The Different Types of Online Art Marketplaces

Navigating the digital art bazaar can feel like diving into a kaleidoscope—exciting, overwhelming, and full of surprises. Over the past two decades, a plethora of online art marketplaces have popped up, each promising to catapult your masterpieces into the limelight. But before you upload your entire portfolio, let's embark on a whimsical journey through the ins and outs of these virtual galleries.

Some marketplaces are easier to enter than others, with some being open to all artists, others having a more filtered and curated selection by invitation only, and others exclusively for reputed art dealers providing a curated selection of the curated selections of art dealers. By doing so, some online art marketplaces have certain quality standards and provide an appealing selection for collectors across the globe, making them more reputable and effective, facilitating sales in higher price ranges and better connected with the art world. Additionally, with the arrival of blockchain technology, NFT marketplaces are also open to all artists but focusing exclusively on digital art.

##(i) Dealer-Oriented Online Art Marketplaces:

These marketplaces are accessible exclusively to established and reputable dealers. As a result, they offer a selection of high-end artworks, often featuring artists who are well-known and have a significant presence in the art world. These marketplaces typically maintain low commission rates, but they enforce stringent standards to ensure a trustworthy and quality experience for collectors.

(ii) Curated Online Art Marketplaces:

In this model, the platform itself acts as the dealer, directly engaging with artists to feature their work. These platforms function similarly to online galleries, offering a broad portfolio of artists, though without the traditional model of curated exhibitions. The commission rates on these platforms are generally higher than those on dealer-oriented marketplaces. Most curated marketplaces focus on a larger volume of artists, which in turn can lead to increased sales. Many artists featured on these platforms do not have formal gallery representation, using the platform as a primary means to reach potential buyers.

##(iii) Open Online Art Marketplaces:

These platforms allow any artist to join and sell their work without the need for approval or a selection process. As a result, the focus is heavily on quantity rather than quality, leading to a wide range of works available for sale, which can vary greatly in terms of artistic merit. Due to the lack of curation, these platforms can become oversaturated, and they often do not hold the same level of reputation within the art world as the more selective marketplaces.

##(iv) NFT Art Marketplaces:

NFT art marketplaces are digital platforms where artists, creators, and collectors can buy, sell, and trade artworks in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NFTs are unique digital assets verified using blockchain technology, which ensures the authenticity, provenance, and ownership of each piece of art. Unlike traditional art marketplaces, NFT art marketplaces deal with digital artworks or assets that are tokenized on a blockchain. This means each piece of art is assigned a unique identifier on the blockchain, certifying it as an original, non-replicable item. Many NFT marketplaces allow artists to earn royalties on secondary sales, meaning they receive a percentage of the sale price each time their work is resold, providing ongoing revenue opportunities.

Other online marketplaces such as Etsy or eBay are also being used by artists to sell art, but they do not have that art-specific focus, hence being excluded from the upcoming list. Print-on-demand and community online art marketplaces such as Redbubble, Displate, Big Cartel, Twyla, Society6, and DeviantArt have also been excluded as they do not focus on selling the actual artworks but byproducts such as merchandise and services.