How to sell art online in the Netherlands

Selling art online isn't mostly about the technology. It's about what someone needs to see before they spend a few hundred, or a few thousand, euros on a piece they've only seen on a screen.

When we built the store for Thereza Pedrosa Gallery, I wasn't allowed to touch a single photo, because the photography is the art. Earrings at €305 sat in the same grid as a painting at €6,600, and every piece was one of one, so each sale emptied a page. None of that is a design problem you solve with a nicer theme. It's a question of what a buyer needs to believe, and in what order. That's what this guide is about, along with the practical part: where to sell, how to price, how to ship, and what the Dutch rules ask of you.

Where can you sell art online?

There are five places artists in the Netherlands usually sell from. They're not either or. Each one does a different job.

A marketplace brings you buyers you could never reach alone, which is a real reason to be there, especially at the start. The price is that the buyer belongs to the platform: you get a sale, but often not the email address, and not the next sale. Your own website is the opposite. It doesn't bring strangers on its own, but everyone who finds you there stays yours.

Your own website or a platform?

If you can only do one thing this month, start where your buyers already are. If people already ask you "is this still available?" in your messages, you don't need a marketplace to find them. You need a place where they can buy without waiting for your answer.

That's what your own website is for. It's where a collector who saw your work at an open studio, a market or on Instagram goes to look again, read the story and buy, on their own time. It's also the only place where the whole experience is yours: how the work is shown, what's said about it, and what happens after the sale.

Selling art without a gallery

You can, and many artists do. But a gallery does three things for you: it finds buyers, it gives the work credibility, and it handles the sale. Without one, your website has to do the second and third. That's why the photos, the story and the details matter more on an artist's site than on almost any other store.

If you want to sell from your own site, a Shopify store gives you a checkout, iDEAL and shipping rates that already work, so your time goes to the work and how it's shown. We wrote a step-by-step plan for that in How to start a webshop in the Netherlands.

Photograph your work like it's the only thing a buyer will see

Online, it is. Nobody can step back, look closer or see the texture in the light. So every work needs the same set of photos:

• The work straight on, edges square, in soft daylight, with the colors as close to real as you can get them.

• A detail of the surface, so people see the brushwork, the paper or the glaze.

• The work on a wall or in a room, so the size makes sense. A sofa or a chair next to it says more than "60 × 80 cm".

• The sides and the back, for canvases and objects, so people know how it hangs and how it's finished.

Resist editing the colors to look better than the work. A buyer who's disappointed when the box opens won't buy again, and may send it back.

Thereza Pedrosa Gallery, a Shopify store we designed. Each piece sits on a calm, neutral background, so the work does the talking.

How to price your art

Pricing is where most artists get stuck, because it feels personal. It helps to treat it as a method rather than a feeling. There are three common ones:

• By size. Add the width and height in centimeters and multiply by a factor. A 60 × 80 cm painting with a factor of 5 is (60 + 80) × 5 = €700, plus your materials and frame. When you sell more, show more, or the waiting list grows, the factor goes up.

• By time and materials. Your hours times an hourly rate, plus materials. Fair, but it can make your slowest work your most expensive, whether or not it's your best.

• By comparison. Look at what artists at a similar stage, with similar work and sizes, ask in the Netherlands. Use it to check the other two methods, not to replace them.

Whichever you pick, use it for everything, and keep the price the same everywhere you sell. If a gallery sells your painting for €1,200 and your website has it for €700, you've told the gallery's collectors what the work is worth, and it isn't €1,200. Price consistency is what lets your prices go up over time.

TOOL: ART PRICE

Originals, prints and commissions

Most artists who make a living online sell more than originals. Three lines usually work together:

Prints are a good way in for people who love your work but aren't ready for an original. Just keep them clearly apart on your website, so nobody wonders whether they're buying the painting or a copy of it.

What your artist website needs

An artist's website doesn't need many pages. It needs the right ones, and it needs every work to answer the same questions:

• Each work: title, year, medium, size, price (or "price on request", if you must), and whether it's available. Plus the photos from above.

• A few lines about the work, in your words: what it is, where it came from. Not a full statement, just enough to make it personal.

• Series or collections, so people can see a body of work, not a pile of pieces.

• About, with a real photo of you or your studio. People buy art from a person.

• Commissions, with how it works, a starting price and a simple form.

• Shipping and returns, in plain words, linked from every work.

• A newsletter sign-up, so a collector can hear about the next series before anyone else.

Screenshot: Thereza Pedrosa GalleryWho made it, that it's a unique piece, the title, the materials, the size. Short, in the same order on every piece, so a collector knows exactly where to look.

Keep sold work visible

On the gallery's store, sold pieces stay on the site with a badge instead of disappearing. A sold work shows that people buy from you, and it gives a buyer a reason to ask for something similar.

If you'd rather show your work without a full store, a portfolio site with an inquiry form can work too. We design both: a Brand Site for artists who sell by conversation, and a Shopify store for artists ready to sell online. You'll find more on our page for artist websites and our page on Shopify for art and galleries.

Shipping art safely

The moment a buyer opens the box is part of the work. Pack every piece as if it'll be thrown, because sometimes it will be:

• Protect the surface first, then the corners, then wrap the whole work in bubble wrap.

• Use a sturdy box with room for padding on every side, or a box inside a box for anything fragile.

• Add a handwritten card. It costs nothing and it's what people remember.

• For large or valuable work, use a courier that ships art, and insure it for its full price.

Say what shipping costs on every work, not only at checkout. In Baymard Institute's research, extra costs like shipping are the top reason people leave a checkout (40%). With art, a surprise at the end feels even worse, because the buyer has already pictured it on their wall.

KVK, BTW and the rules in the Netherlands

If you sell regularly and want to make a profit, you usually count as a business, and you register with the KVK. If you only sell a work now and then, you might not need to. The KVK has a checklist on its website to help you decide.

Original art that you made and sell yourself has the low BTW rate of 9%, not 21%. Prints and posters usually have 21%, although some limited, signed editions can count as art. If your turnover stays under €20,000 a year, you can choose the kleineondernemersregeling (KOR) and not charge BTW at all, but then you can't reclaim BTW on your materials either. Your accountant can tell you what fits.

Your website also has to show who's behind it: your name or business name, a physical address, an email address and your KVK and BTW numbers. And buyers can cancel an online purchase within 14 days, except for work you made to their wishes, like a commission.

Selling from Belgium?

The steps are the same, but you register in the KBO through an ondernemingsloket, original art sold by the artist has 6% BTW, the vrijstellingsregeling goes up to €25,000 turnover a year, and Belgian buyers expect Bancontact at checkout.

Getting found

Your first buyers usually already know you: from open studios, markets, exhibitions or Instagram. Make it easy for them first. Put your website in your bio, send your newsletter when a new series is ready, and answer "is this available?" with a link to the work.

Then help Google find you. Give each work a page with its title and medium in the page title ("Maas blue, acrylic on canvas, 60 × 80 cm"), describe the photos in the alt text, and write a few lines about each series. People search for art by style, subject and city, so use the words they'd use, like "abstract painting Rotterdam" or "ceramics artist Utrecht".

NOT A TOOL