Why should I have physical samples of all my print media types?

You can’t effectively merchandise or sell products you don’t physically have in your hands. If you’re selling wood prints, metal prints, acrylic prints, canvas wraps, framed paper prints, etc., you need to order samples of each. These are your props for live shows. You need to be able to hold them up, show how light dances off the acrylic, demonstrate the texture and depth, and help people understand what they’re actually buying. Trying to sell from flat digital images alone is like a door-to-door knife salesman showing pictures in a catalog instead of actual knives—no one is buying that way. You can’t even begin to practice good merchandising until you have the actual merchandise to show.

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Asked by general teaching · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2020-08-28