How to Sell on Redbubble

Redbubble is a POD or Print on Demand website that allows artists to share their creations with the world by putting them on products for sale to customers around the globe. The artist only needs to make their artworks and upload them to the site. Redbubble takes care of creating, selling and shipping the products from tshirts to coffee mugs to stickers to wall art.

How to get started selling on Redbubble? Assuming you are a visual artist of some kind you already have the artworks. So the first step is setting up your account with Redbubble and uploading your art onto their products. I’ll walk you through all the steps to getting started on this POD platform and give you some tips for how to be successful on Redbubble. Read on!

Setting Up Your Redbubble Account

Sign up for a Redbubble account here. You’ll choose a username for your shop and add your email address as the point of contact. Add your real first and last name as contact details so that you can be paid. However, your username does not have to be your legal name – this will be the display name for your shop and your login to the site. The username is limited to 14 characters so keep that in mind.

On the profile page you can enter a short bio about you and your work so that people viewing your profile will know what you’re all about. You can add a longer bio in the section called “Public Profile”. Feel free to add link to your website or social media accounts here.

Decide if you want watermarks on your images and if you want to keep people from downloading your images by clicking on them. Note that this setting can also override apps like Pinterest from accessing the images.

After you set up your profile and bio you can add a cover image and avatar. Cover images must be 2400px wide by 600px high and in JPEG or PNG format. Your avatar is like your Instagram profile pic, it’s small and round and appears all over the site when your artworks are displayed.

Go to your profile page and add a cover image, and you can also upload samples of artwork that you’ve completed on the left side of the page. This lets visitors to your profile know more about your style.

Check out the cool profile with a cover image by this Redbubble artist.

Redbubble lets you set your commission amounts for each item or you can leave them at the standard 20% markup amounts. Do this in the “Account Details” section under “Product Pricing”. You can opt to be paid by Paypal or ACH into your bank account.

Uploading Your Artwork to Redbubble

Do you already have digital files of your artwork? Then you are ready to upload to Redbubble and get your art on their products!

While preparing your art to be uploaded, take a look at the Redbubble minimum size requirements and dimensions for files here in the Help Center. You can upload JPGs and PNGs. Transparent PNGs are great for some products like tshirts or stickers if you don’t want a background behind your work.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to uploading artwork to Redbubble:

• Log in and go to your profile or click your avatar in the top left to get the drop down menu shown above.
• Click on “Add New Work”
• A page opens with “Upload to all Products” icon. Click that to browse your computer for the file and select it
• You’ll see a status of the uploading process. Depending on the file size it could take a while.

• After the file is uploaded to the site you can scroll down the page to add your art to products and adjust how it looks.
• Check out all the product previews and add ones you like by clicking the “disabled” button until it says “enabled” and is green. Do the opposite if you don’t want your art on that particular product type.
• Click “Edit” to change the way it looks, to move the artwork, resize it or even to make a repeat pattern out of it. Make sure you resize your art to fit properly within the dotted lines of the dimensions. You can also change the background color of your work if you used a transparent PNG image.

• Click the “Apply Changes” red button to save your updates. Be sure that you’ve “enabled” that product.
• After you’re done editing all the different products then you can add your title, description and the keyword tags. Your title should be descriptive but short and should just be about the artwork, not the products it’s on, because the title will be used for all products you’ve enabled. For example, a title should be “Cute Pink Ice Cream Lady” and not “Cute Pink Ice Cream Lady Tshirt” if you’ve uploaded the art to multiple products.

• You can add more information in the description like what inspired you, something funny or interesting about the artwork, or more details about the materials you used to create it. It’s up to you.
• The tags should help people find your artwork if they’re searching for something specific. For example you might use tags like “ice cream” “funny” “gelato” “pink” “watercolor”.
• As you add artwork and develop your shop you can add categories. Each artwork you upload can go in a specific category. Examples might be “florals” or “holidays” or you could organize your artwork or by style like “paintings” and “photography”. It’s up to you.
• Select the “default view” of your artwork from the drop down menu at the bottom left. This is the view of your piece when someone views this artwork. Pick your favorite product that best shows off the piece. This could be the mug or sticker or iPhone case. You can also just select “image only” that will simply show the artwork as you have uploaded it.
• Make the view “Public” so that it can be seen by others and select whether the artwork is mature in content.
• Finally click the button agreeing that you have the rights to use this artwork and click the red “Save Work” button to add this art to the products and your shop. It will take a second to save and upload and you’ll be done!

Redbubble Selling Tips: How to be Successful on Redbubble

If you are really lucky, you’ll upload some pieces to Redbubble and make a quick sale. But most people aren’t that lucky and need to put in a bit more effort to make money with Redbubble and other POD shops. Here are some tips and tricks to a successful Redbubble shop and how to get found on Redbubble.

1. Make more art. I wouldn’t recommend quantity over quality but it does help to have many products in your shop. The more artwork you upload the better chances are that someone will see one of your designs and buy it. Also be sure to put your art on as many different types of products as possible. Don’t limit yourself to just tshirts or mugs, try it all!
2. Share your Redbubble links on social media. Let your fans know that they can buy products with your art on them. Put it on your personal Facebook or your artist Facebook page. Share it on Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. Be sure to follow Redbubble as well so you can promote their special discount codes and sales too!
3. Interact with other artists on Redbubble. You can follow other artists and like their work. Just click the heart icon you’ll see next to an item or artwork. Join groups and challenges and read the Redbubble forum and blog. Plus interacting with other successful artists might help you pick up some great Redbubble selling tips.
4. If you have a blog, Instagram page or other platform you can also make money by promoting other Redbubble artists. Sign up as a Redbubble affiliate here and earn 10% of the sales you refer.

Would you like more Redbubble selling tips?

Check out this awesome Skillshare class by artist Cat Coquillette. She goes through the basics and insider details for selling on Print-On-Demand websites. She’s a super successful print-on-demand seller so she has great advice. Click here to check it out and get 2 months of Skillshare free too!

My Redbubble Review as a Seller

I’ve been a seller on Redbubble for several years now and I have found it a fun learning process. I made a few sales in my first month and thought it would be really easy to make a good side income on POD sites.

I found out that sadly it was not as easy as it first seemed. I was lucky to be featured on the front page and that’s what led to the first sales. But after the initial purchases I didn’t have another one for several months. I kept adding artwork but didn’t see much action.

Later I started paying more attention to sharing my designs on social media and regularly uploading lots of new art. I saw an increase in sales from my efforts. Some items are very low in price – like stickers – and I sold a higher quantity of them but the commission amount is quite low.

It also helps to notice what is selling on Redbubble, both by you and other artists. I noticed certain themes like bird illustrations sold better for me than other work. What are the current trends? What type or work or products is Redbubble promoting? Can you change the color of your artwork to appeal to more people? Check out the Redbubble success stories by looking at popular products and checking out the Redbubble blog.

All in all, I think it is possible to make a good income on sites like Redbubble if you are a prolific and dedicated artist. I would recommend building your Redbubble portfolio while you are making income in other ways. And add your art to other POD sites as well such as Zazzle, Society 6, Spoonflower, Threadless and others.

I hope this article helps get you excited to start selling on Redbubble. Good luck with your shop!

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