These days, artists, photographers, and other creatives have plenty of opportunities to sell their pieces to customers all over the world with ecommerce. Virtually every ecommerce platform supports the sale of unique artwork, but not every solution is specifically designed for artists.
In this Art Storefronts review, I’ll explore the unique features and benefits that make the platform particularly valuable for creatives. From its phenomenal community to its unique niche focus, Art Storefronts has a lot to offer. But is it worthwhile for your company?
Here, all share all the pros, cons, features, and pricing information to help you make the right choice.
Quick Verdict
Quick Verdict
Here is my feedback:
Art Storefronts is a fantastic solution for artists and creatives who need help building a professional brand, and selling their solutions online. It offers dedicated software that goes beyond the basics of a traditional ecommerce platform, from AI-powered tools, to wall preview software.
Pros and Cons
Pros 👍
- Great community and lots of self-help resources
- POD services to simplify fulfillment
- Integrated customer relationship management tools
- Powerful AI capabilities
- Expert assistance with online selling
- End-to-end marketing plans
- Convenient offline selling tools
Cons 👎
- Extremely niche focus
- Confusing pricing structure
What is Art Storefronts?
Art Storefronts isn’t just your standard ecommerce platform or website building solution. It does give you the tools you need to develop an online store, with a blog, templates, payment processing. However, the company also works with each artist to help optimize their sales.
When you sign up for an account with Art Storefronts, the team of software developers, business and marketing experts develops a custom success plan with you, building your store on your behalf, infusing it with unique features (like AR wall display tools), and even developing your marketing campaigns with email automation and content creation.
The company also operates as a print on demand company, which means you don’t have to produce your art yourself. You simply send your files to the company, and when customers place an order, they produce calendars, puzzles, t-shirts, tote-bags, prints, and more.
The team will even package your order with unique branded elements, to help you build stronger relationships with your target audience.
The Core Features of Art Storefronts
One potential downside of Art Storefronts is it’s difficult to get a feel of what you can do with the solution just by visiting the official website. The best way to understand the scope of the platform is to request a demo, and an expert will run through everything with you.
Based on my demo experience, these are some of the core features you can expect:
Website Development
As mentioned above, Art Storefronts gives you all the tools you need to build and customize an attractive store, with bespoke pages, a blog, product pages, payment processing, a checkout, and more. They’ll build the initial template for you, based on your instructions, so you only need to edit it to suit your needs.
Integrated CRM
Most ecommerce platforms require users to connect an external customer relationship management system to their store.
Art Storefronts gives you this technology as standard, with tools for collecting customer data, tracking client relationships, qualifying leads, and more. You can even communicate with customers from the platform.
Analytics and Reporting
Art Storefronts’ analytical tools aren’t as advanced as some of the solutions you can get elsewhere. However, they do give you in-depth insights into your sales patterns, customer behaviors, and other unique details. This ensures you can make intelligent decisions to facilitate growth.
Artificial Intelligence
The built-in AI technologies on the platform make it easy to understand your target audience, and increase conversions. They’ll help you identify visitors that share similarities with pre-existing buyers, so you can target the most valuable leads with dynamic advertising campaigns.
Online and Offline Selling Tools
Aside from allowing you to sell products directly online, Art Storefronts also supports offline selling. You can create ready-to-print art catalogs and sales sheets for gallery exhibitions and events.
Marketing Automation
Art Storefronts offers a combination of automated marketing tools, including the Art Copilot, and Art Marketing Hub, which can run your social media strategy for you, and send automated emails for upsells, cart recovery, and more. The team even creates your marketing copy to save you more time.
Augmented Reality
With the AR tools in Art Storefronts, you can give visitors unique ways to view your products, such as allowing them to see pieces displayed on the walls in their home. This is an excellent way to boost sales and conversions.
Running a Print on Demand Business on Art Storefronts
As mentioned above, Art Storefronts works as a print on demand fulfillment company, producing products on demand with the latest high-quality equipment.
They can produce framed art and prints, as well as a range of merchandise options, such as calendars, tote bags, t-shirts, phone cases, and coasters. The company even packages products according toy our specific standards.
In terms of the artwork produced, Art Storefronts places a premium on quality. The company can use paper, canvas, metal, acrylic, and more to create truly unique pieces for your target audience.
They also work with world-leading shipping companies and other vendors to help reduce the costs of producing your products for worldwide sales.
