Guest blog by: Johannes Fröhlich – A selling art online perspective

This is the fourth guest blog in a series of articles featuring responses from both buyers and sellers in the art sector.
See further articles here

Do artists and galleries receive more interest and better sales at art fairs, in the art gallery, or selling art online? Does one drive footfall to the other? Do you simply get a different type of buyer at an art fair rather than a gallery? Do you get a lot of viewings at art fairs but not many sales? And where do online art stores enter into things and how successful are they for selling art? What makes one succeed over another?

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This is a stunning insight showcasing how artists can successfully promote themselves and their artwork online, giving buyers and collectors an opportunity to get to know both. What works so well at art fairs is the personal touch, can this be achieved online? Our current guest blog in the series that aims to help buyers and sellers understand today’s marketplace is from …

JOHANNES FROHLICH – CO-FOUNDER & CEO, PROJECT ART – THE SOCIAL ARTS MARKET^TM

About

Johannes is a passionate entrepreneur and art enthusiast with a particular interest in early 20th century and contemporary abstract art.

A collector himself, Johannes co-founded Project Art –The Social Arts Market to provide artists worldwide a platform to showcase their work and increase their exposure to a global audience of new buyers and experienced collectors alike, to support them in gaining popularity and recognition, and ensure that this pays off financially as well through the rising value of their artwork on the marketplace.

Johannes shares his time between the UK, Germany and Italy and is always on the lookout for emerging talent.

Read Johannes’ insightful views:
“Whilst buying and selling art online is still relatively new in a well-established, traditional and what some might consider a somewhat inaccessible industry, the digital art market is evolving and there is huge potential with rapidly changing consumer behaviours. It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that more and more online art buyers are using their mobile phones to do so.

For artists, especially independent artists, the possibility of selling art online, increasing the accessibility of their art by reaching a wider audience globally, is shifting some of the barriers and power relations of the traditional market.

It allows artists to take direct responsibility in managing their career and the freedom to present themselves and their artwork how they intend. It is incredibly important to be well versed in utilising the various online media to their advantage, curating their online profile on social media and online platforms carefully, and to communicate with and keeping their followers up to date. One great way of doing this is shots and short videos from the artist’s studio, work in progress and at exhibitions and fairs. Those who do it really well have a large number of followers across the various channels and, importantly, also sales and see an increase in repeat sales.

In addition, online platforms can help to market and present the artist to a wider audience, beyond their immediate followers, catching the eye of buyers who might previously not have heard of them, as well as providing and handling the complete e-commerce infrastructure including online shop and shipping logistics.

Of course, there are different aspects and considerations when it comes to buying art depending on what type of art buyer you are. In general, online platforms often act as the entry point for new buyers, as it is more comfortable to browse artwork without feeling pressured, and to discover artwork they fall in love with. Online platforms typically have good range of different styles and artists from around the globe, from artists who have just started out, to more established artists, and at different price points. Platforms can curate their content to present artists and artwork under different aspects to create awareness and help the buyer to navigate the artwork.

On Project Art – The Social Arts Market a buyer can create their own virtual collections, bookmark their favourite artworks, and as such monitor their development over time, particularly if they’re interested in value development, and make a purchase decision at a later stage. An important aspect to assist that decision is the possibility for a buyer to preview artwork displayed in their surroundings, which is why we built our View-in Room technology for buyers to see how the artwork looks in their own home.

With the possibility to reach new buyers beyond the existing art market a variety of sellers are getting involved, including traditional brick-and-mortar galleries who are teaming up with online marketplaces to use their technological expertise and infrastructure to generate a significant percentage of their sales from an international audience.

In fact, Project Art has started to work with art fairs. We are providing our digital marketplace capability and online shop system, which allows the art fair to sell the exhibition artworks well beyond the physical fair, including buyers who did not make a purchase decision on the day or were not able to visit the fair in person. In turn, buyers can meet artists whose profile on Project Art they might have followed for some time, in person at the fair, learn more about them and their work in conversation, which might influence their decision to buy an artwork from this particular artist, either directly at the fair or at a later point online”.

A word from Flight Logistics ShipArt

What is becoming apparent through these valuable guest blogs is that we live in a day and age when artists have much more control over their careers. It’s been mentioned more than once that an important aspect of successful sales is the personal touch that the likes of art fairs provide, and where as we once might have perceived online selling as “detached”, Johannes has blown that theory clear out of the water. What Project Art – The Social Arts Market offeres is exactly that, an online social market where the buyer is introduced to the personalities of both art and artist which now means that trading online is very much in tune with today’s best practice theories for the art market.

Just make sure that there is a professional art shipping company on stand by for the last part of the trade.  Don’t forget amidst the excitement of any art purchase how important it is to use a professional art shipping company for delivery – packing, insurance and shipping are often last minute additions to the process – they can be an integral part of the process with the right advice – check out our previous blog articles with free advice and email us for quotes and more specific information

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Look out for Part Five in this series. Our guest blog will be from Katherine Filice, artist. Follow us on any of our social media channels to be sure of receiving this.