Selling Prints

Besides showing your work, the Mimetic Gallery system lets you sell prints. We designed our system to sell quality, not quantity. If your goal is to sell cheap prints, we recommend other systems like Shutterfly or EZPrint. With that in mind, here are the special features of the system:

Automated Sales and Delivery

Our idea is that whenever possible, we let the computers do the work because you need time and freedom to do your work. The system is simple: buy-print-process1

  1. A customer sees your picture in an exhibition and clicks the “Buy A Print” link.
  2. The customer chooses the print size and any framing/matting options, then buys a print. Payment is throughPaypal. 
  3. Once the payment is complete, the system sends a print order and payment to your fine art print service, a commission goes to the gallery owner, and the profits go to your Paypal account. Immediately.

Your print service makes the print and ships it to the customer. 

 

Immediate and Accessible Payments

Since the payments are going through Paypal, your money is available about 30 seconds after the customer pays for the print. If you have a Paypal ATM card, you can get that money immediately. If your Paypal account is linked to a credit card or bank account, it might take a few days for the money to move. In any case, you have immediate access to your money.

Everyone wins. You get your money in about 30 seconds. Your printing service is prepaid, so they are happy. Your collectors will get their prints quickly (without waiting for you to come back from your photoshoot), so they are happy. Everyone is happy!

The goal is to allow you to sell work while you work.

Limited Edition Prints

The Mimetic Gallery system lets you sell limited edition prints. We do not know of any other systems that do this. If your goal is to sell fine art prints, limiting the number of prints available increases the rarity of your work…and its value. 

Photographers are notorious for overselling their editions, in part because tracking prints is not easy. The gallery takes care of this for you by recording how many prints of each picture have been sold. It will not sell any more when the edition has been sold.

Because the photographer may not be able to sign the actual prints, we use the traditional method of professional printing ateliers. This is not a new problem, and the accepted solution is a signed certificate of authenticity. You provide your printer with a stack of signed, blank certificates. Your printer keeps them in a safe, and whenever a customer buys a print, a completed card — with your real signature — goes with it.

If you have a Private Account, you do not have to use an outside printer. If you wish, orders can go directly to you, the old-fashioned way.