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

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51–60 of 235 posts

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

#51
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…

Edit: Roger that, we're showing the full price now.

--

This is super helpful, thank you! The last thing we want to do is to deceive people.

There's a lot of information we want to convey in those little artwork thumbnails and we've been struggling with how to cram it all in. We thought that two prices in that small space would be confusing –– but I think you're right that it was a mistake and we need to find a way to work it in.

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

#52
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…

"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."

This seems like kind of a nitpick when lots of expensive things (not just cell phone plans) are priced this way. Apartment leases, car leases, internet/cable service, and insurance all come to mind. Saas subscriptions also commonly frame pricing in per month/per user terms (even for annual plans) and leave it to the buyer to figure out the total cost that entails. As long as it's clear that the price is a monthly installment and not a total, which does seem to be the case for Art in Res, I don't see a problem.

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

#54

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.

One quick way to clean up the whole site is to have a toggle to show prices as upfront or in installments. This way you remove the noise and cater to your target demographic. UI becomes cleaner and both demographics feels like the experience is adjusted for them.

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

#56
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…

Edit: Roger that, we're showing the full price now. -- This is super helpful, thank you! The last thing we want to do is to deceive people. There's a lot of information we want to convey in those little artwork thumbnails and we've been struggling with how to cram it all in. We thought that two prices in that small space would be confusing –– but I think you're right that it was a mistake and we need to find a way to…

Kudos to the quick switch! Can see full prices now

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

#57
Very cool, but I'd like to see the difference between the monthly and one-time total payments. The scale of the art is also difficult to perceive. Everything looks the same size and you have to look at the numbers on the bottom to see the size, but it's still hard to capture at a glance. I know there's probably some strategy to get highly normalized images of the art, but it's not very immersive.

Otherwise, good luck with the project; I love the concept!

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

#58
I like the site. I've been helping with Somerville Open Studios and we struggle to make a nice browser art listing for our 350 member artists. We came up with "Itineraries" of studios to visit. (Or struggle to get some of our artists in larger studio buildings to upload there art).

We have canceled our open studios event for May. We're always looking for ways to help our Artist's sell (being a non-profit we don't have the resources to broker the transactions.)

If you don't mind I have questions: Do the artists have their own portal? Is the art Currated? Are you handling delivery and payments?

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

#59

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%?

A rent the runway for art would be an amazing idea. It would require a large deposit to cover the initial art piece but provide customers with a dynamic art collection almost similar to how museums have visiting exhibits. I'd be happy to work with someone on this.

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

#60
post #54

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.

One quick way to clean up the whole site is to have a toggle to show prices as upfront or in installments. This way you remove the noise and cater to your target demographic. UI becomes cleaner and both demographics feels like the experience is adjusted for them.

I love that idea!
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