22 March, 2009
  • ArtWanted.com Staff
  • 6,328 Views
  • 37 Comments

New Artist Store Plus More!

This year ArtWanted.com celebrates our 10 year anniversary! As part of our year-long celebration, we will be updating our website every month with new upgrades for our members. This month we have upgraded several features to help our members sell more artwork and manage their artwork sales. Here are the details...

1) NEW ARTIST STORE

If you have any artwork for sale on our site, you will now notice a new 'Store' tab in your portfolio. The artist store contains a list of all of the portfolio images that are for sale (and the price range). When someone clicks on the image thumbnail, they will be taken directly to the purchase image page which lists all of the for sale options. This artist store feature is available for those members who are enrolled in our Premium Print Program, or if you are listing and fulfilling your own artwork sales. We hope this new artist store area will bring a bigger focus to your artwork that is for sale.

2) E-MAILED SALES

Starting today, our Print Program members will now get e-mailed whenever a sale is made through our website. In the past the sale was recorded in our sales reports, but the artist was not notified via e-mail. We have had several members request that we notify them when a sale is generated, so we have made this feature available for all members when a sale is made on their artwork. All sales commissions will continue to be recorded in our sales reports and bank account as well.

3) EDIT FOR SALE DETAILS

If you have listed your own artwork to sell on our site, you now have the ability to edit the price and description of the artwork at anytime. In the past, you had to delete the pricing record and re-create it, but this is no longer the case. This should help reduce the time it takes you to manage your artwork which is for sale. You can edit the artwork for sale details at the bottom of the edit image page.

4) ARTIST PURCHASES RECORDED IN SALES REPORTS

In the past, we only recorded sales in our sales reports that were commissionable. We have just made a change to record all sales in our sales reports, so any purchases you make of your own artwork will be recorded in this area as well.

5) SALE CONFIRMATION IN MEMBERS AREA

In the past, when an artist sold artwork through our system, we would send them an e-mail about it with all of the buyers information. However, some artists did not get our e-mails about their sales. To help fix this issue, we now display any personal artwork sales as you login to the members area. The buyer's information will be displayed for you and you will be asked to confirm the sale and the shipping of the artwork.

We hope you enjoy these new sales features and watch for additional updates all throughout the year.

Reply

37 Comments

Frank King 23 Mar 2009

I have all my Art 4 sale,I have request 4 my Richard Petty piece, Q; How do I no who ordered it? Q; How do I get it 2 them? I really like the store feature!

AW STAFF REPLY: When you artwork is sold, we will send you an e-mail with the buyers information, so you can ship it out to them. This information will also be displayed in your members area when login if you do have a sale. If you have any other questions, please e-mail our staff about it.

susan kinney 24 Mar 2009

cool on the store....but there are artworks i only posted for sale to buy for myself. how do i take them off Sales but still leave in my portfolio...

thanks.. susan :)

AW STAFF REPLY: You currently have 115 images that are for sale in your portfolio. If you want us to remove ALL for sale options on all your images, just request that through our staff. If you want to delete the for sale options on an individual image basis, you can go to the EDIT IMAGE page and there is a link to remove the for sale details.

desiree walstra 26 Mar 2009

Hi AW!

It's a public secret that hardly anyone sells here (not speaking for myself since I have never even bothered to give it a try) it seems that most sales here are artists and family of artists buying their own work. This is frustrating to many people here, especially if you compare the salesrates with other sites like RedBubble, where a membership is 100%free and most artists DO sell! (there are many people here that are members for years allready and never sold, yet on RB they do sell quite good)

It's nice that you are investing time and energy in these upgrades but FOR WHAT??

I think it is time you work on the other aspects of this site, like the quality of art and maybe a different system to filter out the ugly stuff.....no serious ART buyer will be able to stand this place for more than three minutes.....

I (like many) would like to see some numbers about the sales here, we are asking for that for years allready......a little transparancy won't hurt!

