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Opulent Art Gallery Selling through ARTSY

As a premier art gallery, we are now offering artists the ability to sell their artworks through our online marketplace in conjunction with one of the largest art platforms of the world.

 

What or who is ARTSY?

Based in New York and formally known as ARTSY, Inc., they’re a huge online arts brokerage platform with considerable clout within the art industry. ARTSY is home to millions of art collectors, art buyers, and art lovers, with very high traffic count on their site. They are described as the “world’s top resource for buying, collecting, and learning about fine art.” Their estimated web traffic is just under 4.8M+.

 

ARTSY commands the lion’s share of the online art market. Their website receives millions traffic hits, which will certainly work to your advantage. In the art world, name recognition and sales have a strong correlation.

 

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How can I sell my art on ARTSY?

You can sign up to our new ARTSY selling subscription service. This will mean we will sell and advertise your artworks on your behalf through ARTSY.

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Can I sell directly on ARTSYs platforms?

ARTSY does not do business with individual artists, no matter how famous. This means that you’ll first need to be affiliated with an art gallery that has already partnered with ARTSY. That gallery must also be willing to include you as one of their represented artists to be included on ARTSY’s platform.

 

 

Will you hold exhibits on their sites?

ARTSY allows galleries to create exhibits to draw the attention of art collectors. The online exhibition dates will be spread out in order to maximize your exposure to premier art collectors in the industry. We will create group exhibitions and are also looking into creating solo exhibitions.

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Do I have to sell exclusively with you? Can I continue to sell my artwork elsewhere?

We don't lock artists in any exclusive deals so you are still free to sell in other platforms if you do at present. All we ask is if you sell an artwork you have with us on ARTSY, just make sure you let us know so we can mark as sold or you can remove it and replace with another available artwork.

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How else will you promote me?

We will be featured in Opulent Arts regular social media posts and exposure. We also create artist ARTSY Catalogues which are featured on our website and YouTube versions shown on our channel.

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What will I gain from this?

At a minimum, you’ll get a huge boost in exposure through ARTSY gallery rooms and frequent gallery exhibitions. We are confident that this will translate into strong sales for you. Of course, the art market has always been finicky, and so there’s never any guarantee when it comes to art sales even for an established artist. But if you have the talent and good presentation skills, and especially if you’ve been getting compliments or winning awards, hitting a respectable sales figure in our honest opinion is just a matter of time.

 

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Am I guaranteed a spot on Opulent Art’s ARTSY Selling Platform?

Unfortunately, the standard for acceptance is much higher for representation on ARTSY.  Opulent Art will ask Artists to submit works they are hoping to sell on ARTSY, they will then be selected by Opulent Art and passed to ARTSY to verify they are happy for the works to be sold on their platform. Final decision of artwork acceptance rests with ARTSY.

If you have already paid any subscription fees and your work is not accepted by ARTSY (doesn’t happen very often), then we will immediately refund 100% of your subscription.

 

 

Will all my works be displayed on ARTSY?

Most of the works you submit that are of high artistic value should be displayed on ARTSY. However, there may rise an occasion where ARTSY’s concierge team and/or Opulent Art decides that it will be in our best mutual interest to request for a replacement artwork.

 

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How many works can I display on ARTSY?

25 or 60 Artworks (depending on package) currently will be displayed for sale for each Artist. Artworks can be hidden and changed so a regular rotation of artworks is possible by hiding or removing current artworks and submitting new artworks to replace them to keep your ARTSY profile fresh.

 

 

What will I need to do in order to be part of ARTSY?

You’ll need to contact Opulent Art and let us know you are intending to take up our ARTSY selling subscription. You’ll need to send us some of the Artworks you are hoping to sell on the platform and we will look at them and pass to ARTSY for acceptance. Once we are all happy with posting your artworks on the site we will let you know.

 

You can then click on the ARTSY subscription and make a purchase. Once all sorted, we will get your artworks on ARTSY ASAP and hopefully get them sold.

 

 

How much is the monthly subscription fee to display on ARTSY?

Our current ARTSY subscription fees are:

GOLD Package of £30 a month. This will allow up to 25 artworks (Our most popular).  

PLATINUM Package of £50 a month. This will allow up to 60 artworks.  

 

We offer 10% discounted yearly rates on each package available on request.

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Can I cancel my subscription at any time?

Ideally we suggest leaving your Artworks on ARTSY for at least 2-3 months to get a feel for how its working with selling rates, artwork queries etc. You are free to cancel your ARTSY selling subscription with us at any point. Payments are made monthly in advanced to your artworks will remain on ARTSY until the payments run out at which point they will be hidden, if you tell us you are just taking a break. If you are leaving then we will delete the artworks and remove all images.  If you have taken out the Yearly subscription, then after the initial 30 day cooling off period, once you cancel auto renewals, your profile and artworks will remain for the remainder of the paid year.

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If you paid through PayPal, you can cancel your subscription through the PayPal under subscriptions.

If you paid through Stripe (Credit Card) you will ned to contact us so we can cancel your subscription.

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You are free to take out a new subscription with us at any point in the future.

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Will you charge a commission if my work sells on ARTSY?

Opulent Art would love for Artists to keep all the money paid for their Artworks to themselves but unfortunately ARTSY imposes hefty and complex fees on us for works being displayed and sold on their platform. This means that in order to recoup at least that, we’ll unfortunately need to pass it on to our artists.

