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The Art World Online Q&A: No. 4 THE STATE OF THE ART BUSINESS ONLINE By Bill Fine, President The art business is one of the easiest applications for the Internet. Art dealers need to communicate images, and these images can be digitally compressed and accessible to millions of collectors and art professionals worldwide for a fraction of what it would cost in print or other traditional media. Q: I know that artnet was among the first art sites on the Internet and there are dozens more at this point, casualties notwithstanding. What I want to know is which sites work best? A: Well, there would appear to be at least three basic business models at this stage of the game: The first would be the auction model (eBay); secondly, dealers still have the option of mounting their own proprietary Web sites; and finally, there is the gallery network model, the aggregation of, say, twenty-five or more dealer sites cross-referenced by artist, location, specialty, etc. Q: Example of dealer sites? A: Well, there are quite a few association sites (Art Dealers Association of America, Boston Art Dealers Association), and many regional (Denver Art Dealers Association, Boston Fine Art Dealers etc). But, with 2,200 galleries, over 166,000 works in inventory and over 16 million page views/month, artnet is easily the most successful. No other site comes close in terms of works in inventory and total audience. Q: Example of growing galleries in your online Gallery Network? A: Well, it's hard to know where to start... Ira Spanierman started with a small site, 15 works in inventory, he now maintains a site with over 1,000 works. Q: But what would be your advantage over say, eBay? A: Well for starters, our dealers pay no commissions. They also deal directly with the collectors. Truth be told, most dealers are not looking only for the transaction. They're looking for a collector. Q: But you charge a set-up fee, don't you? A: No. We charge a monthly subscription fee which can be terminated at any time with 30 days notice -- though suffice it to say that we dont think youll want to leave. And, you get a working Web site for substantially less than it would cost you to build and maintain a comparable site by yourself. Q: Why wouldn't a dealer mount his own site? A: Certainly cost could be a consideration, but the crucial factor is really audience. Q: You mean it's harder to get audience with your own Web site? A: If you mount your own site, you're pretty much reliant on the search engines for placement, which is getting more and more difficult. Q: Many of your dealers have their own proprietary Web sites, don't they? A: Yes, about 40% of our new galleries come with existing sites. The reason they come to artnet is that their traffic is unsatisfactory. Most link their existing sites to artnet, thus increasing their traffic, not only on artnet, but on their proprietary sites as well. Q: So where do you go from here? Where do you want to be a year from now? It seems to me you already have all the important dealers. A: Well, we certainly want to continue to aggregate dealers and inventory. And we want to continue to grow our audience... but that's only part of the goal. A key part of Hans Neuendorf's mission statement for artnet ten years ago was to restore the secondary market to the dealer community. Q: What do you mean restore the secondary market to the dealer community? A: Well, it's no secret that in the last 40 years much of the secondary market has gone over to Sotheby's and Christie's. A large part of the reason for that is that Sotheby's and Christie's seemed to offer higher prices, access to the world market and a level playing field. Q: And you plan to change all that? A: We've already started. If you're a dealer and you have a collector for a Jasper Cropsey or an Archipenko you don't have in stock, you can log on to artnet and find ten Cropseys from nine dealers (more Cropseys, incidentally, than you'll find in most museums). If you find what you're looking for, you're going to call the corresponding dealer even if you've never heard of him... even if you don't like him. That's a new kind of communication in the dealer community. Q: And you think that by posting more and better inventory on artnet, the dealers can consolidate their position? A: Absolutely. "United we stand!" Q: But can you sell the top lots on artnet? A: Absolutely. In fact, it's the better art that sells. Ask Ira Spanierman... or Tom Segal... or Alan Koppel why they post their best inventory on artnet. Bill Fine: |
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