270 - 5-Minute Mentoring: Commissions, Consignment & Wholesale, O My!

Selling your art on commission, consignment, or wholesale can be a great way to expose new potential customers to your art and grow your client base and revenue. However, when you first start selling your art, all the terminology can be overwhelming. 

Never fear!  In this episode of the Thriving Christian Artist podcast, I’m breaking down exactly what it means to create and sell art on commission, consignment, or wholesale.

The key to all of this, of course, is to make sure you’re pricing your art appropriately so you can make money, create a business you love, and do the thing that God has called you to do!

Be sure to check out the link below for everything you need to know about pricing your art, including my new book and the Art Pricing Workshop!

How to Price Your Art: Pricing with Confidence for Sales & Profit (Book Just Released!)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097XBP733

How To Price Your Art:  The 2021 Definitive Guide to Pricing Your Art for Visual Artists
https://www.matttommeymentoring.com/how-to-price-your-art.html


Connect with me online:
https://www.matttommeymentoring.com
Instagram and Facebook: @thethrivingchristianartist
Watch this podcast on YouTube!  https://www.youtube.com/mjtommey

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

You know, when you're starting out in your art business, a lot of terminology gets thrown around that sometimes you just have no clue what it means. Commissions, consignment, wholesale. Oh my! What's the difference? I'm going to break it down for you today here on 5-Minute Mentoring.

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SPEAKER_00: 0:14

God created you to be. Well, hey, my friends. So glad that you are here with me today on 5-Minute Mentoring. You know, three terms that a lot of people use that, you know, may not be common for you as you're starting your art business. Those three are commissions, consignment, and wholesale. I want to break those down for you today because as you jump into your art business and start, you know, getting into the marketplace and selling your work, you definitely need to know what those three terms mean. Now, a commission is typically when a retail customer, that is somebody that's coming directly to you is coming to you and they're saying, hey, I love what you do. I want you to create a special one of a kind piece for me for this space or for this home or commercial space, whatever it is. That can also come through a strategic partner like an interior designer or a builder or even a gallery that you're represented by may offer your commissioned work and connect you with clients to create special pieces for them. But that's typically what that means when you talk about commissioned work. Sometimes, you know, people call those one-of-a-kind works. The English would call it bespoke. And so whatever it is that you call it, commissions is pretty much the common term for that. Now, when it gets into using the words consignment versus wholesale, those are typically words that you're going to hear when you're working with a gallery or a store, a retail store that's going to be selling your work. Typically, when you're selling your work through a fine art gallery, most of the time that will is going to be a consignment relationship. What does that mean? That means you're going to give them your artwork. They're going to represent your artwork. And for that, they're going to take a 50% fee in order to sell your work. When the work sells, not when you deliver it, but when it sells, you're then usually within 30 days going to get your check for your 50%. Or sometimes that could even be 60 or 70%, depending on the the gallery. Usually the higher end galleries are going to be 50%. Sometimes a gallery will do 60 or 70%, you know, to you. It just depends, but pretty common is 50%. Now, listen, unless you, if you're trying to get your britches in a wad about that, and you're like, ah, 50%, why would I ever give away 50% of my costs? Remember, A great gallery is going to be connecting you with great clients. You're going to be among other great artists who are recognized, who have a reputation. They're going to do all the selling. They're going to pay the sales tax. They're going to ship it. They're going to photograph it. Usually, they're going to put it on their website. They're going to put it on social media. They're doing a lot. All you're having to do is make work and make their gallery relationships. So that 50%, although it seems like a lot, don't freak out about that. It's Well, well worth it if you're with a high end reputable gallery. All right. Now, wholesale is typically something that you're going to find when you're working with a retail store, for example, a gift shop or any museum store or something like that. Typically what's going to happen with that is that a store will purchase wholesale, that is usually 50% off your retail price. They're going to purchase that work from you up front. They may give you a yearly order, a quarterly order. They may do a one-time order just to see how your work does. Usually artists have a minimum. I know when I started out, I had a$750 wholesale minimum. Many times this would be$1,000 dollar fifteen hundred dollar minimum whatever it is that you feel uh comfortable with but what that does is that allows the store to buy the work from you you get paid immediately at the transaction and then they get their money when the piece sells in their store so that's a very very typical relationship for um most you know little stores gift shops things like that sometimes i've had i've had stores that will say hey i'd love some of your bigger pieces too but I'm not quite able to just buy those wholesale. Would you allow me to buy your smaller work wholesale? And then would you put a couple of big pieces on consignment in the store? And I'm like, absolutely. Love that. So I get a check when they purchase the smaller work and I get a check when the bigger pieces sell. So understanding what commission, consignment, and wholesale is all about is going to give you all the confidence you need to start going out and really beginning to develop the relationships that you need in the marketplace to sell your work. But really the core of all of that is understanding how to price your art, making sure that you're pricing it in a way that at wholesale, at commission, at consignment rates, you're making money. That's why I wrote a book called How to Price Your Art, Pricing with Confidence for Sales and Profit. You can grab that right here on the link in the show notes right on Amazon. You can also get a link to about a two-hour workshop that I did on how to price your art that goes to a lot more detail than I can here on 5-Minute Mentoring. It's going to give you everything you need to start pricing your art with confidence so you can make money and create the business that you love and do the thing that God's called you to do. All right. I hope you'll grab those today. I hope this has been an encouragement to you. And I love you, my friend. So glad you're here. Remember, till next time, you were created to thrive. All right. Bye.