The insights derived from the survey described below should be taken primarily as anecdotal indications of popular and culturally specific sentiments. It would make no sense to weigh the abbreviated responses constructed by interviewers and received by fewer than a thousand respondents as some kind of undisputed truth in measuring the art world’s almost incomprehensibly diverse and expansive practices.
Respondents’ preferences though point to broader application considerations. The survey poses thought-provoking questions about the future shape of online art sales through a variety of mediums:
“The percentage of art buyers making purchases online has declined in the past year, and the growth of online art sales has slowed for the second year in a row, according to a new report. The findings may concern artists who are They make a living selling art online, although in general, the online art market has continued to grow.
The survey also found that mobile shopping has continued to rise and has a larger share of the market, and social media remains a key way for people to find new art. “The future of the online market is guaranteed, although the form remains a mystery,” writes Robert Read, director of Art and Private Clients at Hiscox, the insurance company behind the report. He continues: “Buying art is still a lot of fun and exciting (and occasionally frustrating) and the continued influence of social media, especially Instagram, helps drive market growth.”
sales change | The report’s findings, which also assess the impact of cryptocurrency and cybercrime, are based on responses from 831 art buyers surveyed via the Art Tactic client mailing list. Approximately 43% of art buyers bought online in the last 12 months, up from 49% a year earlier. The slowdown was particularly pronounced for people under the age of 35. Only 36% of this group bought art online in the last 12 months, compared to 44% the year before. According to the report, this suggests that the art market is “struggling to convert hesitant and casual online buyers into repeat customers.” Hiscox notes that while the online art market grew 20-25% between 2013 and 2015, the last 24 months showed signs of slowing down, “perhaps because the industry is struggling to broaden and grow its online customers. The market growth rate fell to 15% in 2016 and 12% in 2017.
access to art | 63% of respondents said that Instagram, which had 800 million monthly active users in January 2018 and is expected to exceed 1 billion active users by the end of 2018, was their preferred platform for finding art. The three categories with the most followers on Instagram were “museums,” “artists” and “galleries,” according to the survey results. Tate’s Instagram account has 2 million followers. 90% of new art buyers said price transparency was a key attribute when deciding which online art sale to buy from, making this a potential roadblock to increasing sales.
threats | The report also finds that more than half of the retail platforms surveyed had been the target of attempted cyberattacks in the last 12 months. About 15% said an attack had been successful. Just over 40% of online art buyers are concerned or very concerned about cybercrime when buying art online, with 82% saying they would most likely buy from platforms they had prior knowledge of out of fear to cyber crime. Read concludes: “The art market is dominated by small and medium-sized businesses that have historically been at the less tech-savvy and more accommodating end of the scale. “These businesses are vulnerable, and our findings suggest that cybercriminals may be waking up until now. , perhaps seeing the art market as an easy target.” Arts Professional
The medium is the message
The discussions reference art sales as they relate to typically smaller traditionally defined canvases, prints, or compositions. Similar to the structure of the most popular promotion tool implemented, Instagram with its series of panels, a “gallery view” perfectly suits these.
Here it can be argued that each stage of the process has been influenced. From concept, creation to delivery to the end customer, all parties necessarily, whether overtly or unconsciously, explain the promotional constraints such a medium inherently implies. Which means that an artist who benefits from the use of “gallery view” sales channels can coordinate their efforts, no matter how individually measured positive or negative ultimately, to achieve the best result when their work be seen through this type of platform.
A similar argument can compound exponentially for mixed media, larger three-dimensional compositions, performances, or any number of visual art forms. If the purpose of artistic creation is understood to be the unfettered creation or exchange of novel interpretations, such a self-reflective and influential delivery mechanism should perhaps cause some question.
Who is buying and why?
Galleries and consultants were once gatekeepers, the authorities of the art world. The Tate’s nearly two million followers on social media show that it can still be argued that the source’s reputation and influence may precede deference to personal interpretations. At a minimum, formal reputation can function as a kind of collective quality-filtering indicator for what is an eclectically diverse or perhaps commonly imperceptibly saturated field. And when viewed as investment vehicles, this assessment of collective work retains significant impact.
However, an inconsistency arises with the bureaucratically structured gatekeepers now facing democratized, self-controlled and almost truly decentralized purchasing capabilities. Art transactions are possible directly between the target markets of production and consumption of almost any gallery.
Through online channels independently, each artist has the potential to reach relatively unlimited audiences. Yet their ‘formal’ authority, experience or stature may be diluted by the breadth of the participants as well as the context of the presentation. At this time, galleries or consultants may retain educated experience, insightful judgment, or appreciation far beyond what is commonly understood. Although the choice of a buyer in the selection could still be seen as liberated due to the multiple avenues that allow the achievement of the property.
Buyers can decide to buy directly from an artist or under the influence of an expert. Do they value a composition or did they buy it because they believed it had value? The democratization of accessibility calls into question how value can now be collectively assigned.
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Price transparency was indicated as the most important influencing factor. Security concerns and the use of reputable channels are more or less included in that metric. If the site, channel or medium were not safe and secure, any ‘transparency’ in pricing would naturally be secondary and false.
Transparency implies open valuation and clear accounting, from origin to receipt. However, to quantify the price must be to yield to a collective or subjective interpretation. It is the price attainable during resale or the one attributed to oneself by feeling or attachment. On its own, transparency may not offer a stable, universally extensible foundation. The attributed value remains as variable as art itself, it is derived from the eye of the beholder or the market. [beholders].
Online or offline, publicly available options freely dictate that art sales are formed from a place of informed value recommendation or as a facilitation of subjective interpretation. Objective gradations and statements of the value of a composition cannot be equally or legitimately applied to all.