For me AW works as a place where I can be found and contacted and yes i did get some GREAT business because of it but selling here??? NO.....as long as this place stays as amateuristic as it has been the past years i will not put my work up for sale.....

Sorry if I am a neusance but you see the amount of replies to your post...........hardly any......I think this is the reason why....

daisy~'*-

AW STAFF REPLY: Daisy - The whole purpose of these changes are to help increase sales for our members. By having an artist store as a main section of the portfolio, we think it will help drive more sales to our members. While only 1/4 of our members wish to sell art on our site, we are always looking for ways to help those that want to sell. We will continue to work on ways to improve the website for all members of our community and feedback is always welcome.

Dale Stoner 26 Mar 2009

I have been sudying the sales aspect since I first came. Almost all of my art has no material form. It is purely digitial and made in a digital software application so no print or canvas forms exist. I do have older sketches, water colors and acryllics of a very primitive memory focussed type. What I see as the cutting edge is selling the digital form in a digital frame. This locks in one item as the total memory of the frame. I made some images of my digital frame store with pictures loaded when I first opted for teh Premium membership last Winter after I retired. I'll put some of those up now in case anyone has no idea how it might work for those without computers who are art buyers and don't want the multiple color space of printing.

desiree walstra 27 Mar 2009

Thanks for answering AW.....but how can sales increase if there aren't any buyers around?.....


ArtWanted.com Staff 27 Mar 2009

There are buyers surfing ArtWanted.com every day that buy artwork from our members. In 2008 we had 4 times the number of sales we had in 2007, so sales are increasing and more buyers are coming to ArtWanted.com. Yes, we would all love to see more buyers and more artwork purchases. The large jump in sales last year proves that we are on the right track, but there there is always more that we can do. It's not something that will happen overnight, but sales continue to grow and we will continue to make upgrades to our site to help our members sell more and turn 'browsers' into 'buyers'.

Maureen Bloesch 27 Mar 2009

of the work, I have listed, there are only two pieces that I can ship out. Everything else is from a photo of my work. I wanted the items to sell on a lot of mdse you have posted, but to date, all I have are problems posting. Then i received an email telling me I did not pay, when I had. Then I received an apology. Ok, so how can we change everything that is listed so far so it reflects what I actually want, or do I need to start over? If you cant fix it at your end...Please refund my money and you can delete my files that are posted!

AW STAFF REPLY: We are happy to help you with the issue you are having, but we don't quite understand you request to 'fix it how you actually want'. Can you please e-mail us an describe exactly what you are looking for and we are sure we can help you out.

Heidi Olson 28 Mar 2009

Unfotunately Daisy is right. I believe its time for Artwanted to make a choice between being a portfolio site and a sales site. There is no shame in it artwanted. I love my portfolio..but honestly that's what it is. I can find my work via google because I personally made sure of that, but how many people really know how to use the google system effectively? I rarely find just the "Artwanted" base site in my searching for artists resources..which I store in bookmarks. Daisy is right about Red Bubble. There is a lot of good on that site and frankly, their sales are doing fine. (I know of two sales of friends of mine in the last few days..and not to themselves or family members.) I don't know how many have sold on this site but I have sold like two postcards since I joined a couple of years ago. Been a member and a paying one for some time and really wish that AW would just decide this is a portfolio/blog site and go with it because its great for that. But the huge gaudy buttons the gross purple march madness signs...I understand wanting to have sales for march but you know what? I call stuff I buy myself Inventory for my physical display portfolio. I don't make money off buying my own either so I am not sure how it is that AW is making any money if most are buying their own. Daisy is right about transparency. We haven't seen much in sales for ourselves..so are wondering where you get the idea that sales are good? Please understand that while I love the site..I wouldn't keep uploading work here if I didn't. I paid you guys for a reason though. I don't need complex graphic buttons. I need word link buttons that load in a few seconds...fine if you want to make those bright blue. I want my artistic background back as that was part of my portfolio too. I want to be able to change the button color too but I suppose that's your job. Frankly I liked having the flatter look...the "puffy look" distracts me from the art..and makes the art look smaller some how. It's really not good AW. So I hope you will go back to the simple format that worked before..and you can still add your blog features etc..but please be realistic as to what we are doing here. We aren't selling..so we figure you aren't either.


