Been selling Mithila paintings on Amazon for six months and I'm trying to understand the algorithm
My son helped me put some of my paintings on Amazon last year. Small things, mostly, fish motifs, a few Lakshmi pieces for Diwali time. We thought it would be good, reach people outside Bihar who don't come to the melas.
Six months now. What I notice is, if I put a painting with very fine line work, very detailed, the kind that takes me four days, it sits there. No sales. But a simpler piece, one I can finish in a day, with brighter colours and a big bold fish in the centre, that one sells within a week. Same size, same paper, same story behind it.
I don't understand this. The detailed one has more of me in it. More tradition. But the simple one is what people want to buy. I am grateful for the sales, do not mistake me. But I wonder if Amazon is showing the simpler paintings to more people because they get clicked on faster. Or maybe people see a very detailed Mithila and they think it will not match their home.
I am not complaining ji. Just trying to understand. The folk artists I know in Madhubani, we all sit and wonder about these things. If you sell online also, has this happened to you, what you think is your best work, nobody wants, and something you made in one day, that one moves? 🙏
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This rings true and I'm not surprised. The algorithm doesn't see the work, it sees what people click on, and what people click on in a thumbnail the size of a stamp is not fine line work. It's a bold shape, a bright colour, something that reads instantly.
The detailed pieces, they need to be seen in person, or at least with good photographs that let you zoom in and actually look. Amazon gives you neither. So the algorithm learns that nobody wants them, when really the problem is the platform can't show them.
I don't know if there's a fix within Amazon. Maybe better photographs that try to isolate a detail? But honestly, the platform is built for cheap and quick. Your four-day painting and a mass-produced poster live in the same search results and the algorithm has no way to tell the difference.
Not a consolation, but the people who would love those detailed pieces, they exist. They're just not finding you there.
Yes, you have put it exactly. The thumbnail size, this is what my son also tells me. On a phone screen, the fine lines are just gone. All that work, four days of sitting and drawing, and it looks like nothing in that small box. The bold fish, it fills the whole thing, you can see it even from far.
I tried the better photographs also. I have a nephew who knows photography a bit, he came with a good camera and we took close-ups. Still, on Amazon, the main image is the small one. People have to click to see the close-up, and why would they click if the first thing does not catch them?
So I am thinking, maybe I keep the simpler ones for Amazon and the detailed work for the buyers who come to my home or the exhibitions. But it feels wrong, making the simpler ones again and again. Like I am giving them what they will click on, not what I can do best. You understand this, I think.