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Selling prints in street market.

marciofs

Member
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Jul 8, 2011
Messages
802
Location
Hamburg
Format
Medium Format
Soon I will experiment selling my prints in a street market that happens every Saturday in town. I will visit it first next saturday to see how it is. I was told it is were I should sell my prints because it is very popular and touristic. The name is Floschanze (for those who are in Hamburg).

I checked a light folding table in a camping shop, which I suppose will be good enough to put my prints on (I don't have a car).

Now, I have diferent sizes prints to sell but what I have the mist are contact prints from 6x4.5, 6x7 some 6x17.

The main problem is that I can't find ready made frames on theses sizes. Meaning I have to order frames on this sizes which take several weeks to be made and is expensive. So I wonder if ot looks bad if I present thenprints without frames. And have one or two frame prints so people can have an idea how good it looks like framed. What would you say about it?

I was told more than twice that I should't put my print prices lower than 50 euro. This should be the very button. Specially in Germany where people seems to don't trust products with low prices. I used to charge 50euro for my contac prints framed, but without frame for this size of print 50 euro seems to be too high. Doesn't it?

So I wonder if 25 euro for 6x4.5 prints, 30 euro for 6x7 prints and 40 euro for 6x17 prints seems to be a good prince. Or does it sound too low? Or does it sound too high?

Anyway, just looking for some advices since I don't have experience selling my prints myself outside the internet.
 
No frame, just the mat. For prices, you have to adjust to local habits but between 25 and 40 Euros looks OK to me.
 
A local photographer in my town regularly hawks his inkjet prints from a mobile stall on a Saturday - His work is (nearly) always matted and unframed.

As for pricing, only you can decide on that. However, resist the temptation to under-price your work.
 
It would be easier to sell just matted prints, saves on weight and allows more prints to be packed for the sale. Most people don't want generic frames and want the option to get frames to fit their decor.
 

as a coowner of a gallery,I can tell youthat prints below$50 and above $5000 are thehardest to sell.Actuallyif the buyer doesn't really crave the printit won't sell at any price.
 
Have a few framed ones ready. Mat and bag the rest of your prints. Print up copies of your biography and technique, which you can place in with the bagged prints (people like to make a personal connection with the artist). As for pricing, 50 Euros seems reasonable, but you may want to do a 2-fer deal, like 50 Euros each- 2 for 90.
In the future, cut your mats to fit standard frame sizes. This will allow your customer to find their own, inexpensive, frames. Small (6x4.5/6x7 prints) look great with big white borders. They'll look great in 8x10 inch frames.
Good Luck. I've done this sort of selling for decades. It can be very rewarding.
 
Thank you for all advices.

I will do the mat them. I will have to learn cutting them because I have never tried. But I am sure I will find about cutting mat by googling it.

I feel optimistic now.
 
pray for sunshine on the day

And put your prints cellophane bags otherwise they will be covered in dirty finger prints within 5 minutes of customers leafing through them. ( and rain protection ). Booking an open air market stall without suitable covering for prints and yourself doesn't seem like a good idea to me. It's the nature of the product which is so easy to damage.
 

I want to find a tent light and compact enough so I can easy bring along.

I also heard that it is possible to get a place without booking it, by arriving very early morning, going only on days you see the weather will be nice. But we never know when comes a single heavy cloud passing by in a sunny day.
 
RalphLambrecht said:
as a coowner of a gallery,I can tell youthat prints below$50 and above $5000 are thehardest to sell.Actuallyif the buyer doesn't really crave the printit won't sell at any price.
Click to expand...

Depends where you live and which market.
 
Derek Lofgreen said:
Hi Marcio,
How did the market go? Did you get a chance to go and set up your table?

D.
Click to expand...

I wasn't prepered on that saturday, I thought it would be a better idea to first visit the market before trying. I visited it and I love it.

Afterwards I received my work plan from my job and after seing that my boss didn't give any saturday free, I asked him if it would be possible to get some saturday free and he denied. I am new in the job and I didn't expected that.

But I found an other street market on sundays wich looks more fancy but less busy and maybe not very turistic I supose. But many people goes there still.

I asked my boss if I could have a couple os Sundays free per Month and my boss told me maybe, so I am still waiting.


