One of the most challenging questions any artist must answer is, “How much do you want for it?”
So much goes into every piece of art, from brainstorming and planning to creating and revising. And it’s not just the time spent. It’s an artist’s talent, experience, and reputation. A piece of artwork’s value can seem like it’s totally in the eye of the beholder.
This can make pricing a painting feel like a stab in the dark. And yet, putting a price on your artwork is an essential part of doing business as an artist or art platform. Without transparent pricing, you’ll struggle to connect with and retain customers.
The Challenge of Transparent Pricing
Today, consumers can compare prices on any product imaginable with nothing more than a Google search. They can skim comparable products and peruse hundreds of retailers. Even if they understand that shopping for art differs from looking for their next TV, they’re still going to bring many of those expectations with them when they browse your artwork.
So, while you may not be able to give them the same variety and customization options they get with other consumer goods, you can offer transparent pricing. And that will build consumer trust — in your business and in the art industry. When people have greater confidence that the price they’re paying for a piece of artwork is close to its actual value, they’ll be more likely to buy it. In addition, accurate pricing empowers art investors to make wiser purchasing decisions.
Transparent, accurate pricing is better for consumers, for artists, and for the art industry as a whole. But all of this leads to an important question: How can individual artists and art platforms offer more transparent pricing?
How to Offer Greater Pricing Transparency
Since a piece of artwork’s value depends on so many disparate factors — from its condition to the artist’s reputation and beyond — making art prices transparent offers unique challenges. But many of those challenges can be overcome with the help of data. By keeping track of and aggregating past sales data, art platforms can offer more accurate and transparent pricing.
In the past, this was largely done by hand. Collectors, auction houses, and galleries kept track of artwork that had sold, and estimated values for new pieces based on past data. Today’s technology allows data to be kept, analyzed, and used to increase price transparency far more accurately. This is already being done by several major players within the art industry. But more could be done.
One of Regestra’s major goals is enhancing the work that’s currently being done to offer more transparent and accurate pricing for artwork. We believe that our innovative system of tagging and tracking art will make transparent pricing easier, faster, and more secure than ever before. And it can all be done within the buying and selling framework that’s already in place.
The rise of the internet has allowed the art industry to grow exponentially over the past few decades. With the technology to enable more transparent pricing, it will grow even more in the coming decades. Regestra intends to be at the cutting edge of that growth, offering solutions that empower artists and consumers alike.
