Monique Chambers speaks to business owners who pivoted their business during the Covid Crisis.
“At Christine X Art Gallery, we offer the opportunity for art lovers, and collectors alike, to explore and buy good quality work of art.
Art is best enjoyed in person so most of the time, sales followed walk-in customers or repeat customers coming to view after seeing art they like sent with newsletters or through our social media updates.
We had a gallery website since 2010 and we opted for a webstore a year ago, not thinking that we would really need it. With the Covid19 measures we had a ten times increase of online sales and I believe it had more to do with the online exhibition I had on at the time.
Before Covid19 we had already planned a two-week exhibition starting on 1st May 2020, following an artist call for 20x20cm artworks on paper that would commemorate the year 2020. The response to this artist’s call was huge so it was a pity had we had to cancel. We had the online store available to us already and we had a good following on our newsletter and social media platforms. I asked the 50 artists whether it was okay with them if we went with an online exhibition for those dates and an actual exhibition at the gallery when the situation calmed down and they all agreed. I believe the exhibition came at the right time because clients are more likely to buy smaller and less expensive artworks online. We still had issues because some countries had stronger measures and artists couldn’t have their works sent or artworks taking long to arrive because of fewer flights but we still went along and had them exhibited online. We are now having all the artworks (including others we are adding on from artists who had already sold their own) framed for the actual exhibition at the gallery.
Since the reopening of the shopping outlets, walk-in customers have only increased since mid-May but I still feel that we would need to focus more online from now on. We already provided free service of allowing clients to try out artworks before committing to buying, as well as free delivery locally, and this had proven to help in the crisis period.
One massive learning curve though was to manage time with 3 children, one of them a baby, home life work.
For more information or to get advice on art for your home of office, visit www.christineXart.com
