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Pricing
There
are no hard and fast rules for the price you should
set for your artwork. Most people who work in the arts
and crafts industry say your price should be "whatever
the market will bear" - meaning that you will set
a higher price if your artwork is in great demand, or
a lower price if there is little demand for it and lots
of competition from other artists.
According
to the Inuit Art Foundation, there are five wholesale/retail
marketing levels that carvings normally travel through:
-
The northern artist creates a carving
-
He sells it to the community wholesaler - the
Co-op or Northern store. This is the first wholesale
price.
-
The carving is then transferred to a southern wholesaler
- distribution centers like Canadian Arctic Producers,
Dorset Fine Arts and the North West Company, Inuit
Art Marketing Service. The southern wholesaler then
sells it at its second wholesale price to galleries
and stores.
- Galleries
and stores sell the carving at its final price,
the retail price, to . . .
-
The customer.
The
more levels there are between an artist and the consumer,
the less money the artist receives for his work. But
the trade-off is that there is security in selling to
the community wholesaler. They may buy the artist's
work regularly, providing the artist with a regular
cash income.
On
the other hand, the more exhibition experience an artist
has, the higher a price he or she can command.
There
are other ways that artists can sell their work:
-
an artist can sell to a private wholesaler, who then
sells to a southern gallery or store, who then sell
to a customer
-
an artist can sell directly to a northern resident
or tourist
-
an artist can sell directly to a gallery or store,
who then sells to a customer.
If
an artist sells directly to a southern gallery or store,
he has to pay for shipping and handling expenses to
send his work down South.
It
takes time to establish a relationship with a gallery.
Also, while you're looking for ways to open up new markets,
you won't want to cut yourself off from old markets.
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