​Artists are building their own good-looking and fully functioning websites using the webware available online.

In summary you can create a good looking website – if you can

• use a word processor,
• know what drag and drop means,
• can resize your images and

• you are willing to learn about some design basics and writing for the web.

​

Key considerations when deciding on a website hostinclude:

1. DEFINE your requirements – see right
2. ANALYSE what’s on offer – I recommend you take a look at Options for websites
3. REVIEW other artists’ websites
4. ASK for recommendations from fellow artists ​

​

Websites enable you and your art to be found online.

But why have one?

This page looks at:

• Why an artist needs a website
• Why the design and functionality of the website matter
• Why your business name matters
• How to have an impact on the internet

They are ubiquitous

• They are now a normal part of many artist’s marketing toolkits
• Virtually all painters now have websites.  It’s now ‘normal’ for professional artists have one
• Younger artists are now much more web aware. They might prefer a blog or Tumblr site to start with.
• Check out my blog post about The Websites of Contemporary Painters in the UK. This contains my observations made about the current status and state of play of artists’ websites in the UK.
• Plus this is my update – Artists websites in 2018 – about what has changed and what has not – and what needs to change! It looks at: the plus points, the design, the words, the weaknesses and the faults.

They help get your name known

• If artists have websites which use an ‘own name’ domain name, they can be found online pretty quickly and easily. With a little effort it’s possible to rank #1 in Google (but see ‘Your Art Business Name Matters! below’)

They help market your artwork
Your website provides information about your credibility and authenticity.

Websites can impress if they work well.

• Some websites are very impressive
• BUT some provide a very poor impression
  (e.g. the images are too small, the design is ‘poor’ and/or amateurish and/or they load too slowly)

Speed is increasingly important as a factor determining how websites rank in Google.

• Some websites load very fast while some are very slow. This often depends on whether both code and image file sizes have been optimised for fast loading.
• You can check out the speed of your site – and how to improve it – using Google’s PageSpeed Tools.

Browsing is increasingly done via mobile devices.
A website is not fully functional if it cannot be viewed on a tablet or a smartphone. The emphasis is now on websites which can be viewed on any device of any size.Image size and quality is very important for artists

• People linger longer on websites which make it easy to see the images.
• Some websites display good sized images of artwork which load fast.
• Other artists have websites which make it difficult – for galleries, art collectors or ad hoc purchasers – to review images
• I can’t think of a faster way to lose visitors than to make people review artwork one by one in the order determined by the artist.

Flash does NOT help to impress.

• Not all artists are aware that the iPad does not support Flash. Hence any website that uses Flash cannot be browsed via an iPad.

You need to decide pretty early on what you’re going to be known as online – and what your ‘trading name’ is going to be

Check out what happens when you search the internet for your name.

Have you got competition?

• Having an unusual name means less difficulty in finding you – if people know how to spell it!

• Having a very common name can mean you will remain anonymous and unknown on the internet. You need a website domain name which ends in ‘art’ or ‘artist’ or ‘fine art’ or ‘painting’.

• Having the same name as a famous person causes confusion. Consider how best to highlight how you are different from the famous musician/sportsman/politician/actor etc. Try using initials or use a different professional artist name for ‘trading purposes’.
• Banks require a trading name. Check with your bank about what documentation they require if you trade in a name different to your own and maintain a bank account in that name.

REFERENCE:

• It’s all in the domain name! This is about: (1) How to make a website domain name work for you as an artist and (2) One reason why your artist’s website is NOT found on the first page of Google when people look for it.

If you’ve been selected for an open exhibition / art competition…

Make sure you use the opportunity for some free publicityto raise your profile via your website.

DO make sure that:

• You get a website sorted BEFORE the announcement of selected artists or the shortlist for the big prize!  Even one page with one image and details of how to contact you is much better than nothing at all. (see About.me and Squarespace cover pages – this is my about.me page)
• You place an image of the chosen work in a pretty prominent place on your website – and then highlight this using the name of the competition. You’ll find that one action will generate traffic.
• Create a news page on your website and keep it up to date – including announcements of all art competitions you’ve been selected for.​
• You use the same name for the competition and your website – it makes it a lot easier to find you!

All about you!

Make sure your website includes the basics. These are

• your name – it’s absolutely amazing how many artists’ websites never reveal the name of the artist!
• how to contact you – you can use a form; you don’t need to reveal your email address. You can also use an image of an email address as opposed to a live link (see my ‘about me’ page on my portfolio website to see what I mean)
• Your biographical information – this should identify what is unique about you (eg where you live and/or have your studio).
• an image of youpersonalises a website and makes it more friendly to viewers. It doesn’t have to be a “studio portrait”.

SEARCH

​Does it need to be indexed by search engines?

• Check whether your site is indexed by search engines – not all are (e.g. Weebly free sites are no longer indexed)

RECOMMENDATION: ALWAYS get a website which can be indexed by Google. Anything else is a waste of time if you are marketing your art.

ANALYTICS

​Basic or sophisticated?

• Are you reliant on their statistics or can you use a better package
• Bottom line – can you load the code so you can access Google Analytics?
• RECOMMENDATION: Make sure you can access Google Analytics for your website

PRICE
​
Paid or free? Are you clear what you will be paying? 

TEMPLATE
​
Unique template OR webware?

PAGES
​
Limited or unlimited?

• I find it very odd that artists still buy websites which allow them less than 10 pages.  I’ve always had unlimited pages and it allows for flexibility when designing – and when changing – a site.

RECOMMENDATION: Never buy a website package which severely limits the number of images you can use

IMAGES

Limited or unlimited?