ArtWanted.com Staff 28 Mar 2009

One advantage that our staff has, is that we can see the whole picture. It's easy to say that ArtWanted.com doesn't have sales if you are personally not getting sales, but you are not able to see everything that is going on with the whole site. There are almost 25,000 artists on our site with a portfolio.

ArtWanted.com has sales every day from art buyers buying artwork from other artists. As we have mentioned, sales are increasing from the recent changes we have made to the website.

As for making a choice if ArtWanted.com is an artist community or an art store, we have already made that decision, ArtWanted.com is primarily an artist community, but we also allow our member to sell their artwork. However, selling artwork is not the biggest focus of the majority of our members, so it's not the biggest focus of our site. Only 25% of our members sell artwork on our site and 75% of our members prefer to use ArtWanted.com to display their artwork only and be part of our community. We are not about to kick out 75% of our members to turn our site into only an art store, nor are we willing to kick out 75% of our members to raise the overall quality of the artwork on our site. We are an artist community and we welcome all artists from all skill levels to join and promote their artwork. If you desire is to sell your artwork, that is great and we welcome you to list your artwork on our site. ArtWanted.com offers more products and sales options than most other art websites, so there are many benefits to listing your artwork for sale here.

We always welcome feedback and comments about our site and your past feedback has continued to improve ArtWanted.com over the years. Keep it up.

susan kinney 29 Mar 2009

hi..thanks for the reply. i did figure out how to sort out my sale items...thanks.

im wondering if AW will ever offer matting & framing?? i think thats the ticket for sales. people order a print and it comes in a tube..its not what they invision. they still need to find a place to mat & frame to make their purchase complete. meaning they pay again for what they just bought. i know of 2 prints i have sold and they tell me their print is still in the tube because they cant afford or dont have the time to frame them..etc. there are several places online that you can interact with mat and frameing choices and visially see the image as a whole. i have ordered through one place and i love it! my image come to me ready to hang on a wall. i think thats what people are expecting when they buy artwork....and i do agree that the big glass buttons are all wrong for a artists website. they are cute and all and nice graphic work but they make me think of kids :)

susan :)

AW STAFF REPLY: Framing and matting are options that we have considered to have in the near future. Thanks for showing interest in this option.

Tree Pruitt 29 Mar 2009

Daisy & Heidi have it said well... and big purple buttons cracked me up laughing! It looks more like a message board here than a fine art site. Sell from here??? Hmmm. I've never had a lead from this site that I know of in over five years of paying for Premium, but even places like Myspace.com have generated sales of my work for free. Because the print program here doesn't allow me to preview and edit how an image presents on a product (if it does than it isn't showing on my computer) I pay for a CafePress store too. If the artists can't take the site seriously how can buyers?

D McCarthy 29 Mar 2009

Hi,

I like the new features. I also like the bubble look and big buttons because they make the site appear user-friendly for the general public. Just another opinion of the 25,000 out there.

I have a concern that I do need some help with, however. I changed the price of Summer a while ago, and recently noticed that in the Store tab, the old price shows up in red, while the new price shows up after you click it. I tried deleting the cost and doing it over this weekend, but the old price still shows up in red on the Store tab. Can you please fix this?

It's not like I am sending people here in droves yet, but I would like everything to match once they get here.

Thanks in advance!

AW STAFF REPLY: We have fixed the price in your store, so it shows up correctly.

