Tag: custom stickers

Several Friday’s ago, I talked a lot about some of the ways I use my art. Today I thought I would show you one of my favorites and tell you why I like it and how it has benefited my business. About three years ago I was trying to figure out how to sell my art, searching various websites to see if I could come up with ideas. My oldest daughter knew I was looking for new ideas and said that I should put my art on stickers. I was skeptical. My image of stickers is the really cheap little stickers that kids get. They are almost always poor quality, not always very sticky, or sometimes so sticky you couldn’t get them off things you didn’t want them on, and in my opinion, they weren’t really all that nice to look at. I told her my thoughts on stickers, and she said that the stickers she was talking about weren’t cheap stickers for kids, they were stickers that were made for adults as well as kids, and that teens really liked them. So, I started to look into stickers and discovered a new product that I love!

These stickers are vinyl, waterproof stickers and are fairly permanent on whatever you put them on. They are a great quality, and being waterproof, I have seen people put them on anything from water bottles to laptops to car toppers and bumpers. They last a long time and are a really nice, high-quality product. The other thing I was not sure about initially was the price. My perception of stickers is that they are cheap. These stickers aren’t cheap as most of my designs cost between $1.50 – $1.75 per sticker (this is dependent on the finished size. Mine are about 3×3 inches) by comparison to buying sticker sheets or books for $4-$5 dollars and getting 100 stickers. I then do one of several things with my stickers. I wholesale them to gift shops around the state of Alaska, I also sell them in my own booth and on my website. I don’t make as much per sticker when I wholesale them, but I usually wholesale several hundred at a time and I don’t mind making less money for the convenience of dropping off large quantities and getting a check right then and there. Then I can go buy more stickers!

I have learned that small items sell more readily than larger prints and more expensive items. You have to find the right buyer for someone to purchase art originals or prints, or more expensive items. But I have also learned that people really want to support small businesses, but money is often limited, and a sticker is a great way to support a business while keeping within a budget. I have also learned that a lot of parents are willing to buy stickers for their kids when they probably would not buy a large piece of art for them. It’s a great way to get my art out in the world and keep things affordable for my customers.

The type of art that I paint is also super great for these stickers. I don’t like a lot of background on most of my paintings. When you get the stickers, they are die cut to the shape of the image in a lot of cases and for mine, there isn’t anything else in the painting in most instances anyway. This makes it easy to upload the image without worry of what they might be cutting off with the die cut stickers, or having to have all square or rectangle stickers to take in the whole piece of art. I do have one rectangle sticker, the sea otter, and of all my stickers it is the one I sell the least of. Maybe it’s the subject matter, maybe it’s the fact that it’s a rectangle sticker, I don’t know, but I find it interesting that it’s not die cut and it doesn’t sell as well.

If you have art that you would like to sell more of, stickers are a great steppingstone that will help you get art out to the world, helping you make some money along the way. It will also help draw in those customers who might be looking for your kind of art. There are a number of companies that do vinyl waterproof stickers, the company I use is Sticker Mule. They are quick, even to Alaska, and have a really easy set up. They send me a proof of any new stickers within just a couple hours of ordering, and I usually have my order on my doorstep withing 2 weeks. I also get a jar of Mule Sauce, kind of like taco sauce, when I order over $100 in stickers. So, if you are looking for a great starter product that will help your art business make a little extra money, I would recommend trying stickers.