Doing $5 Million A Year With Three Employees: FineArtAmerica CEO Sean Broihier (Part 2)

Sramana: What is the business model behind FineArtAmerica?

Sean Broihier: The business model is to create a marketplace of buyers and sellers. We allow artist and photographers to upload their images to our site. We then offer them for sale as framed prints, stretched canvases, acrylic prints, greeting cards, and so on. We have a print-on-demand business model. Independent artists and photographers all over the world can open an account on our site and upload their images, and our software will determine what sizes and products we can sell based on the size of the image. The artist or photographer gets to name exactly how much they want to charge for each product or size of the print that is made available.

When a buyer comes along, he or she can pick the print and size. We allow buyers to choose additional features such as colored mats and frames. They can customize the entire picture via our website and place the order. FineArtAmerica takes care of the entire transaction for the artist. We print, frame, package, ship, collect payment, and send the profits to the artist.

Sramana: That is brilliant for photography. What if you are doing a painting or something that is not quite so customizable?

Sean Broihier: For paintings we require a high resolution digital file. You can either take a picture with a 12-megapixel camera mounted on a tripod, or you take it somewhere and have it professionally scanned. We allow the artists to offer the original paintings on the site, but we do not participate in that transaction at all. If you come to the site and see an original listed for sale, you will see a link to contact the artist to arrange a direct transaction.

Sramana: Do you charge the artists a fee? How do you make your money?

Sean Broihier: If an artist lists a print at $100, we consider that the cost of doing business. The buyer is going to want a frame and other enhancements. We treat the artist’s cost as a material cost, so the buyer will only see the final price, which includes what we charge for the frame. Everything is paid for by the buyer. FineArtAmerica makes money because we get a wholesale discount on the frame and mat.

Sramana: How did people start finding out about FineArtAmerica?

Sean Broihier: There is a viral component to our business. We sell artwork by living artists. Art.com is the biggest name in the industry just because of the URL, but they sell artwork from classic artists. We sell artwork by living artists. They upload images and sell products through us and receive a check in the mail 30 days later. Artists get excited and tell their friends and families about our site. They join and upload their pictures. That feeds on itself.

I obsess over search engine optimization. We are number one for millions of search terms. “Landscape print” is a very competitive search term, and we are number one for that term. That brings in buyers and the excitement of selling brings in more sellers.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Doing $5 Million A Year With Three Employees: FineArtAmerica CEO Sean Broihier
1 2 3 4 5 6 7