The Financial Times has a short post on a consolidation in the online art market. Several sites are merging and also re-inventing services to appeal to art collectors and consumers. One is moving toward charity auctions and inventory systems. It seems the boom in other online industries has not yet taken hold in the art market.
The post is pretty short, so I posted in its entirety, but it would be interesting to have more information on what is happening online with the art world. Perhaps a good Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies article.
The FT reports
Source: The Financial TimesHardly a week goes by without news of a new online site for selling art, so it seems inevitable that there will be consolidation in the sector. Blacklots.com, a nifty idea from former Phillips de Pury chairman Rodman Primack to hold “flash” auctions online of one or two items every day, has been absorbed into Paddle8. The brainchild of Alexander Gilkes, another former Phillips man, this organises online “curated shows” with galleries and for fairs; it got $4m this year from investor Mousse Partners. However, it has “re-skinned” itself as a virtual auction house specialising in charity auctions, as well as adding an inventory management system – an area in which the site Collectrium is already active.
Russian investor Sergey Skaterschikov has been looking closely at the whole online sector for art, and says he is not seeing the predicted boom in business so far. “In Silicon Valley, we were used to seeing other e-commerce companies multiplying their turnover by three or four in a single year,” he says. “But this hasn’t happened in the art sector. I am not sure anyone has cracked the model yet.” As analyst Anders Petterson of ArtTactic puts it: “The market is slow in embracing the online model because the art market remains highly individualistic, and people still like the personal aspect of buying art.”
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