We’ve commented several times over the past few months on how niche marketplaces for specific consumer areas are very much a developing trend when it comes to online shopping.
So I was pleased to stumble on Artfinder today on Facebook and have spent a very enjoyable hour or so looking at the site, sizing up some art but haven’t (yet) bought anything.
The London based start-up was founded in 2010 and now has an operation in New York too. It’s a tailored venue for art sellers online. Check it out: it’s a great looking site. they reckon they have more than 3000 artists selling their creations online already.
Rather like Etsy, Artfinder has really focussed on developing an engaging and beautiful look and feel. The search worked well and displays the pictures and other things exquisitely. It retains the calm and classy feeling of a gallery.
There are also some lovely features where you can browse an artist’s individual collection and learn a bit more about them and that works really well.
It does make sense to personalise a seller when it comes to this sort of thing and I liked the biographies and blurbs from artists talking about their work and the photos of them at work in their studios.
What I haven’t got to grips with is how well the selling artists are doing and how much it costs. As with any online marketplace, sealing the deal is critical for a vendor. I’d love to hear from artists who have had success on Artfinder.
Anyway, do check it out because it’s a great example of an encouraging, pleasant buying experience online that I don’t see so much these days when I use the big boys eBay and Amazon.
2 Responses
In 2012 I probably sold around 10k of art via ebay. I listed a couple of my best sellers earlier this year and had 0 watchers. I think the handmade and art market has completely moved away from ebay to sites like this and ETSY.
I wish sites like these good luck.
I still have a large collection, do they allow collectors to sell or is it just artists directly?
Thanks
Very interesting site and good to see some sellers in more specialised categories getting options away from eBay at long last.
However the site implementation is unacceptable and will put some (many) people off.
Whoever designed this email address pop-up blocker deserves the sack!
I simply do not see why I should need to provide an email address to browse a selling site – really I don’t!
Of course I have multiple fake email addresses I could chose to use but why bother.
Rule one of the online selling fight club – make it easy for the customer to graze the eye candy.
So another potential customer walks away – sad really.