Kat Godfrey 29 Mar 2009

Hi AW. Just stopping by to tell you that your site and store are appreciated. Please just keep doing what you do, and know that so many here are grateful that you welcome our art with open arms. I think it's a great site for shoppers to comfortably browse artwork without becoming discouraged that they cannot afford to buy. And I think your merchandise line is fabulous even if most sales are going to artists and their families. There is no better way for an artist to promote themselves. What a great opportunity and service you are providing the art community. There are so many advantages here, that it will take too long to name them all. You built a site named Artwanted.com and accept all the art from us refugees regardless of the level of skill, or the genre. Thank you for all you do to promote us and our art. Kat

Gina Lemelin 30 Mar 2009

I also wanted to thank artwanted for this site and service...you offer a good variety of products and prices seem competitive with other art sites...I recently had a good sale of one of my originals on this site and didn't expect many sales because most sites have an over run of artists and their art...that the customer can't possibly see everything....so I feel lucky the customer found my art and liked it enough to buy it...and to all those people saying sales are only to people we know or ourselves...this is not the case...also, you offer paypal which alot of other sites don't offer and not everyone has a credit card or wants to use it without the security offered by using paypal...I think you are doing a good job for us artwanted...thanks for the upgrades...

dawn oconnor 31 Mar 2009

as a new user to AW Id like to say that I am finding the site very user friendly, a few problems that ive had because im a new user have been quickly answered fully and helpfully by admin and the comments that Ive had from other users have been music to my ears lol, thankyou all very much x

Rezo Kaishauri 31 Mar 2009

C'mon folks, if you seriously want to sell your art, you should find some other sites. The beauty of ArtWanted.com is in its chaos, a crazy mix of professional artists and amateurs. This is what most people love about AW and why they come here. And I don't care if this chaos affects the "sales numbers" negatively.

You can't catch two rabbits at the same time, you need to choose. I choose to enjoy the process and forget about the figures, and I advise you to do the same, otherwise you're wasting your time with AW and need to find better marketing solutions.

AW, I like your priorities, so keep up the good work. I think the selling options provided by this website are more than enough, considering its profile.

Freda Young 01 Apr 2009

I think the site is easy to mange for the generation not used to using computers. I like to look through the daily postings of the artists and quickly pick out those I appreciate. There is a general mixture of photographic and digital and fine art. Maybe there should be different corridors for the different specialities. Everywhere in the artworld there are selection committees and curators in this day and age. At a recent show of our artgroup a curator was employed - some of our group who do not take their arwork seriously enough dropped out but we also lost a good painter as well. So maybe selection committees might benefit sales to Art Wanted. - who knows.

Michael Easter 02 Apr 2009

I have to say AW - I am very pleased with your move to create the store tag on the portoflios. This I feel makes it easier to move through!

I like the changes I am seeing. I would love to see you guys make it so that we can create and send our newsletters through you.

Jennifer Spencer Boedeker 02 Apr 2009

Okay, I don't use the google options and i don't know how but I'm not worried about it right now. But, my husband put bonus questions on his most recent tests for his students, it's to guess his tattoos. His students, not the brightest college students, managed to google my name and find me on Art Wanted, email me from Art Wanted and ask questions.

So, just for that part of the argument, people can find you. Of course, that means my stalker too but Art Wanted has GREAT safety measures. The creep still didn't get my new address. YAY!

Diane Duran 05 Apr 2009

I am Glad that AW is improving their site. However, May I request something simple. Make the sites/links easier to find. I recommend that the links are in the portfolio exclusively and personality. I have jumped around the community to find contest etc.. I signed up with AW in November 08, and can't find any links to any of the things your all talking about. I can't find or understand how to use the shop, or prints. I don't see any difference in non paying and paying. maybe my site is not active. Heck! I don't know. I believe that the problem with the lack of sales. Is the time to search everywhere for the sales or print links. and a link I once found to to add your gallery on to another site etc.. That would be nice to be able select which art piece you want. I guess I have too many ideas. Thanks for hearing me out. Would you check to see if I have all the benefit links/button in my site.

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