If you don’t know, Displate is an amazing website that allows artists to upload their artwork to high quality metal posters and sell them on the Displate marketplace. So, for the artistically inclined, it seems to be a way to earn some passive income, as once you have uploaded your artwork, that is literally all you have to do. There is no fulfilment, production, or even marketing if you don’t want to. While the profit margins aren’t amazing, earning around $4 per sale, considering the amount of work required, it really isn’t that bad.
This experiment is going to see just how feasible it is to actually make something from this platform, and if I do actually turn a profit, just how much effort it takes.
Objective:
So to give this experiment a fair grounding, I will upload 100 pieces of art over several weeks, and then make a small update on that. From there, I will occasionally add more pieces of art, and give the occasional report.
With these sorts of business models, they adhere to the 80/20 rule, which means that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your work. So, to be as successful as possible, I aim on focusing on quantity, even if it does mean I sacrifice some quality. It will take time to get recognised on the platform, and I will likely need to get lucky and have the marketplace list some of my artwork well, hence the quantity method.
In all honesty, if I manage to make just a single sale between now and my report after 100 uploads, I will see that as a great success, and it should mean that it will become a viable option for passive income, regardless of how meagre it is in the beginning. As usual, this is certainly not a get rich quick scheme, and any success will come from consistency, and a little bit of creativity.
I am not planning on running any form of marketing at this stage, and will just be purely focused on getting as much artwork up as possible. However, if there is any success, I will definitely look into spending some time advertising through either Facebook or Twitter, as your commission increases to 50% of the sale price if it is brought through your link. So yes, if you are reading this and have a creative bend, along with an impressive following on either of these platforms, then Displate could be a great side hustle for you.
Artwork Style
I plan to upload a large variety of artwork types, ranging from photography to classical work in the public domain. After the initial 100, I will reassess what is the best for me to do, and then niche down from there. From my research, the artists who have the best publicity on the domain have several niches, and an absolutely crazy amount of artwork in each one, allowing them to monopolise it. I aim to slowly do this, hopefully building an impressive portfolio in the long term.
Scalability and Far Fetched Goals
Before setting out on this challenge, I have already given some thought to where I could go in the future with this side hustle. That is just the way my mind works, for better or for worse. I come up with a business plan, and immediately think big, imagining what it could eventually become.
With Displate, the scalability is limited to the 10 pieces of art that you can upload a day. This is plenty, and I doubt that there will be many days where I will hit this due to the time it would take to first create the work and then upload it.
I would eventually be utilising freelance graphic designers to create both designs, and also just templates for text based artwork. I have seen multiple successful artists on the platform just have a single template, and then just make an absolutely insane amount of designs with it. This in itself is highly scalable, along with being profitable, and I can’t help but try to eventually replicate it. Even better, these designs can then be used on other platforms, such as Etsy and Society6, giving a single piece of art a lot of mileage.
This forms the basis of my business philosophy that I am beginning to create: When possible, get other people to do your work, and once you have that work, use it in absolutely every conceivable way. This again complies with the 80/20 rule, but is just also good business sense, and is very achievable with the workings of the online world. It takes money to do this, but that is fine if the return is solid.
Conclusion:
Displate is an idea that could produce some passive income, although it definitely will take a decent amount of time in the beginning, along with some creativity. After 100 uploads, I will report back, with hopefully a few sales.