Selling art online
2010′s big push to a more creatively aligned lifestyle means getting our feet wet with selling our art online. I now understand why so many artists fail to create an effective online sales platform: it’s bloody hard!
I helped in the background to get absinthe-shop.com online last year (where you can, of course buy absinthe!) which gave me a scant grounding in working with the Magento e-commerce application. Magento, though free in it’s basic form, is a very capable, heavyweight shopping cart and order management tool. For absinthe-shop.com, a more traditional online store with a specific range of stocked products, it was the obvious choice. To sell artworks, it seemed, at first, less than ideal.
What is more important?
Online stores are most effective when they make the purchase process as straightforward as possible. After messing with a bunch of other shopping cart solutions (and knowing from the off that the level of complexity I needed prohibited a bespoke build at this time), I found all to be lacking in the practical requirements of managing stock, organising orders, invoices, and most importantly, integrating accurate shipping charges. This last point was the clincher. It became clear very early that a system which would ensure the goods were properly insured when shipped would win.
Add to this the need to create connections between groups and types of products (an original artwork and it’s limited edition prints, for example), and nothing could quite match the flexibility of the magento solution without significant expense.
Sawber.com was born just before the new year. Currently only stocking my artworks and prints (Jen’s coming soon), it makes life as easy as it can be to order and to manage those orders from the extensive administration. With full payment gateway integration, orders can be processed by PayPal or directly within the store, and the system presents only the most appropriate shipping options based on destination, package weight, and insurance value.
I think if we only stocked original artworks, then it might be far too hefty a solution. But having to manage hundreds of limited edition prints dictated the need for a more capable application.
The art business is slow
No surprises there, I’m sure. With the ongoing empty pockets of most people and the post Christmas period, we’re not seeing people buy original art at quite the rate we hoped. But it is very early days. Gradually, word is getting out and traffic coming in. We are building with the long term in mind, so though a big initial splash would ring well with our wallets, the last thing we want is to so rapidly run out of art stock that we are unable to replenish it!
