The digitally reluctant dealer: ten misconceptions holding back growth

01Art does not sell online

This claim is the most widespread and the easiest to refute. The Hiscox Online Art Trade Report documented over more than a decade the continuous growth of online art sales. Auction houses have transferred a significant portion of their activity online, with results that often exceed those of their physical sales for certain categories of works. Galleries offering works on specialist platforms make sales to collectors they would never have reached otherwise, in countries where they have neither contacts nor representation. Art sells online because collectors buy online, and this trend is irreversible. This does not mean that all works and all market segments are equally suited to online sales, but asserting that art does not sell online amounts to denying a reality documented by billions of dollars in annual transactions.

02Serious collectors do not buy on the internet

The profile of the online collector has evolved considerably since the early days of the digital art market. The first years were indeed dominated by beginner buyers seeking decorative pieces at low prices. That era is over. Successive Art Basel and UBS reports show that high-net-worth collectors use online platforms to discover new artists, follow gallery programmes and make purchases. Six-figure works sell regularly online. The collectors who buy the most are also those who use digital tools the most for their research. Collectors managing collections worth several million euros use online platforms daily as a monitoring and discovery tool. The notion that the serious collector frequents only physical galleries and fairs has not corresponded to market reality for at least five years.

03Showing my prices online will scare collectors away

Price transparency is a sensitive subject in the art market, where opacity has long been considered a commercial asset. But new generations of collectors, accustomed to transparency in every other consumer sector, perceive the absence of prices as a negative signal. According to the Hiscox report, the majority of online collectors stated that price display is a determining factor in their purchase decision. Not displaying prices does not protect the dealer: it drives away potential buyers who interpret this opacity as a sign of off-putting elitism or as an attempt to practise variable pricing depending on the interlocutor. Galleries that display their prices online observe an increase in enquiries, not a decrease. The collector who knows the price before contacting the gallery is a collector who has already passed one stage of the purchase decision.

04My gallery is too small to need the internet

The reality is precisely the reverse. Large galleries have communication budgets, press relations teams and a reputation that ensures natural visibility. The small gallery, one with a modest space in a provincial town or an outlying neighbourhood, stands to gain the most from an online presence. The internet is the only channel that allows it to transcend its geographic constraint and reach collectors it would never otherwise encounter. A gallery in Montpellier or Ghent can, through a well-built online presence, attract collectors from Paris, London or New York who would never have walked past its window. For the small gallery, the internet is not a luxury: it is an equaliser that allows it to compete with galleries ten times its size on the terrain of visibility.

05Putting my works online will facilitate counterfeiting

The fear of counterfeiting is understandable but disproportionate to the actual risk. Contemporary artworks are unique pieces whose authenticity is guaranteed by the dealer and documented by a certificate. Reproducing an image online does not enable the counterfeiting of a painting or sculpture, any more than a photograph of a luxury handbag enables the manufacture of a convincing copy. The artists whose works are most reproduced online are also those with the most thriving markets, because visibility fuels desirability. Online visibility protects more than it exposes, because it establishes a public record of the work that strengthens its traceability and complicates fraud attempts. A forger has greater difficulty selling a counterfeit when the original work is publicly referenced with its provenance history.

06I do not have the technical skills

Managing an online presence does not require advanced technical skills. Specialist art platforms are designed for users who are not computer experts. Publishing a work on a platform requires the same effort as writing an email with an attachment: a photograph, a title, dimensions, a price, a descriptive text. If you can use a smartphone to take photos and a computer to send emails, you have the necessary skills. Dealers in their fifties and sixties who have made the transition unanimously testify that the technical difficulty was far below what they had imagined. The technical argument is often a rational dressing for an emotional reluctance that deserves honest examination.

07Online sales will cannibalise my gallery sales

Available data consistently demonstrates the opposite. Galleries that have developed an online presence report an increase in their total sales, including those made in the physical gallery. Online sales do not divert collectors from the gallery: they attract new ones. A collector who discovers a gallery online and purchases a first work remotely is a collector who, in the majority of cases, will subsequently visit the physical gallery on their next trip to the area. Online sales are a new-client acquisition channel added to the physical channel, not replacing it. Data from the Hiscox report indicates that galleries with an active online presence register physical sales growth exceeding that of galleries without an online presence.

08It requires too much time

The time needed to maintain a quality online presence is real but modest. Two to three hours per week suffice to photograph new works, write descriptions, respond to enquiries and update the catalogue. That is less time than preparing an opening. It is less time than a day at a fair. It is less time than you spend on the phone with your shippers. The return on investment in terms of visibility and potential sales is incomparable with other activities to which the dealer devotes far more time for lesser returns. The question is not whether you have the time, but whether you can afford not to take it.

09The online art market is a bubble that will burst

Those predicting the bursting of the online commerce bubble were doing so twenty years ago for commerce in general, fifteen years ago for luxury, ten years ago for art. E-commerce has only grown, in every sector, including the luxury sectors that share with art the same requirements of trust, quality and personal relationship. The online art market is not a speculative bubble but a structural evolution in purchasing behaviour. Collectors will not return to an exclusively physical mode of discovery and purchase, just as travellers have not returned to physical travel agencies or readers to neighbourhood bookshops alone. Each passing year reinforces this trend, and the dealer waiting for an imaginary bubble to burst is losing precious time while competitors build their online audience.

10My artists do not want to be online

Ask them genuinely, with an open question, not with your own reluctance as the subtext. In the vast majority of cases, artists want their works to benefit from the widest possible visibility. An artist whose work is visible only in a physical gallery for the duration of an exhibition, a few weeks per year, is an artist whose work is invisible the rest of the time. Artists who categorically refuse any online presence exist, but they are rare and their reasons deserve nuanced discussion rather than being taken as a pretext for the dealer's inaction. Most artists discover with satisfaction that the online visibility of their works generates new opportunities: institutional invitations, curator enquiries, collector interest in countries where their gallery has no network.

11Moving beyond misconceptions to make an informed decision

Each of these misconceptions contains a kernel of truth that makes it appealing. Selling art online is not identical to selling in a gallery. Collectors do not buy online exactly as they buy in person. Price transparency changes the commercial dynamic. Digital tools require time and learning. But none of these nuances justifies a blanket refusal of an online presence. The dealer who bases their strategy on received ideas rather than data takes a far greater risk than the one who chooses to explore digital possibilities with method and discernment.

Artedusa was designed for galleries that want an international showcase without sacrificing their identity. The platform provides partner galleries with a tailored space to present their programme to qualified collectors worldwide. Every objection raised in this article was anticipated in the platform's design, so that the dealer can focus on what they do best: discovering, championing and selling their artists' work.