Buying Handmade Art Products Online:

Caveat Emptor

By Dennis Speer

Copyright © 2011 All Rights Reserved

Build it…and they will come. The world is pulsating with beautiful art work and art products, most of which are handmade or handcrafted. So, what’s all the fuss about? Handmade; in a word. Buying handmade art products and visual arts has become so popular that entire website marketplace venues are available online to satisfy the demand. And there are millions of highly talented and skilled artists and artisans ready to provide the supply. So there you have it…plenty of handmade art to go around and plenty of buyers ready to plunge into the online shopping experience.

But there is a caveat. Caveat Emptor to be exact. "Let the Buyer Beware" is a phrase conjured up in Ancient Greece, apparently to warn buyers of products that what they buy may not be as it was sold. So, does it have to be that way with buying handmade stuff online? Not if the Buyer is prudent and slightly educated in the art of buying art…online.

Satisfaction and the overall shopping experience ranks high on the priority list of buyers. But shopping online, opposed to shopping a B&M store can be challenging. In a Brick and Mortar store shopping can be done with physical examination of products and quality judgments are fairly easy to make. Shopping online presents its own challenges in that digital imagery can be manipulated and a product’s appearance may be refined. So, before buying handmade art products online learn to recognize the handmade aspect of the items you plan to buy. With multiple product categories and a vast array of products available within those categories it’s important to develop skill sets for them.

If a Buyer has the "eye of an artist" it will be much easier to see signs that would indicate the product is handmade rather than manufactured. Try a little O.J.T. On the job training is simply, in this case, practicing seeing what you are looking at. Determining the handmade aspect of an elk hide handbag over a handmade soap product requires two different skill sets. Recognizing hand stitching on a leather product may require less scientific knowledge of the quality of ingredients in a bar of handmade soap, but the end result can be the same. So become familiar with what is in the type of products you are looking for and make judgments as you shop.

Also, the online Buyer should be internationally open minded. Art products and visual arts can take on quite different dynamics from different parts of the world. In music, for example, it’s like the half tones and whole tones of Western Music compared the quarter tones of Eastern Music, the differences are influenced simply by the cultural implications from across the earth.

Another tool available to Buyers of art products is to use a juried art and artist site. The advantage here is that the artist and/or the art is previewed (juried) by qualified experts before allowing them to list their works on a site. For more information read the article Evolution of Juried Art in a Digital Age.

Juried sites benefit Buyer and Seller. For Buyers, juried sited create a greater degree of confidence that the works being purchased are of high quality and are likely to be one of a kind. For the Seller Artist, a juried site tends to maintain a lower number of listing which will make it less competitive to be seen by a Buyer.

A handmade site will categorize and sub-categorize art products and visual arts for ease in shopping. The listing artist provides photos for the items along with a description of the products and other information regarding the creative process involved in producing the item. Artists and artisans are encouraged to network with each other as well as with Buyers they meet online and can usually be contacted through their host site or by direct email. The relationship building process may also be achieved in social media pages of a site.

The Online Handmade Industry provides a unique online shopping experience that is fun and rewarding. Buying handmade art products provides the satisfaction of knowing your purchase is unique and truly one of a kind!