I actually got last Saturday free, because on Freiday my boss told me there was too many people for Saturday, but it was such a short notice that I didn't had time to reserve my place in the market. And I finished the work last Freiday late night anyway, I wouldn't have energy to weak up early next day.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Marcio, are your prints 6 cm x 4.5 cm, 6cm x 7 cm, and panorama 6 cm x 17 cm? To me that seems very small. What is the paper size that you are using when you make the contact prints? When matted in a letter size frame, I think that would be very attractive.

What are the subject matters? Landscapes? Architecture? Portraits?
 

I am printing 6x4.5, 6x7, 6x17 and 5x4 large format. I am now start shooting 6x9 which I will print soon.

They may seem very small but in a nice mounting they look very charming and attractive. Specially in a chunck frame. I had ordered with thouse thick mounting in the past and they look very elegant. But but the thick mounting and frame are too expensive to order for all the prints I want to sell. So it will have to be a simple mounting only. I found a website where they make them on demand.

For seling I print on multgrade farber paper all by Ilford butI want to experiment with Fomapan papers too. Depending on the subject meter I print on Ilford Art 300.

I like to apply some selenium too depending on the print.


I have a lot landscapes/nature shots and some artistic nudes. Some urbanism photographs with urban shapes too, but I am shooting more this subject now which I think attract more the interest if avarege touristst and locals.
 
So for one unframed contact print of a 645 negative you are proposing to ask over 25 euros? Have I got this right?

Others here seem to be suggesting that you don't price too low so I wonder if they are suggesting you ask even more that 25 euros for one 645 contact print?

I wish you well and hope that there is a lot of very keen small contact print lovers in your home town. In my home town the local mini-lab will do 50 RA4 5x7 prints for £10 so about 13 euros.

In the U.K. we have a programme called "Bargain Hunt" where two people buy antiques and attempt to sell them for a profit at an antiques auction. Many reasonable items there fail to sell for much more than the equivalent of 25 euros and certainly less than 50.

Maybe small contact prints are particularly valued in your town. I can only hope so

pentaxuser
 
I work in a street market on the weekends as a vendor. There are a couple of photographers who have booths there and they do very well. It is surprising to me that they can sell their prints for multiple hundreds of dollars and do every weekend. Both of these photographers have their crappy cliche' scenic photos printed or mounted on aluminum and they have no frames or mats and are extremely glossy. Kills me to see how much people love their work all shot digitally and printed with garish color.
 

I will find out after try.

My prints are not done by mini labs but by myself.
 

I have often seeing it. Avarege images with over colours effects, or any other thing over done and very cliche, dirty cheap done being sold a lot. A lot of people just like it. Specially when it is big, and mach their living room decoration. People just love strong colours, a lot of effects and whatever big.

Back in Dublin I knew I guy who every Sundays use to sell whis poster his draw hilmself. Simples but nice. Most of the themes was rock and pop albuns covers and celebrity faces. Nothing exceptional and I have no idea why so many people buy it. The start price was about €60. He told me it was all about being a good sales man. I wached him and every moment he was talking with people and selling his stuff.

He convenced myself to try and I tryed once. Many people came closer to see my prints buy I couldn't sell any. I didn't try more because it wasn't a street market but a ilegal thing some creative people does in a street on weekends. But because it was ilegal I didn't felt confortable.

In other forum I was told it is normal to sell nothing on the firts couple of times, but then with experience we learn how to atract people and sell.

I don't expect to be successiful selling my prints. I have always being the worst sales person ever, and my stuff are for most of people "too old atyle" (or boring) or "too artistic". But If I menage to sell once in a while it will be enough to fell good. And every little helps.
 
Marcio, what size paper are you using when making contact prints? Are you contact printing the 6x7's on 8 inch by 10 inch paper, and using those wide margins when matting? Or do you use smaller paper?
 
There is a reasonthey call it 'starving artist'
 
I defer to the people with experience in up-scale galleries in regard to pricing in such venues. However, after 30 years of selling in an annual rural arts & crafts fair in the American Midwest, a minimum of 50 Euros or dollars sounds ridiculous. Maybe next year I'll raise the price of my 10x14 inch images in decent 16x20 metal frames to that price. Matted but unframed, they have been selling at $20. 8.5" x 11" unmounted and unmatted prints are $5 for those who appreciate photography over bragging rights on expensive art, and are the most profitable item.
 
Hey Marcio. I was just trying to get a better idea of how you were doing the prints.
 
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