Selling Your Artwork on Consignment

One way to sell your artwork is on consignment. There are some variations, but basically, this is when a retailer hosts your items and sells them on your behalf for a percentage. This is different from wholesale because the retailer doesn’t buy your products from you to resell. I resisted going this route for a long time after a bad experience that I’ll describe a little later. Choosing a consignment shop can be tricky, but if you’re going to go this route, here are some of things I took into consideration before finally putting my stuff in someone’s shop again.

Things to Consider and Questions to Answer

Always, always, always get your consignment agreements in writing, signed by both parties.

Take a good look around any shop you’re considering being a vendor with. Are the displays organized and visually appealing? Is everything dusty/dirty or does it look like the shop staff regularly clean things? Are the staff friendly and engaging with customers who walk through the door. I know this one is subjective, but what I mean is that even if you let people just shop on their own, you should acknowledge that they’ve come in. Does the staff do that or ignore the customers entirely?

Have a conversation with the retailer about the local arts scene. Do they generally know what’s going on and do they take advantage of industry events? My city has a monthly evening event for art galleries and shops that encourages people to visit and enjoy them as an “art walk.”

Is the shop in a location which is frequented by your target customer?

There are different levels of involvement from retailer to retailer. Some consignment shops will expect you to provide your own displays, and possibly signage if they’re set up as “little vendor shops within a big retail shop”, others may expect you to work some hours per month at the register, and still other shop owners will have a clear vision of what they want the overall thing to look like and just want your products. Know what’s expected, and have it in writing.

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Do you have time in your production schedule to take on the responsibilities of being a good vendor given everything that is expected of you with your agreement with a particular retailer? Remember, this isn’t just about what they can do for you or how much they can sell of your stuff, this is a working relationship that needs to benefit everyone involved (vendor, retailer, and customer).

What happens if something is damaged in the shop? (That should be in your agreement)

When and how do you get paid?

What’s the preferred method of communication between retailer and vendor and how responsive are they? How responsive are you?

Will you have an account in the retailers sales/inventory/reporting system or will it be PDF, spreadsheet, or paper-based? It’s nice to have, but it’s not a necessity, even now. I still manage my consignment locations with a spreadsheet.

My Experiences

I had a bad experience with the first consignment shop I ever went with. The lessons I learned from it are what allowed me to expand the list above with things you might not have considered because I didn’t. With this shop, I was expected to bring all display hardware and signage. Not a problem, that’s not uncommon. Unfortunately, the staff was more interested in checking their phones, and chatting with friends than running the business. It was dusty and most of the displays looked rifled-through, as though the staff sat down behind the register when they opened and rarely moved until closing. Vendors were packed in without consideration of visual flow, product categorizing, and it ended up looking like a flea-market or items far too nice to ever be at a flea market. I stopped in weekly to reset my own display and dust it since no one else was doing it, and I still rarely sold things. Ultimately, I left after three months, making less than $4 after paying all the fees in addition to commissions. The shop closed down less than a year afterwards.

After resisting for years, I once again dove into this arena, and my experiences this time around have been much better. My main consignment “earner” shop now is located in the downtown historic district of my city. It’s got character and curb appeal; it’s inviting. It’s only a couple of blocks from where the place above was located, but the difference is night and day! It’s professionally run by an artist couple genuinely interested in the arts. They work with a variety of artists from multiple disciplines, but the shop is never cluttered. It’s clean, bright, and open so when you walk through the door you can see much of what is on offer. The communicate with me regularly, letting me know if inventory is getting low before I’ve had a chance to stop in a restock, and they’ve tastefully taken care of all the display and merchandising of my work. They also take part in the “art walk” I mentioned earlier, and advertise it.

Consignment Tracker

I’ve made a Google Sheets spreadsheet that you can use to track your consignment inventories. Click here to start using it.