Artprints.com Announces a Wholesale Division

ArtPrints.com, an online retailer of primarily posters, announced it has launched a wholesale division. I can't claim any knowledge of this company's business activities or reputation. It could be solid gold, it's just not one that has reached my consciousness. But then, there are supposedly more than 100,000 sites selling art these days.

What caught my eye was the company's foray into the wholesale consolidation business. Consolidators take small orders from retailers who don't want to order the minimum numbers required by many poster publishers. For instance, a retailer might need one piece from Haddad's Fine Arts, one from Wild Apple Graphics and two from Winn Devon. Rather than loading up on more prints than needed in order to meet the minimum, a retailer can go a consolidator and get a small order, or batch order placed with one-stop shopping.

The company claims 5 million visitors to its Web site, but it's Google PageRank is only 3/10. On Alexa, it ranks 435,000. I'm not sure how all that stacks up, but the rankings seem low for that kind of traffic to the site. Further, the wholesale side is a complete different audience. That is, it competes for the attention of retailers who sell art as opposed to its retail site that sells directly to consumers.

Selling to both consumers and retailers does set up some distribution channel conflict for the company. I think the more difficult problem will be it is attempting to go after the very well entrenched business model of Lieberman's, which has been the premier print consolidator for decades. This at a time when the industry as a whole is striving to find ways to adjust to ever changing and more challenging market conditions.

Liebermans itself has made significant strides in changing its own business model to adapt it better to market changes. It seems an odd time to launch a competitive business against such a well established company. (It's Alexa ranking is twice as good as ArtPrints.com and its Google PageRank is 4/10.)          Perhaps the management of ArtPrints.com sees an opportunity. Regardless, it will be interesting to watch this development to see if it can get legs given all it is up against. Who says this business isn't always offering some new to chew on and observe.