Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists • Hacker News Board

Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists

#31

Post by jedieaston » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

owenversteeg wrote: post #27

One thing I've always been curious about with art in this price range ($500-5000) is the resale value. Say your tastes change and you'd like to get rid of one of these after a few years, how painful is it to sell? What are your chances of getting 50% of the purchase price? 90%? 150%?

What would be neat for this kind of service is a way to sell the piece back, either to the artist or to the service. If they knew you bought it from the site they'd know it was authentic.

Is a Gazelle-style site for art a thing, that's not eBay? I don't know that you'd want to get rid of art you bought very often, but if you move and it doesn't fit with the new aesthetic, you might want to swap it for something more on point.

Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists

#32

Post by RickS » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

Edit: huge props to the team for shipping a fix for this in minutes.

---

I want to love this idea, but I struggle to get past the lack of full price when browsing. It says "$48 • 24 months" and expects me to intuit that the product costs $1152.

Or rather, I worry that it expects me not to intuit that. Breaking the absolute price into a series of less frightening numbers to obscure the magnitude of a purchase feels slimy when cell phone carriers use it to trick people into buying new iPhones for "cheap". This seems like the same tactic. Especially since the payback periods vary between paintings, so you can't even compare apples to apples in terms of monthly dollar cost.

It's okay that paintings are expensive. It's less okay to undermine people's ability to reason about the cost of things.

Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists

#33

Post by chickenpotpie » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

JohnFriel wrote: post #10

jcmontx wrote: post #5

I like the concept. It looks like, though, your business is not art but financing. Very interesting twist. Do you charge a fixed fee or a %?

We take a percentage. For a given sale, 70% goes to the artist and 30% goes to the platform.

That's a pretty large cut. What stops a user from just messaging the artist directly and buying the work from them directly for a lower price?

Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists

#34

Post by pletsch » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

The site looks great, love the scale feature! What's your target demographic? I could see interior designers/companies who stage houses being a huge market for you.

Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists

#35

Post by JohnFriel » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

hlmencken wrote: post #17

I really am not a fan of showing a price and then only finding out after clicking into a piece of work that that price is not the price of the art but of some monthly payment. On top of that not showing the ∆ between the monthly payment price and the all at once price clearly is really maddening. Overall I'm ok with the site and the idea but the pricing structure and display seems to be designed to trick people.

Oh wow, thank you, this is really, really helpful to know!

We're so used to the paying-in-installments piece that we must have gotten blind to the fact that people seeing it for the first time would think it's the total price.

Same thing with the delta – it's always 1 / 24 of the final price (you pay the artwork off over two years), with a minimum monthly price of $30 (for the artist's sake.) Put differently,

  if ( fullPrice / 24 ) > 30
    monthlyPrice = fullPrice / 24
  else
    monthlyPrice = 30
  end

(edited for line breaks)

Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists

#36

Post by protonimitate » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

The selection of work seems pretty high quality, but I'm curious - how does the artist/art selection process work?

I come from a fine arts background and have always had issues with the contemporary art scene for it's artist to curator/gallery process. In general, social status and popularity seem to be the main currency for getting great art visible to the public.

I would love to see a service like this that enables more "undiscovered" high quality work to be shown, and for more unrecognized artists to get paid for what they love, but at the same time opening it up too all work could lower the overall quality of the available work.

Curation is hard - what system do you have in place for it?

Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists

#37

Post by sushisource » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

RickS wrote: post #32

Edit: huge props to the team for shipping a fix for this in minutes. --- I want to love this idea, but I struggle to get past the lack of full price when browsing. It says "$48 • 24 months" and expects me to intuit that the product costs $1152. Or rather, I worry that it expects me not to intuit that. Breaking the absolute price into a series of less frightening numbers to obscure the magnitude of a purchase feels sl…

Not to mention the fact that I suspect most people interested in purchasing fine art aren't exactly the type who care to finance the purchase.

Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists

#38

Post by cdubzzz » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

Hitting the back button after initial visit gives me a login prompt. That's pretty annoying...

https://imgur.com/605DZMN

Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists

#39

Post by itcrowd » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

I like the idea of making art more accessible by spacing out the payment. Congratulations on the launch!

I won't comment on the art for sale, because I think it is too much in the eye of the beholder but I will give some feedback on your website and concept.

- Why fixed installments? Why not say "this piece costs 300$ buy now, or pay 10 installments of 35$ or 20x20$" (forget the numbers, just an example).

- why are there so few pictures of the work? If I buy a piece of art I want to look at it from all angles, get up close, see the structure, see it from far, see the frame etc.

- since you got excited from seeing artists' workspace, why not show them to us? Why not show those cool warehouses/storage containers/houses where the art is piled floor to ceiling?

- When I click on an artist's bio, the last thing I want to see is a full-bleed picture of his face. I want to see where he works, how he is inspired or how this piece was formed.

- out of curiosity: how did you come up with the 30/70 split between fees/artist's check? How do the artists respond? Have you had anyone say the fees are too high?

Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists

#40

Post by germinalphrase » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

mabermoske wrote: post #30

hlmencken wrote: post #17

I really am not a fan of showing a price and then only finding out after clicking into a piece of work that that price is not the price of the art but of some monthly payment. On top of that not showing the ∆ between the monthly payment price and the all at once price clearly is really maddening. Overall I'm ok with the site and the idea but the pricing structure and display seems to be designed to trick people.

Right on the main page under each piece it says "$XX - X months"... I feel like that's pretty up front.

The meaning of this wasn’t immediately clear to me. The listing is months old? The artwork room thet many months to make? It’s only available for that long? Using “for” rather than a dash would be more clear.