Should I build a store on Instagram or Facebook to sell my art?

No. While it might sound like a good idea at first—since those platforms have massive attention—it’s actually a shiny object and a trap. Artists have reported spending 40-plus hours trying to get these stores to work, and they’re still buggy and not functioning properly. More fundamentally, these platforms are at war with other e-commerce players and want to control everything. The buying experience will be worse than on your own website, and you’re ceding control of your customer relationship to the platform. Never give up that control. Any new feature like this needs to be vetted first: will it actually make you more successful? In this case, the answer is no. Focus on driving traffic to your own website where you control the experience.

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Asked by an artist considering selling on social media platforms · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2020-08-05