While there are many sites that sell prints {POD - Print On Demand}  such as Fine Art American, Imagekind, Cafe Press, Zazzle etc., when we raise our commission more than 10% they seldom sell~

The POD makes the artist wait til Royalty reaches $25-50 , before  paying you.

I've been waiting  2 YEARS for Imagekind to pay me $24.75 that they owe me for selling one of my artworks called "Seagulls on the Rocks" ~!

Imagekind will not pay me until more of my work sells and totals over $50 in royalties, so I may never get paid!

All the POD's have similar policies  and make a fortune off us artists!

So I began to learn how to print my own art and invested in 5 good printers -
2 are large wide format ones that can print up to 13 x 19 inches .
They do eat alot of ink, lol, so it took  me a while to learn how much it was actually costing me to make a print to sell in comparison to using the PODs to order my own work from and then to send to my customers.

PODs would take 2-3 weeks to fill my orders, that was not good for my customers.

Pre- ordering in volume was not  the solution , as you never know when the next person might want to buy the same picture .

I didnt want to clutter my house with excess stock, so  learning to print, getting the right printers made more sense to  me so I can print as needed.

Selling on line is precarious.

Sometimes on Ebay I would get 20 orders in one week, which was great but then other times only 1-2 orders a month, not so good but

ALL SALES ARE GOOD SALES `!

Compared to the PODs I do very little custom printing, I have to buy all my materials at retail cost presently, which bites into the costs overall.

I think when AHI gets busier, more people will be ordering prints & as volume increases, I will one day be able to buy some materials at 'wholesale' prices.

For now, when a member wants to pre-pay  & buy prints direct from me,
I give a discount.

When a member wants to sell to the public through AHI, then I have what is called a "Royalty Program"  

I have charts that show my  wholesale/ retails/ royalty payments/

We need to be competitive with the PODs

I have researched their prices and shipping costs to figure out our prices.

I subtracted the actual costs  from the retail price to see  how much profit there would be and of that ! charge only [1/10th of the retail price for labor] and the rest goes to costs & to the artist on prints.

So it is like this:

60% ACTUAL PRODUCTION & SHIPPING COST PER ITEM
30%  ROYALTY TO ARTIST
10% LABOR TO AHI-FAN

I am not a big POD nor have any accountant , so its all personally done.

I dont hold your money up like the PODs do.

I use Paypal to send your royalty to you. They charge a small fee, but it is the fastest way to get your money to you.

They charge a 'transaction' fee [ $.35 cents each sale PLUS a % of the total sale ~ so on $10 they charge $.69 cents ~ yielding $9.31 that I have to work with each time a customer buys a $10 item.  

Out of that $9.31 I make the print [very high quality, requires test prints,resizes to match original work & then cutting drying coating, packaging, shipping costs handling - bringing it to the shipper, making sure it is shipped & received by the customer - allowing customer to decide IF they are satisfied by providing a 4 day decision period & accept returns IF they want a refund ~
[to date no one has ever been disappointed with my work or have ever asked for a refund! I have a 100% Positive Seller Rating online with over 300 transactions]

After the 4 days has passed and the customer is satisfied, then I divide up the money into the %'s for each of us as follows:

 60%  Production and delivery
 30%  Artist Royalty - payable at $10 instead of $25
 10%  My  Labor

You then have the choice as to when to get paid. I suggest keeping it at $10 level as Paypal takes their $.69

IF you had a $1still sale, they would take their $.35 + the % so your profit would be saved from more fees.


Now you  are still free to sell on AHI-FAN using  OTHER PRINTING SERVICES & OTHER WEBSITES &  still use AHI   to  promote any other  WEBSITES  you are selling at~!
We are here to help all artists to get started and expand their online art business pursuits~

:)Ave