The purpose of this post is to share insights into ways you can make it easier for someone to buy your art.
Art is an emotional thing, and once your art has made a connection with someone and they decide they want it, it can be easy to lose them if actually buying the art is too difficult.
The use case for this post is: Selling art locally in your community
This use case also comes with a caveat: Selling your art this way could result in theft
Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) Here is the basic workflow.
- Setup QR codes for each of your art pieces
- Direct the QR codes to the actual product on your website
- Print the QR codes and position them with your art in the local community
- Wait for your phone to vibrate with a sale
If that sounds interesting, keep reading and let's dig into this section by section.
You'll need a few things in order for this workflow to work for you. They include:
- An eCommerce website capable of displaying your products, and supporting a checkout process where people can use a variety of payment methods to pay you
- Access to QR codes - yes, some are free, but premium options are not expensive and are worth the investment
At this point, you might be wondering "ok, how does Dansbee Designs do it?"
Here is our exact process
- Our eCommerce solution is Shopify - There are many options and we are not sponsored nor here to advocate for one site over another. You can use Squarespace, Wix.com, Wordpress, and probably dozens of others. Our selection of Shopify was based on our own site specifications and business needs. Yours may be different
- Our QR code provider is Beaconstac - Again, there are many options and we are not here to advocate for one over the other. We chose Beaconstac based on our needs and their offerings. We were able to purchase 50 dynamic QR codes with GPS tracking for $180 per year ($15 per month)
At this point, you might be wondering "what the heck is a dynamic QR code?"
It's actually pretty straightforward -
Static QR code - You set the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) once and it is set for life. If you change the URL at some point in the future, anyone who scans that QR code will get an error indicating that the URL cannot be found.
Dynamic QR code - Yep, you can edit these URLs anytime you like and all the QR codes still work just fine and direct visitors to the new URL
If you wonder how granular this approach can be and still work, I can tell you that we have products with variations, such as style or color, and we have QR codes that not only point directly to the product on our website, but actually the color or style variant specifically.
This means that someone looking at one of our pieces locally can scan the QR code and be taken to the exact product they are looking at!
In an effort to take this one step further, we are working to implement secondary QR codes for our products that visitors can scan, which triggers an audio presentation where we describe the genesis of the piece they are currently looking at. They can listen to our audio stream right from their phone while standing in front of one of our pieces. Imagine the possibilities you could have to expand that emotional connection between your art and the art lover who is appreciating what you've made!
Of course, as the title of this post states, the purpose of this post is to help you make it easier for customers to buy your art. So how does that work?
Once you have QR codes that correctly point to your products, you are all set to let your customer know they can scan the piece, pay for it, and take it off the wall right then and there. This is where the theft can enter the picture. Some people may try to take advantage of you and that is certainly a possibility. We decided it was worth the risk and that only 1% would actually stoop so low. We prefer to focus on the population of people who love our art and want to buy it, and this process makes that easy for them.
Thanks for reading! If you find this kind of content useful, please let us know in the comments section. If there are other topics you would like us to cover, please let us know in the comments as well. Sometimes, a few common comments are all we need to sit down and write up another tutorial designed to help you with the business side of your art.
While we wait for comments - Peace, Love, and Art Friends -- We love you!