Twenty years ago it would have been unthinkable for me to suggest that artists add shopping carts to their websites. Above all, it was crazy expensive to do so at the time. But also it was considered a bit tacky.
Boy have things changed! Not just since Covid, but even in the decade leading up to where we are now.
Online shopping carts are affordable and easy to implement, and the vast majority of the population is comfortable buying online—even buying art online. Some even prefer the online experience.
Then there are the galleries. Many of them struggle to make sales (again, even before Covid) and haven’t quite gotten the hang of social media. They were the last of the art world to come into the 21st century way of doing business.
But now even galleries are selling online, with mega-dealer David Zwirner leading the way in 2017.
Why wouldn’t you make it easier for people to buy directly from you?
That’s what Lynn Goldstein thought, too. She built a shopping cart for her website earlier this year. And the sales rolled in immediately after the March launch.
To date, Lynn has sold 18 original paintings and about a dozen reproductions directly from her site, and I wanted to find out how.
It must be said that neither Lynn nor I are not experts in all of the options you have for shopping carts. I wanted to share Lynn’s experience and, above all, her results.
Listen in if you’re curious about how she did it.