Frequently Asked Questions

1) What is Pickin’Art?

The main aim of Pickin’Art is to promote artists and their artwork, helping them to achieve success through their talents and passion for their artwork.

2) What do we do?

We help artists to create an online profile, kind of like their own personal webpage where they can easily exhibit their portfolio to a much greater public than would be possible alone.

3) How will Pickin’Art help me?

Well that depends what you want out of Pickin’Art. If you aim is to sell your artwork then Pickin’Art allows you to beautifully expose your artwork in front of a much greater audience, increasing your chances of making a sell. Furthermore we provide a very secure online payment solution that provides you with a 100% guarantee against fraud.

4) Do you take commission for that?

Yes. Our commission rate is 35%, though we reserve the right lower that at anytime without any prior warning to run promotions and help close more difficult deals. If we do lower our rate it will not affect your asking price, only our take. 

5) Do I have a choice there?

Yes. If you want to handle the sales process yourself you can let potential customers contact you directly. We don’t try and hide this, discourage you or customers, your contact details will be prominently displayed above our own purchase options using the same fonts and layout.

6) Do I have any obligations towards you?

No. You retain all the rights to your artwork. You can use other sites to exhibit/sell on. If we find an offer from a customer you are under no obligation to accept.

We would be much obliged though if you could keep the status of paintings for sale up to date (for example if you sell it through another site or gallery) that you let us know so that we are not trying to sell artwork for you that has already been sold.

7) Is that all Pickin’Art is?

No. You are under no obligation to sell anything through us. You can still create your online profile and beautifully exhibit your artwork and you will still get exposure to a much wider audience.

You can use this anyway you want, as a means of sharing your work with friends and family in other countries, to promote yourself to potential galleries that are thinking of taking you on, to get feedback on your work from other artists and help develop your artwork. We try and be as open as possible and not hold you back in anyway whatsoever.

8) What is a Pickin’Art account?

Creating an account with us gives you access to our member services, like uploading artwork or buying through us. We have two different types of accounts, one for artists and one for customers. When creating an account please select the one that is best suited to you as they provide different options and cannot be changed later.

9) Does an account cost anything?

Nope. Its free. Totally free!

We have no trial period or other hidden costs. We do NOT let you go to all the trouble to create a profile with us, upload your portfolio and then two weeks later spring it on you that you were on a trial period and must pay xxx$ or it will all have been for nothing. We really hate that.

10) Then how do you make any money?

Through commission.  However making money is not why we built Pickin’Art which is why we offer so much for free. We fully believe that every artist should have the same opportunities to exhibit their artwork and promote themselves. We are huge fans of the iTunes phenomenon, levelling the playing field for artists in the same way they did for musicians and helping get rid of the ‘top of the charts’ way of purchasing, which was almost invariably bad selection of music.

11) What are the Pickin’Art Exhibitions?

Any artist with more than 10 pieces of artwork uploaded can have an exhibition created for them. If you would like us to create one for you click here for more information. We select the best of these every month and run it as our Exhibition of the Moment, featured on our homepage an on our news and community sites providing much exposure for that artist amongst their peers, our visitors and potential customers.

12) How do you select the Exhibition of the month?

At the moment Natalie Thomas, who has considedrable experience in this domain having worked for traditional galleries and with artists before selects it based on which we feel displays the most merit. However this is only temporary until we get the Artist community up and running, at which point we will hand over the choice to you.

13) What is the Pickin’Art community?

This is our Artist Community that we foster, kind of like a facebook/MySpace built specially for artists. The idea is to provide an environment where artists can share their experiences and benefit from those of others. Chat and make friends. Ask questions, get answers.

At the moment this is not yet up and running but we hope is not far off now.  Our regular newsletter will bring you updates on how this progresses.

14) What is the Pickin’Art Magazine?

In addition to our galleries we also run a news and information site here. If you would like to contribute an article please send it to us and we will post it on the site. All articles you write will link back to your own profile and portfolio page, just about the best possible way to drive more visitors to your pages!

15) How does the Pickin’Art sales process work?

For the Artist:

• We find you a buyer or a buyer makes a purchase online. We then contact you to verify that you agree to the deal.
• If you do, we send you the shipping address and guidelines. You have to pay for shipping upfront but this will be reimbursed later. Once shipped you have to login to your account and enter the tracking number.
• If all goes well and the buyer does not claim refund then we transfer the money to a bank account you specify. If the buyer does claim refund then he will ship it back to you and we reimburse you for the shipping costs.

For the Buyer (via Pickin’Art online store):

• Successfully complete the checkout process and complete payment via Moneybookers secure online gateway.  You will receive an automated email confirmation immediately afterwards.
• We then contact the artist to verify that the transaction can proceed, for example that the painting wasn’t sold elsewhere and they forgot to notify us.
• If it can proceed we will send you another mail once we know notifying you when you can expect delivery. If it can’t we will also inform you and make a FULL refund to your account.

16) I’m an artist and just sold some work through Pickin’Art. When can I expect to be paid?

Between 3-6 weeks. Yes, we know this is a horribly long time and we are very sorry about this, however there is no other way we can reasonably operate. This time period is there to protect artists, ourselves and buyers from fraud and, if such a case arises, halt the deal and reimburse the innocent parties.

17) How does Pickin’Art handle refunds (for Buyers)?

To be eligible for the refund you must comply with our guidelines which you will have agreed to during the checkout process. These guidelines are not there to discourage you from claiming refunds but to protect the artists and ourselves from fraud. If you read through them you will find them quite fair.

• Once you receive a painting you have 5 working days in which to contact us and claim a refund. This is intentionally short as we cannot pay the artist until you have received the artwork and this period is up.
• After contacting us we will send you the return shipping address and guidelines you must follow. Namely: you ship the artwork, properly packaged, insured for the total cost of the painting(s) and signed for upon delivery. You then login to your account and send us the tracking number.
• Once we confirm the artist has indeed received the painting we will release the money back to you. Please note that this will be minus the shipping costs the artist incurred to have the painting sent to you.

As a buyer you do not have to buy through us. In some cases the artist will have the option to buy direct from them. In these cases their contact details will be displayed above our option to purchase now via our secure online shop.

Please note that if you buy direct from the artist it is up to you and them to arrange the terms and conditions of the deal, payment and shipping. Our terms and conditions, shipping guidelines and refund policy do NOT apply.

19) How does Pickin’Art handle private and sensitive information?

With the utmost respect. We will never divulge any sensitive information except if legally requested to by a court mandate.  Furthermore we do not store any banking information. All transactions and sensitive banking information are handled by Moneybookers, our online merchant gateway.  For more information please see our full Privacy Policy.