Daniel Grenier said:
No it won't undervalue you. Will it undervalue your work? Geezzz... I don't know... what's it worth now?
Know that on ebay a great many auction for very fine prints go bid-less. If they do get bids, they are (usually) extremely low with just one or two bids. You're not going to see bids by the dozen. High starting bid points will ensure NO bids either.
I have bought a good number of contact prints (silver and platinum) and paid as low as $40 but never more than $60. That is dirt cheap and a bargain (for me, not the seller). Are you OK with that kind of return?
Another issue with selling on ebay is that if your auctions end in the $50 range (if they sell at all), it is difficult for you to ask, say, $200 on your website, galleries or even "buy it now" on ebay. You have kind of lost credibility then. Folks in-the-know will not shell out that $200. They'll just wait for that auction and they will get it for $50. You may also get stifled and stigmatized by your ebay "record" in the long run. Hard to say.
Jorge, Francesco (and others here who sell on ebay) can confirm/deny this as they would know first hand.
E bay is a strange place. I have seen prints start at $21 and end at values greater than $300 and I have seen beautiful prints go unsold.
E bay is a good place for those who want exposure and are beguinning to market their work. If you have good work, and I mean really good work. Your prints will go for anywhere between $50 and $125. At least that was my experience when I was with the guild.
If you think about it, this is about the same as what you would get from a gallery once all the commisions are paid. A print selling on e bay for $125 would mean it would have to be sold at a gallery for at least $250. That is within the price range for a beguinning unknown photographer. The difference is that if your work is good enough, you might sell 10 prints....at a gallery maybe 4 or 5 if you are lucky.
I disagree with Daniel on the "loosing credibility" aspect. It is better to sell your print fo $50 than not sell your print priced a $300.....no? At least you are having your work seen, and getting a little back to keep on photographing. Which are the two reasons I am doing it.
OTOH, you can not rest on your laurels on e bay. I repeatedly see the same work being offered, over, and over, and over.....eventually people get tired of seeing the same old prints, no matter how beautiful they seem to be. For example I am more "aware" of what is going on in the pt/pd section, Luca Paradisi, does some awesome work with flowers, but he keeps offering the same prints, no new work. Consequently he has been getting less and less bids...at least from what I have seen.
Another point is that you have to keep at it, you cannot do infrequent auctions and expect people to keep you in mind. I will cite our own member William Blunt for this example. I have been wanting to buy one of his prints for the last 2 months, but the print I wanted only appeared once and I never saw it again, he usually does 3 or 4 prints every 3 weeks....so many times I miss his auctions or they happen to be when I am strapped for cash.
Bottom line, as with every bussiness you have to have a marketing strategy. E bay should be a first step and a way for you to get some money to support your habit, but by no means it should be your "final" goal. You need to use the income from e bay to keep producing work and to promote yourself. Once you have some income comming in, you should use it for adevrtising, for producing more work and to promote your work in other avenues. For example, in my case 6 months ago it was a hardship for me to make 10 prints for my portfolio and 10 prints to send to publications. Now, thanks to the support of people who bought my prints on e bay I not only have a much better portfolio, but have enough extra prints to send to magazines. WHat I am trying to say is that you have to look for alternative avenues to give you exposure and eventually let you move out of e bay.
You gotta remember that the e bay mind set is that of "looking for a bargain." Many of the collectors are gambling on you and hoping that you become somewhat well known. As such, print prices rarely go beyond $130 or $150 dollars. At the moment there is a couple of prints, one from Kenro Izu, which have not sold even though by gallery "standards" they could the thought of as a good deal, but nobody wants to pay $800 or $1000 dollars on e bay, at least not for photographic art.
So my advice is for you to give it a shot, have fun with it and dont take it personally if your prints do not sell the first few times. If your work is good enough, eventually someone will buy it. Focus on offering more than they are paying for and people will keep comming back to check what you are offering.
