One day you woke up and decided to start selling art online. After taking care of the first steps before putting your artwork up for sale online , you went ahead and developed a strategy for selling art online and took your time connecting with possible clients.
You put in the hard work and now the rewards start to come thru, someone came across your art online and liked it enough to buy it. You might think that the hard part is done, but there are still some very important steps to be taken before you can actually call this a ‘done deal’, when the new buyer finally has his painting hanging at his house.
Taking proper care of the post-sales efforts is crucial for the long run, a tidy ship is easier to manage and once you start generating a steady number of sales, you will understand why having this part under control is so important, basically, it saves you a lot of time.
Packing
When selling artworks to an international audience it’s crucial to send it properly packed. Selling art online relies heavily on trust, especially because the buyer has never met you and in most cases has never seen the art he is buying.
If the collector takes the leap of faith into buying an artwork from you and upon arrival, it’s damaged, that trust is likely to be lost. You can work towards repairing the damage or sending a new work, but it would have been easier if you simply had invested the time into properly packing your artwork.
The first step is to really know the artwork that you are shipping, it’s dimensions, materials and overall frailness of it. Understand how this package will be handled and where should the packing be reinforced in order to properly withstand the stress of transportation.
Package Weight
Always aim to use a lightweight material, it makes the whole effort easier and cheaper. When packing larger pieces you might need to construct a crate for the shipping. Using plywood for the outside and styrofoam for the interior can really help cut costs on the shipping.
It’s also crucial to reduce the possibility of damage towards the artwork while shipping. For framed artworks, it might be a good idea to use acrylic rather than glass, since it’s lighter and more resistant to breaking.
Once you start selling art on a regular basis, you surely will develop a system for packing your artwork, making the process easier in the long term.
Shipping
After selling an artwork, it might be a good idea to have it arrive at the buyer, right? The type of shipping depends greatly on where you find yourself in your art career, emerging artists can easily go by with traditional shipping by a consumer level shipping companies.
After your career starts to grow, you will move towards more important shipping, and it’s important to move towards a professional art handling company, ensuring quality and professional shipping for your growingly expensive artworks.
Calculate shipping before closing the deal.
When selling art it’s important to calculate correctly the shipping before closing the final deal. In most cases it’s the buyer who should pay the shipping costs, so make sure to know exactly what those costs are, including covering the packing expenses.
Some countries have regions that are not considered as part of the mainland, and that can incur extra shipping costs. So thoroughly calculate the shipping price on several companies before closing the deal, to avoid unpleasant suprises.
Do your research
Once you start shipping artworks on a regular basis, you will establish relationships with specific companies, but it’s important to keep your eyes open for better deals. Certain companies have better costs in specific regions or sizes.
Whenever shipping an artwork to a new location, it’s worth doing some research and ensuring the best deal.
Cultivating long-term relationships
Getting your first sale is probably the hardest, but once you acquire the trust of an art collector it’s very important to grow that relationship towards a long-lasting relationship.
When buying art, especially from emerging artists, collectors become emotionally attached to these artworks and their creators, they are always excited to hear news regarding artists that they believe in.
It is important to keep these new collectors well informed about new developments in your career regarding new exhibitions and a new series of works. A good tool to do so is to maintain a regular newsletter, where you can talk about all the news regarding your career.
Keep in mind that maintaining your collector base well informed and up to date helps maintain a strong relationship with these collectors can help bring further sales in the future, so it’s worth investing your time.
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