Having an online storefront to sell your artwork, like handmade clothing, jewelry, or pottery, is a great tool to drive and promote your business. There are many options for selling online, such as marketplaces like Etsy and Ebay, but with these you run into competitors overlapping your business and extra commission fees. This can feel like a safe option but you may find it has limitations and more fees than you expected. That’s where having your own personal website comes in.

For some artisans, building a website can be challenging, but it doesn’t have to be. Zibster gives you all the tools and resources you need to sell your artwork online, plus we don’t take any commission fees. That’s right! What you earn is yours, you just pay the standard merchant fees (we can’t get around those credit card processing fees, we have to pay them too). What you won’t find with a Zibster website is listing fees, or sale fee redactions, or commission fees. With a Zibster website, you have complete control over the prices and the profit you make from your art.

So how do you build a website to sell your art? In this blog post we’ll show you how easy it is to choose a template and personalize it to meet your needs. The style of artisan focused websites can range widely, the key is  having a place to display and sell your products. Zibster gives you tons of options to highlight your products and create an online storefront that is easy to manage.

Which template you choose to use, depends on you and your preferences. There is no “right template”. Any of Zibster’s templates can be customized to meet your goals. It really comes down to your preferences in style and what will work best for your customers. There are three variables to look at when selecting a website template . Focus on the menu and logo placement (top, bottom, left, right), if the website design is compact or full-width (does it have borders or do the images extend to the “edge” of the screen), and where the social media icons are located. 

The colors, fonts, patterns, and content within the templates can all be modified or removed but the menu and logo placement, and the width of the template can not.

Once you select a template, that’s when the fun begins. You can modify the colors, fonts, spacing, and blocks within the site to suit your needs and goals. Today, I’m going to show you two ways you can make an artisan website using a single template so you can see how versatile the templates truly are. I’ll design the Almas template in two ways: traditional and more modern. Here is the template “out of the box” so you can see where we started from.

Right from the start, the Almas template has an editorial and modern look. By using a san serif font, large spacing, and a square layout for images throughout it gives it a unique voice. Below you’ll see I’ve modified the colors and inserted pictures of pottery and the site now has a more warm feeling. It feels professional and easy to navigate, which for user experience is key. 

To make this template more avante garde or focused on contemporary and modern style, I can replace the warm colors with cool or neutral colors. This design may feel cold to some but it is very expressive.

All of the pages of your site, like your about and contact page, will follow suit as a result of the template settings. It is important for your site and brand to have a cohesive feel.

When it comes to selling your products, having an online storefront is important. And building that online storefront with Zibster is simple! When setting up an online storefront, whether your site features a traditional or contemporary style, I recommend using squares shaped images for your product display images, so if you have large horizontal or vertical products, the entire item is visible.

With a Zibster online store you can sell both physical and digital products. While many artists create physical products, sometimes artists also sell digital books or prints. You can do this with Zibster! 

Whether you are selling physical or digital products, the main thing to remember with an online store is to make it easy for your customers to navigate and purchase from. One way Zibster makes it easy for you to organize the products you sell online is with product options. For example, if you sell something in multiple colors or sizes, you can allow people to choose those options. 

Plus, we have an inventory system built right in so that you can keep track of how many of each product are available and to prevent your customers from purchasing more of a product than you have. The inventory system can alert both you and your customers when something is low or out of stock. 

Regardless of the style you choose for your homepage and your storefront, when it comes to the pages that show off your products, I recommend that page has a white background. This creates a clean space to allow your products to stand out and prevents them from getting lost in or competing with the site's background color or pattern

You have a variety of tools and options when it comes to designing your website with Zibster. You can use a template design right “out of the box” or you can personalize it to meet your needs. It's really up to you. 

The key thing to focus on when building a website is what type of message you are trying to express to your customers. Color, space, and font do a lot of this work, the template just holds the content and can be modified till you find your desired look.

Zibster gives you the resources to really make each template your own, so much so that any template can be used to represent any type of business. Plus with the benefit of being able to change your look with just a few clicks, you can change up your look in no time. 

Do you need help getting started? Give us a call at 844.353.3412. We'd be happy to help you get your website up and running.