In my July post about online galleries I talked about Boundless Gallery –
“Gallery: Boundless Gallery (91675 Alexa ranking July 8 2007)
Inventory: 33,000 plus as per a category count on July 7 2007
Cost to Artist: 25% commission to company on sales through the gallery
Pitch to artist: no fees, low commission and can purchase front page listing
Pitch to customers: see what it looks like in your home/office before you buy
Real world equivalent: Art Gallery in a Home Décor Centre”
Since then a couple of things have changed. First their Alexa ranking has slipped to 159810 (smaller is better) as at September 29, 2007 and they have headed off in the vanity gallery direction.
They have become a fee based gallery with a range of fees from $36.00 for 6 months plus a 10% commission on sales through to $240.00 for a year with no commission on sales. Pretty reasonable looking fee structures until you do the math. With 2455 artists on their books (yep, I counted them) if their stable went for the low end that’s $175,000 plus a year up front, if the stable went for the top end it’s over half a million. In reality it will be somewhere in the middle, but even $300K a year is a nice hunk of change.
And herein lies the problem, like all vanity galleries the incentive to sell the work on the walls is greatly reduced. The rent and the wages are covered, if the work sells it sells, if it doesn’t …………their pay day is covered.
This is not necessarily a bad thing if the said gallery can provide a boost for your reputation as an artist and/or get eyes you can’t viewing your work. But with a 68,000 points slip in Boundless’ Alexa rating in 2 and a half months these become moot points.
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