describe the type of art you're interested in. Your approach will determine how many item listings appear in your search. The more specific you are, the fewer listings you'll be presented with. Also be aware that using the plural of words will return different results to using the singular (e.g. cat will return different results to cats).
Think about the type of artwork you are looking for. Do you want a painting, sculpture, print or even an art trading card (sometimes known as an ACEO). This is the first keyword you might include. We'll start an example by selecting Painting as our first keyword. You could search just on this but you would get hundreds of listings of paintings, many of which are not even close to what you are looking for. You need another keyword.
Think about a theme or subject that interests you. Perhaps you like abstract art or perhaps you're into artworks that look like something you can recognise such as landscapes or Animals. Make that your second keyword. To continue our example let's select Animal. See what you get when you try our search now.
'Animal' is a fairly broad term describing many different species collectively. Chances are the above search either returned few results or many results featuring all manor of animals. This is because sellers generally don't describe a painting of a specific animal as an 'animal painting'. For example if their painting is of a cat they will describe it as a 'cat painting'. So you may need to be more specific too. You could add a third keyword e.g. 'cat' or you could replace your second keyword 'animal' with 'cat'. Try both of these searches and note that the results are somewhat different.
Painting Animal Cat
Painting Cat
The second search should net more results including all of those found by the first search since these listings also contain the words of the second search.
If you only like a particular type of cat, say 'Siamese cats', then try adding a third word 'Siamese' to your search. Try it:
If you find you are getting too few or no search results you can try a 'Title and Description' search by selecting the check box:
If you are getting too many listings in your result you can either further refine you search by adding more keywords or you could look at the results you are getting and choose some keywords that keep appearing that aren't what you're looking for.
Using our example, say you're looking for an original artwork but a lot of your results include 'prints' of originals. In the 'Exclude these words' box
You might add the keyword Print.
Another way to expand or narrow your search is to use this drop down selector box, located just under the 'Search Title and Description' check box:
This drop down box gives you four extra choices based upon your keywords. Including looking for any listing that only contains one of your keywords or only listings that include all of your keywords in the exact order that you've entered them.
Searching is a great way to find what you want quickly before wasting hours of your time browsing…but hey, browsing can still be fun and you may find something you didn't know you wanted.
Buying for Short Term Investment
I will say straight up that I am not an art dealer and nor have I ever bought and sold art for investment purposes. Therefore this part of the guide is not intended as investment advice, rather it looks at how you might use ebay search to spot a potentially good investment purchase. You should seek the advice of a professional art dealer before making any purchase for investment purposes.
There are a number of indicators on ebay that can help you sort out potentially good art investments from the rest. Advanced Search gives you a few tools that can help you research artworks that have a good resale value or are in high demand from buyers.
Using what you learnt from the previous section there are a few extra options that can guide future purchases. The first of these is to search 'Completed Listings Only':
By looking at completed listings you can get an idea of what is and what isn't selling currently on ebay. (Completed listings only cover the last fifteen days on ebay however if you're interested in more detailed information you can pay for up to 13 weeks of historical data through ebay's market place research program). Look at what themes and type of works are selling and note any trends. For example I've often heard it said that flower paintings sell well on ebay.
Another search option is to look for items with a minimum or maximum number of bids (see above).
Note that this minimum and maximum number of bids only works on active listings (not completed). Entering a minium number of bids e.g. 3 you immediately exclude any artwork that has no one competing to win the auction. Obviously the more bids placed the more likely it is that a work similar to these will sell.
Unfortunately this isn't an extremely reliable indicator since a listing with 30 bids or more could still be only two people fighting over one artwork. However that's two more than those with none and if you can find a trend of many people buying similar work you may have found a market to resell your purchases to.
The last search indicator you can try is price (using the 'Items Priced' box as you did when setting your budget only this time set your price for high value artwork).
Combine this with auctions with a minimum number of bids and you may just get an idea of what artwork sells at a high price or just what artwork sells at a price in which you could potentially make a profit if you resold the work.
Beyond Ebay Search for investment
There are other areas of ebay that could help in determining if art is a good investment or not.
Is a great place to get a snapshot of 'what's hot' on ebay right now.
Popular Keywords and Popular Keywords: Art
See what people are searching for the most each week.
May also provide a few clues as this section contains ads from buyers trying to get hold of specific art works.
Long Term Investment
The above section looks at tools that may be useful in short-term investments i.e. buying and then reselling art for profit. While they may be useful for researching longer term art investments there is really no substitute for researching the market and the value of a specific artists work within it.
You can purchase artworks on ebay by well-respected artists in some these two categories.
However there are other highly sought after artists in many categories so it pays to do your homework properly.
Using some of the search tools may give you additional confidence in your purchase. Consult a professional art valuer before you buy for sound advice on whether a particular artwork is likely to appreciate in value over time.
Completing the Sale
It is not the purpose of this guide to follow through ebay's checkout procedures, nor discuss what to expect from sellers in terms of how they deliver artwork to you. All of this is covered comprehensively by ebay's own policies.
However, art being art, there are a number of things you should look for before committing to buy any artwork.
- Seller feedback - always check this before buying anything. Especially for expensive purchases. The more you spend the more you risk to lose if things go pear shaped.
If a seller doesn't have a good track record or has no track record test the water by contacting them. If they don't communicate well then definitely stay clear. If they do then perhaps consider a smaller purchase with them first or watch their listings to see where their feedback goes over time. - Returns Policy - some people feel that they can't buy art over the internet because you really have to be in an artworks presence to really know if it's to your taste. For investment purposes you may need to examine an artwork to make sure it isn't a cheap copy.
These and many other perfectly valid reasons are why you should look closely at your seller's returns policy.
My personal preference is that art bought based on a photograph of the work should come with an unconditional money back guarantee if the buyer is not happy with the work for any reason (even if they just don't like it). Anyone who knows about art will completely understand that art can look very different in a photo to the real thing. Always check out the returns policy so you aren't stuck with a lemon if the photo looked like an orange.
You and your ebay art dealer can browse together!
Hopefully I've given you some confidence about buying art on ebay. With ebay Advanced Search as your personal art dealer you should be able to maximise your choices with more art that suits your taste and needs.
About the Author:
TET (e_tourist) is a self-represented artist and writer of social commentary observations. Find out more about TET.
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