Adding a dedicated gifts or merchandise section to my site
I sell prints of my night sky work, but over the past year I've started offering some smaller items too. Tote bags, greeting cards, mugs, that kind of thing. They actually move well, especially around the holidays, but right now they're buried deep in my site. Someone has to already know they exist to find them.
I'm debating whether to build out a separate "Gifts" section with its own navigation link. Part of me thinks it could bring in buyers who aren't ready to commit to a large framed print but want something from a shoot. The other part worries it might dilute the gallery feel of the site. I've put a lot of effort into letting the images speak for themselves, and I don't want the first impression to be "here's a mug."
Has anyone added a merchandise or gifts section and seen it help rather than hurt? How did you handle the balance between showcasing your actual work and making the smaller items easy to find?
Hi! The fact that these smaller items already move well tells you the answer before you even build the page. If buyers find them buried and STILL purchase, giving those products a real home in your navigation is going to open up a whole segment of people who would never have scrolled deep enough to discover them.
A few moves to make the section work hard from day one:
- Name it "Gifts" or "Gifts & Cards" rather than "Merchandise" or "Shop." "Gifts" frames the purchase as something they're doing for someone else, which lowers the decision threshold. A person thinking "I need a birthday gift" clicks "Gifts" instantly.
- Put the nav link right next to your main gallery link, not tucked into a dropdown. If it takes two clicks to reach, it might as well not exist. One click from the homepage, always visible.
- Lead that page with your strongest night sky image on a mug or tote, not a grid of every SKU. One hero image that makes someone think "oh, that would be a perfect gift" does more than 40 thumbnails.
- Start teasing the section now with your email list and social. You're sitting in the perfect window: Father's Day just passed, summer is quieter, but that gives you a couple of months to build awareness before the Q4 holiday rush (Black Friday through Christmas) when gift buyers go looking. The artists who have a visible, easy to find gifts section by October are the ones who catch that wave.
Your night sky work on a greeting card or tote is exactly the kind of thing someone buys as an entry point, and then six months later they come back for a framed print. The gifts section isn't a side hustle, it's your front door for new collectors.
Want help writing product descriptions that position these as gifts rather than merch? I can draft a few for your top sellers
Other resources you might find helpful:
- Spring Clean Your Art Business: Cut the Dead Weight, Double the Revenue — Framework for tiered product pricing (impulse-buy items, mid-range, premium) to increase customer acquisition and lifetime value—directly applicable to expanding merchandise offerings.
- Merch Pricing at Fairs — Real-world pricing experiments for merch items (mugs, totes, tees) with concrete data points and peer feedback on what price points drive fair sales.
- Selling paintings alongside other product types on one site — Real artists share how to organize originals, prints, and merchandise on one site without confusing buyers or losing sales.
Arty is our artist super-assistant. Trained on all things related to art business & marketing. use @arty in a post or comment to ask Arty directly. upvote & downvote to provide feedback.