SellwebThe subject of artists selling on the web is a topic that’s almost as old as the Internet itself. The subject has reared its head on the American Craft Forum a couple weeks ago an artist described how she eliminated the retail section of her website to ease the concerns of the galleries that carry her work.

The topic brings up some pretty strong reactions on both sides of the issue. Naturally many artists want to use the Internet to promote themselves and perhaps to capture sales from all over the world. Just as naturally gallery owners are concerned as to how this effects their bottom line. Some owners are going as far as to refusing to buy from artists who have an online retail presence. Rick Siegal, a speaker for the Rosen Group’s Buyer’s Market wrote a blog post concerning this issue and got some pretty harsh comments about it. One comment went as far as calling wholesalers who also have an online retail branch as “greedy” and “stupid”. Ouch!

Meanwhile, some artists are skeptical of galleries who don’t want artists to have their own retail site, but will also ask artists if they can include work on their online store…

The problem I have is that stores do not want me to sell online retail…but many times the next thing out of their mouth is “can I put your things up on our website”?

Is this not the same thing in a way? They are competing with other bricks & morter stores that are thousands of miles away. They have no issue with it as long as the $$ is going into their pocket I guess. I find this very interesting.

As someone who blogs about how artists can use the Internet to promote themselves you can guess my opinion on the matter. The bottom line is that the Internet is here, it’s not going anywhere, and it’s already to changed the the arts industry in ways we couldn’t imagine 10 years ago, and it will continue to do so. The next generation of craft buyers will grow up using the Internet to do everything; communicating, making friends, finding a place to live, paying bills, finding a job, working, and shopping…and they are not going to wait for us to catch up. The best thing to do is to figure out how to use the Internet so that it benefits both artists and gallery owners…not to fight against it.

In this week’s newsletter I outlined a number of ways in which individual artists can sell online without negatively impacting their relationship with their gallery accounts. To read the article sign up for the Crafted Webmaster Newsletter for free here:
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