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What advantages did the pandemic and lockdowns create for online art sales?

The pandemic and resulting lockdowns dramatically accelerated e-commerce purchases overall and pushed social media usage to record levels, with everyone consuming more content from their devices more often. It also grew the use of live video exponentially across all industries. This created a perfect storm where artists could run live art gallery shows online, and art buyers with time on their hands would happily attend since they had nothing else to do. People commented that these shows were entertaining, fun, and convenient—they no longer had to physically go to art galleries, which they rarely did anyway. The combination of increased online activity and live video adoption made online art shows an instant hit.


Asked by an artist understanding market changes · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2020-06-11