Consulting and Marketing
Part of what makes Art Storefronts stand out from other ecommerce platforms is the company’s commitment to working with each artist to improve their sales. Alongside offering access to world-leading features, the team can help you consistently increase your conversion rates.
The consulting team will work with each company to develop a 365-day art marketing plan to boost sales. This shows you what to post on social media and when, how to launch promotions, what kind of emails to send, and which content to create for your blog.
You can even access pre-made templates for email and social media marketing, pre-written content based on what’s working in the art niche, and more. Plus, every user gains access to weekly live video workshops where they can ask questions to help accelerate growth.
The exclusive marketing agency can improve all of your social profiles for you, run cutting-edge live art shows on your behalf, create professional sales campaigns, and offer ad management.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for step-by-step support as you grow your business, so you can focus on other tasks, like creating your art, then Art Storefronts is a great choice.
Pricing and Fees
For me, one of the biggest issues with Art Storefronts is how difficult it is to figure out exactly how much you’re going to pay for the service. Since you’re getting cutting-edge website building tools and unique features, as well as access to a full expert team, the pricing is unlikely to be cheap.
However, the “Pricing” page, on the Art Storefronts website doesn’t share any insights into what you’re going to pay. There are no specific monthly fees. This might be frustrating, but it does make sense to some degree. After all, Art Storefronts offers a highly customizable service.
Your pricing is likely to vary depending on factors like how much you use the print on demand service, how much support you need with building your website and marketing, and so on.
The good news is that you can request a demo of the service for free, and you’re not obligated to purchase an account after you’re given a quote. Additionally, the company appears to run regular promotions which give you discounts or free services, like free website setup and management.
From what I can tell checking out other customer reviews, you can expect to pay $3000+ for an initial setup, monthly fees for hosting, and extra for any additional support you need. Art Storefronts does take a commission (10% to 15%), from all the sales you make through their website, which could eat into your profits.
Ease of Use and Customer Service
In terms of simplicity, Art Storefronts goes above and beyond to make building and running your online presence a breeze. As mentioned, the company will do virtually everything for you, from designing your website, to providing you with content for marketing plans.
They’ll even handle order fulfillment, website maintenance, and more, which means you can essentially put your business on autopilot, while you focus on creating art.
From a customer service perspective, Art Storefronts also excels, offering access to a fantastic community, where you can learn from peers and share tips. There are workshops and weekly video sessions where you can ask questions and educate yourself.
The workshops are particularly impressive, hosted by art and business professionals who share their research and findings from the market.
There’s also an Art Business University, if you want to expand your education on everything from marketing to branding. Plus, the company offers access to tons of useful resources for beginners, like guides and videos.
Since you get a dedicated team to work with while running your store, you can also access consulting and support every step of the way. The company offers phone, chat, and email support, and has even earned a 98% renewal rate for its excellent customer service.
MORE: Art Storefronts vs Shopify: Which is best for artists?
Art Storefronts Review: The Verdict
Overall, Art Storefronts seems like an excellent solution for artists and creators who want to sell their products online, while minimizing the complexity of ecommerce. You don’t need to build your own website (or maintain it), the company does all of that for you.
You can even outsource your fulfillment strategy to them, work with the team on developing and running comprehensive marketing campaigns, and more. Plus, the customer support and community experience are absolutely excellent.
However, there are some downsides too. Art Storefronts definitely isn’t the cheapest option for selling your art online. If you’re using all the resources you provide, you could definitely save money in the long-term.
After all, paying for all the support, coaching, and website development experience you’d get separately could cost you thousands.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How much does it cost to join Art Storefronts?
Art Storefronts offers custom pricing to companies, based on their specific needs. However, your prices are likely to be quite high, ranging from $1,700 to $3,400 for initial sign-up. Then you’ll need to pay for site hosting, extra support, and share commissions from sales.
Is Art Storefronts worth it?
Art Storefronts is an expensive way to sell your art online, but it does give you access to a lot of resources and support you won’t get anywhere else. If you’re looking for a niche solution specifically designed for creatives, this could be the right platform for you.
What percentage does Art Storefronts take?
Art Storefronts takes between 10% and 15% of the revenue from each sale, depending on the plan you’re on and what kind of products you sell. This might seem like a high cost, but it does help to pay for all the software and consulting support you get.
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