A great question from a client! The primary gallery I'm in opened 3 yrs ago and she did a 35/65 split with the artists. She's gone up to 40/60 and now says since she's moving the store location, her expenses are higher and she will probably have to go to a 50/50 split. This seems high to me (and would probably mean an adj in prices which I don't want to do) but I thought I'd check with others. The Gallery is located in a small tourist town of maybe 10,000 in the Texas Hill Country, not in a large city.
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Hi Dottie,
Well I am going to probably have a very unpopular opinion on this one so take it with a grain of salt and laugh at me later.
All the places that have sold my pieces at 50% sold more and for a much better price (my take home) than the places that sold for a lower percentage.
I have no idea why, I have some thoughts though. If they can get 50% there is more incentive for them to sell the work of artists and not their retail stock. Running a retail business it is hard to pay the bills if you only get 35% of the profits of a sale.
I had earrings that I sold for about $10 in my booth (10 years ago), and when I got them into an art gallery she could get $40 for them so I doubled what I was getting for the pieces.
The art gallery I presently deal with told me they usually charge 50% but for me they were going to do 60/40. I told them to take the 50% and if they wanted to lower the price to make a sale they could take it out of their percentage.
I always give the consignment shops the minimum price I will take so they have some room to play with making the sale. I give them my absolute lowest price if they buy outright then they have even more room to make a profit and there is incentive to buy from me. I tell them they can always trade for other pieces when they want. With cash in hand I am able to turn that back into the business instead of a necklace sitting and waiting to sell.
Szarka