Curated Muse
Behind every creative work lies a purpose. Behind every great collection, a story.
From Hyperlux Magazine comes The Curated Muse Podcast—where we share intimate conversations with artists, collectors, and experts in art, design, and curation. Together, we explore the deep connections we form with objects—why we collect, what we create, and how these pieces shape our lives.
Through honest, thoughtful dialogue, we uncover the emotional ties to art and design, the history behind cherished items, and the magic of intentional living. This is The Curated Life—a celebration of inspiration, purposeful collecting, and meaningful creation.
Curated Muse
How to Deal with High Shipping Costs, Taxes and Tariffs as an Artist
Show Notes: https://hyperluxmagazine.com/curated-muse-podcast-how-to-deal-with-high-shipping-costs-taxes-and-tariffs-as-an-artist/
Professional artists are having a really hard time with shipping right now. If you are shipping within the United States or you're shipping outside the country or you're shipping to and from any country, going from the U.S. or coming to the U.S., it doesn't matter which way or where you're all of it has become more complex, 100 times more expensive. And now we're looking at tariffs and taxes and also just how customs is dealing with things when you're dealing with international shipping, as well as if you are within the United States, packages are getting stuck at distributing centers for seven to 15 days with no information. They're just sitting there. And if you are a career artist who ships your artwork to galleries so it can be shown on walls and be part of exhibitions, you are now feeling the heat of these rising prices. You are feeling the fear of the taxation. Am I going to be charged? Are you going to be charged? You're now fearing when you send things, maybe you're selling directly to collectors. Are the collectors now going to have to pay those fees? There's a lot of concerns around shipping and we should have concerns. Again, shipping has never been amazing. I have been doing shipping since 04 and as a gallery receiving and shipping packages to collectors since 2013. Shipping has always been challenging. You have to pack it like it's going to go through war. You have to make sure it's insured. All of this stuff is greatly important when you're shipping work. But more than ever in the modern times, in today's world, where the Postal Service does not have any accountability for lost or damaged packages anymore, when you're having to deal with customs, when you're having to deal with tariffs, whether or not there's a tariff or there is a tariff Who knows these days? You don't know if you're going to pay it or if the other person's going to pay it. And then the rising costs in general, just without all of that other minutiae, is exorbitant. The amount to ship a package that is, of course, when you're shipping a package of art to you're going to have a lot of packing material in there because you want to protect the artwork. So that's expensive anyway. And then the box is going to be bigger than the artwork. They say on average at least two inches around it, if you didn't know, of packing material. That's if you have to ever put in a claim, they want that proof that you had at least two inches of packing material on all sides to protect the artwork. And then you have to get online or go to your local post office and then you have to make sure it's insured and that there is a signature. And by the time you pack it with all that packing material, all of that time, and then they give you a quote, and for you to ship it's anywhere between$50 and$100. If your artwork is worth$500, you've just eaten$100. It kills an artist's commission, shipping work sometimes. More so now than ever. I want to bring this up because I want artists to look at other options. For us as a gallery over the last year, we have started working with artists on a hybrid level, meaning sometimes we work with people in other countries and even across the United States that there maybe have sculpture work. or other types of work that by the time they pack it up and they get it to us is going to cost them$100 or$200, which is a big chunk out of one's commission. And in that, they've asked if they could do the digital option. So for our gallery, Poetic Tiger, not all galleries do this. And so you'll have to look at the galleries you're working with. We have a really great digital option meaning we have a wonderful online presence. We have a great store on our website to shop original art where it can be shopped by price, themes, all of that. And we sell a lot online. And we just wrote an article on Hyperlux Magazine about the shifting and changing of the gallery world. And in there, there's a lot of statistics and information on how the world is changing and how a lot of buyers are buying art online. They used to not be that way. But there's a lot of people moving into purchasing art online than there has ever been before. And if we work with an artist who's in another country or has some really big package that's going to cost them a couple hundred dollars, and we say, okay, you keep the artwork, give us some professional photos, we'll put it up on our website, we will sell it directly to our collectors through our collector's preview, and if we sell it, then the artist themselves gets to ship the work directly to the collector, meaning they can put in a card, it can be specific, they can really customize how they're getting it to their collector, which is really sweet. That's a really nice aspect. But more importantly, it's not about that. It's about not killing your commission. As a person who believes in ROI, return of investment, we also own a web design, SEO, and digital marketing company, and I have for 26 years. We always tell our clients, whether or not their mom and pop, their artist, or their corporate, it's Any type of investment you make in marketing or doing business, there's got to have some ROI. Whether or not it's money, which is great, but at least there has to be some form of return of investment. And if you are shipping and you're spending hundreds of dollars to ship and you're not really getting that money back, if you don't sell it, You just ate money. If you do sell it, your commission is really small. So doing the online digital version first for some artists is more beneficial and can actually improve their art business. So that's my tip for you. If you are stressed out about the shipping, if you are feeling overwhelmed by the pricing and the taxes and the potential fees and the potential tariffs and all of that, it's rightfully so in this moment to be concerned. walking through this weird time in the world that we can find a way to continue doing the thing we love as a professional without completely putting ourselves in a deficit. And there are definitely ways to work around this.