 

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How much commission will you charge if my art sells on ARTSY's platform?

ARTSY are currently taking 19% (which unfortunately we can’t control) and so to help keep Artists commission low, Opulent Art will take a low commission rate of 11% if you are on the Gold Package and even lower rate of 6% if you are on Platinum Package.  This means a total of 30% or 25% commission will be taken for sold artworks with Artists receiving a higher than normal gallery rate of 70% on Gold or 75% on Platinum.

 

 

How should I price my artworks?

You should initially decide how much you want to receive for your artworks then price them accordingly to allow for the 30% commission rates to be taken plus shipping which is detailed below. 

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Work out the total you want to receive for the artwork, packaging etc.

Take your Total figure and Divide by 0.7

e.g. £550 / 0.7 = £785    You then list artwork for £785. To test, just do Total multiplied by 0.7 (70%) to get £550.

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Who pays for the shipping, handling, and insurance?

ARTSY has recently introduced free shipping for certain countries. This means that you don’t have to worry about the shipping cost at all. It will be taken care of by ARTSY. But unfortunately, if you are shipping your artwork(s) from outside an ARTA approved country, ARTSY strongly recommends that artists have a flat pricing for shipping. What this means is that instead of going with the exact shipping fee, you charge the buyer a fixed fee. Their recommended range is between £50 to £200, depending on the size and originality (unique or print) of the work you’re shipping. They also prefer the “Amazon” model, where shipping is free and you ship at no cost to the collector, giving them a strong incentive to buy from you. Of course, you can always factor that into your pricing by slightly raising the listing price of your piece. Remember that unless the artwork is damaged or not as advertised, the collector will have to pay for any return shipping. ARTSY’s statistics on returns show that this is an extremely rare occurrence (less than 3% of all artworks sold in both cases), so this gives us confidence that a return is unlikely to take place.

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Currently ARTA (ARTSY shipping provider) only operates within the following countries. If you are outside these, then you will have to arrange your own shipping and insurance. ARTA countries are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The United States, Wales.

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If your country falls within the ARTA system then we recommend using this but you are free to select your own shipping provider and manual costs to the buyer or even mark artwork(s) as Free Shipping and price your artwork(s) accordingly to maybe attract buyers. If you use a manual shipping provider (either by choice or because you fall outside an ARTA country) then we advise paying for insurance with whichever shipping provider you go with.

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Who Packages the Artwork when Shipping with ARTA?

ARTA will handle shipping arrangements including payment and collection of the Artwork from the Artist. The Artist will have to package the artwork ready for shipping and cover the costs for this within the artwork sale. The Artist should provide good estimate or exact weight of the packaged artwork in the ARTSY listing. Once the sale has gone through Opulent Art will provide Artist contact email to ARTA who will then email packaging labels to the Artist. Once artwork is all packaged up and labels attached, the Artist can contact the relevant provider with the details provided and the Artwork will then be collected from the Artist.

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How accurate do I have to be with Shipping Weights?

Shipping weight bands are fairly wide so it's best to over estimate total shipping weight. If you have already shipped similar works and know the weight then that's fine.

If you have packing material about, you can weigh it the work out a total.

If you are unsure, its best to estimate about 20% over.  e.g. put 12kg instead of 10kg.

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According to several comparison sites for shipping a 110 cm x 15cm x 100cm package weighing 10kg costs the same as same size and up to 40kg.

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Examples.

a 12" x 12" framed artwork with bubble wrap and board or strong cardboard protection may weigh approx 3kg and cost about £30 to ship internationally

a 40" x 30" canvas artwork with MDF boards and bubble wrap may weight approx10-20 kgs and cost about £250

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Will I get my own Portal login to upload Artworks and details?

ARTSY only provide login details to their site to Galleries. We have created a template which we will send to you once you have taken out subscription which has all fields necessary for you to complete for us to create your ARTSY profile and get your artworks on the site.

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When do I get paid?

ARTSY inform buyers that there is a no returns policy. Shipments through ARTSY shipping program are insured so buyer and artists are protected against damage so will retain payments.

Because of the no returns policy, ARTSY will release funds paid for the artworks minus commission to Opulent Art Gallery within a few days.

Once we receive these funds, we will contact you to get your preferred bank details then make payment to the artists straight away. We don't see any reason to withhold payments from artists as buyers are not covered by any returns policy so its not in our interest to hold onto artists money. We can also make payments to your preferred PayPal account if you prefer.

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Artists Selling Terms with Opulent Art?

ARTSY subscribers will be covered by ARTSY general terms and conditions for selling artworks and are fairly standard. With regard to Opulent Art, once you have signed up to the subscription service, we will:

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• Send you details and template for you to complete so we can crate your ARTSY profile and upload artworks.

• Provide a file transfer method for you to get your artwork images to us for uploading.

• We will upload all relevant information and images onto ARTSY and create your Artworks on your profile.

• We will ask you to confirm all artwork details once live.

• We will keep you up to date with buyer queries and questions and hopefully sales requests.

• We will keep an eye on number of artworks and prompt you to get to your allotted 25 or 60 artworks.

• Once at your allotted artworks, we will upload new artworks and temporarily hide other artworks to keep you at your artwork limit and keep you profile fresh with new/different artworks on a regular basis.

• We can help provide details for shipping companies/methods and packaging if required by artists.

•  We will release any sold funds for artworks to artists as soon as we have received bank details or Paypal (if preferred) from the artists.

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