Thirded. It doesn’t sound like a scam, in that they do what they offer. What it does sound like is a sucker deal.
I’m a photographer. I’ve displayed in galleries before. Even just printing & framing can be a couple of hundred dollars. Then there’s the gallery’s cut (more like 30%). I’ve also not done some photos because while I think they’re great I don’t necessarily think they’re ±$400 great, which nets me about $50…against the bet that it doesn’t sell & I’m out all of the money I spent on printing & framing.
You have to sell a lot to just breakeven given the upfront & monthly costs. I’m betting they structured it with the relatively huge upfront payment & the smaller monthly payment so that people hold on longer - sunken cost fallacy, which makes them even more money.
There might besome people who are making real money from this; just like there are some baseball players who make it to ‘the Show’ (MLB) every year. Those few are the cream of the crop; the vast, vast majority never get out of the minors, or play after college, or even after HS despite being a HS league all-star
.
Run, don’t walk away from this deal.
A thing to ask would be what percentage of their clients make $100K a year? I’m guessing pretty tiny.
Only the same if YouTube charged thousands of dollars to allow you to post a video. As for reviews, I’d wonder how many were written by company shills. Searching on artist boards for experiences would be better.
Agree it’s a scammy model. Maybe not outright criminality, but a deal that works well for them and badly for you.
Ref these bits:
Both of these statements also apply to a hefty fraction (vast majority?) of retail & restaurant franchises as well. IOW, the franchisor (parent company) makes good money for sure. The franchisee (store operator / “owner”) might make good money if unusually diligent and wildly lucky. But probably not, or not much.
Paging @JohnT to rain some some fire and brimstone on this general topic of “heads I win; tales you lose” completely legal business propositions.
I shudder to think how much worse this will be a few years as the scruffy side of business realizes the bulk of the business regulatory apparatus of the USA has been destroyed and what remains has been neutered. Gonna be open season on the rubes then.
Unless I missed something, it looks like a marketing company that will throw together a templated website, do some basic promotional work, all while adding a light CRM package that can help you track sales and art enquiries.
That doesn’t seem scammy. Might be overpriced, but I would have zero idea until I do more research.
What does seems scammy is demanding commission on the art.
You can get a competent, local marketing firm to build you what artstorefront offers - they’ll have to integrate an already-produced CRM system, which will be costly (if you want it, that is) - but a nice website and a sales platform is the bread and butter of standard digital marketing agencies.
Doing this may be more expensive, upfront, than ASF, but if you go that route, you keep your commissions.
Funny—I agree on your overall assessment, but not for this aspect. As I wrote, a 50% commission (or more) is not unusual in the fine arts—without a gallery showing people my work, the work itself would never sell for the high prices I put on it. (And rarely get. I’ve had a few pieces for sale in high-end New York City art galleries that charged me that sort of commission.) But these galleries never charged me anything as an upfront fee for showing my work, which seems like the scammy part of this business plan to me.
Another new development. I wrote to artstorefront after posting my OP this morning, as follows: “I don’t think your business model works for me. Or for most artists. Thanks anyway.”
I wrote to and got a somewhat personal response from the company president, which went as follows
“I appreciate your honesty, and I’d love to understand more about your concerns. We have over 12,000 artists successfully using Art Storefronts, so I’d be curious to hear what specifically doesn’t seem like the right fit for you.
If there’s something holding you back, maybe I can clarify or offer insight into how other artists in similar situations have made it work. Let me know—I’d love to hear your perspective!”
He addressed me (and signed his note) by first name. I’ve sunk a lot of time, too much time, into this, so I’m tempted not to respond, or to link him to this thread, but I’m not going to do either. I think what I will do is to make him a counteroffer, pointing out that my model #2 makes more money for his company if I sell “only” $20,000 worth of my art than his model #1 does if I sell $100,000 worth.
I don’t expect he’ll take me up on model #2, but I am curious what his response will be.
Are you sure it was a response by an actual human and not a chatbot? If it was, are you sure it was actually the company president and not some low level employee?
Yeah, this isnt a scam. Basically they provide a service, and you pay for it, and maybe make some - maybe a lot of . Mind you, it is certainly “buyer beware” , but not a scam.
A sucker deal for some, certainly. Good for others.
Exactly what I thought. You pay a lot upfront and they provide a few basic services. But it’s not like they’re out there heavily promoting the artist. It’s just a storefront, and you’re one of 12,000 vendors.
If the OP does decide to respond to the “owner,” I’d love to know how many of the 12,000 artists using the service have ever actually sold anything through them, and what the average sale price was. I know a lot of hobbyist artists who would be thrilled to be able to say they actually sold a painting, even if only for $50/
If your goal is to just get discounted access to the site for yourself, it might be worth negotiating. It doesn’t really cost them anything to add one more user to their database, so any amount you’re willing to pay them would be pure profit. But of course there’s probably a lower limit they’re willing to go so as to not piss off their other existing users and would-be customers… if others hear that you got a discount, they’ll want one too.
If your goal is to try to change their business model altogether, or get more clarity as to why it’s that way… I doubt you’ll get very far. Let’s just say it wasn’t that way by accident
Most artists don’t make much money. Sure, they can make a commission-based business model where they succeed only if you succeed… but why would they want to do that, when this way they get paid big bucks if you fail, and even bigger bucks if you succeed?
Personally I’d just walk away and find sites with less predatory business models, but hey, if you really like their service and just want to pay less… no harm in trying to negotiate.
Maybe the company would be willing to provide a dozen or so references, including artists at the lower end of the earning scale, not just the alleged ones making 100K annually.
And maybe with a bit of help I could learn to draw and within a year have art galleries clamoring for my work.
*there used to be come-ons on matchbook covers for an art school with a correspondence program guaranteed to teach any lummox to draw successfully. It probably worked as well as the deal the OP’s being offered.
I can’t be sure but his response addressed me pretty specifically. My bluntness (“thanks for your honesty”), my concern about his company not being right for me ("the issues about not being a good fit ") and so on.
I’m not really looking for much in “negotiation”, certainly not anything material. I’m just mildly curious to see what he says when I point out that I’d have more faith in his company AND they would make more money with a low initial fee and high commission business model
I’m not seeing how they would make more money that way. With their current model, they make money regardless of whether the people using their services have any talent or ever sell anything. If they switch to the model you suggest, they would need to actually sell pieces to make money.
I guess the problem is that it seems to be a completely different business model than a gallery. Correct me if I’m wrong, but ISTM that they are providing business advice rather than having someplace where customers come to look and purchase.
They help artist set up websites, and such, but they aren’t bringing in the customers. The high end galleries that you have exhibited in provide customers, so they charge up to 50% commission. They also have limited number of artists they can work with.
If their claimed numbers are real, they are doing really good business. The $60 monthly fee for 12,000 clients would be $8.6 million annually. As they would be providing basically cookie cutter advice, they probably have fairy low overhead costs.
Of course they aren’t going to change business models. I’m sure they won’t tell you the average sales for their 12,000, but I’m sure not many of their clients are making $100k a year.
This is also where they get you (and others). Looking at their website, they are not doing marketing/self-promotion for you. You are responsible for your own marketing, and running your business. What they provide is:
a functional web storefront and related support
print fulfillment (if that’s something you want/need)
some marketing tools/templates
training/guidance on how to use all of the above
They will not do marketing for you, or run your business.
This is maybe a great choice for someone who has already built or is building an active and growing brand/business who needs the tech and print services, and maybe a little help with some strategies for marketing.
It’s an awful choice for someone who doesn’t want to spend time on the “business” of business or who is expecting the service to bring in customers. For this to be useful, you’ll need to commit hours of your week.
This isn’t a passive tool.
Once your work is in a gallery, it’s seen by the gallery customers. The gallery itself has a contact list, events, patrons, etc etc. The gallery does its own marketing (and they’re incentivized to do so). Artstorefronts does 0 marketing for you, and brings 0 people to your website. All that work is on you, but they do give you some tools and suggestions.
Looking at three of the “featured artists” on the main site (there are no links, so I had to Google their names just to find their pages) I see three different style websites of varying levels of sophistication. One of them is just a static home page you can find on any run of the mill e-commerce storefront. I imagine that’s their “basic” package. I wonder if it even includes SEO to help boost your Google presence.
No idea what kind of marketing tools they provide; tell you to promote your website on FB and Instagram, perhaps?
Totally. They have a real product, but depend on people who expect it to be something other than what it is to stay in business.
IMHO we’ve allowed ourselves to tolerate so much in advertising and marketing as a society that I don’t know what “scam” means anymore, but these folks are on the unethical side of the line.