• Some sites limit the number of images you can upload​

RECOMMENDATION: Unlimited. Anybody who is paying a significant fee for a site which only allows a small number of images is being ripped off.

NAVIGATION
​
Clumsy or easy?
RECOMMENDATION: Ease of navigation – on both desktops and mobile devices – is crucial to the length of time people spend on your site. It’s no longer good enough for a website to be easy to navigate on a desktop.

These are webware sites where you need to pay to get the sort of flexibility for a good-looking website.

Weebly  – A popular option used by many artists.

• It has a menu of features and themes. Some are restricted to the priced plans. Features work on a very easy drag and drop basis. You can change design in terms of font type / size / colours.
• There are four options – free, starter, Pro and Business. This is a comparison of the priced plans. All the priced options offer increased functionality including your own online store.
• (Note: This site uses Weebly and the Starter option – and it’s possible for it to use a lot more images than it is doing at present)

Squarespace

• Started off oriented towards blogging and has become a lot more. Over time has morphed into an extremely stylish website with the best responsive templates for portfolios of visual products (for photographers and illustrators and artists) and associated ecommerce store.
• Information is clearly provided via a Feature Index and a Tour
• Includes a range of apps for iPhone, iPad and Android (more limited features)
• Includes hosting on their dedicated servers.
• There is no free option. There are three priced plansand they’re not cheap – but this is a quality option.

(I thought long and hard about Squarespace before opting for Weebly and if I was opting for a purely portfolio oriented site then this is the one I’d probably go with)

Sitekreator – This is the site I started with and it has created very many websites for artists. However in my opinion it’s not keeping pace with change which is why I will be moving my portfolio site from it – just as soon as I can get my head around how much work that involves.

The moral of the story is to find and stick with a website host which follows innovations fast even if they aren’t market leaders in introducing innovations.

Free hosting means you can start up and get online within the hour.

Blogger – a Google product – designed for blogging rather than websites.

• It allows you to have your own domain name but hosting is free and uploads are virtually unlimited.
• Essentially blogging software but the Pages facility allows for the inclusion of a lot of static information.
• Easy to upload images but no scope for galleries or slideshows or videos except via third party links which are feasible.
• Some people are concerned about the security of your content. However Blogger continues to keep going while very many other places people have hosted blogs have come and gone.

Here are some articles about setting up a website

• Successful Art and Artist Websites – Do’s and Don’ts – How to Build a Website that Works | ArtBusiness.com – The mantra for a successful art or artist website has been and continues to be “Keep it fast, simple, easy and organized.”
• Website Tips for Artists | Art Business.com – Large art and artist websites used to make more sense than they do now. Before social networking, joining them was a great way for artists to publicize their art.
• The Artist Website Checklist | The Abundant Artist – a succinct checklist which aims to help you get the basics of your artist website right. You can read it online or download it.

• Why I moved to WordPress by Sophie Ploeg – offering her experience and opinions about the pros and cons of WordPress. Essentially more options and control and more work (although I’ve actually found the flexabilities on some alternatives that she didn’t).

This page considers:

• key considerations for website design
• technology and software
• design, layout and navigation
• text and images
• checklists for design, selling art etc
• websites to look at (in development)

There has never been a better time for artists to build their on websites using webware which is very easy to use – and involved absolutely no coding.

However you still need to understand some of the basics of website design.

At the end of this page, I will be developing links to further reading. Unless otherwise indicated the links are to posts on my blog where I’ve written extensively on this topic.

Technology and Software / Mobile friendliness
Websites MUST be:

Two years ago I ran a poll to find out where artists were up to in terms of updating their website

Here’s what the browser statistics look like for one of my new sites for one week in March 2016

Note that the iPad and mobile browsers accounted for 40% of  visitors

(Source: Browser Statistics from Statcounter)

A key indicator of a contemporary template is that it works with recent versions of every browser.

Once upon a time Internet Explorer dominated web browsers. Those days are long gone (see above chart)

It’s now essential that websites are designed to be compatible with every commonly used browser – including and especially ones that are specifically designed to be used with mobile devices.

You don’t need to worry about the older versions. You do need to worry about all the updates and new versions!

If somebody asks me to take a look at their new website (and I only do this for free for friends!) I always make sure that I look at it on my iMac, Mini iPad and my iPhone (e.g. see Brand new website raises design standard for art societies) and I use different browsers to do this.

Speed on an image-based website is largely determined by file size (based on resolution, actual dimensions and file type).  To keep your website fast you need to make sure you don’t make images any bigger than they need to be.

This is Google’s advice about how to make the above the page content load faster 

You can also test how fast your website is.

• Use Google PageSpeed Insights Tool to check how fast your website loads – Do you know how well your website or blog renders on a mobile device or a normal computer?
• This website tool from Pingdom allows you to test how fast your website page loads. Note you do NOT get unlimited free tests every month.

Tips for writing text on websites and blogs

• don’t write an essay
• keep your writing style and vocabulary simple
• people “scan read” websites – so keep sentences and paragraphs short
• use subheads to signal topics
• ​use bulleted lists where appropriate (such as this topic)

How your website ranks in response to google searches depends on the quality of the content as well as the number of people who follow an artist.

REFERENCE

• Search Quality Guidelines: Find out how Google rates websites – An overview of the guidelines Google publishes on how it rates website content and value to those searching for information

Keep your captions consistent – decide what to include in a caption eg

• title of the artwork
• size (dimensions – make clear whether metric or imperial)
• media used e.g. is it lighfast
• support used e.g. is it archival

You must advise people of what they are buying in terms of presentation and “add ons”

• mounted or not
• framed or not
• scope of customer choice about how artwork is supplied
• implications for pricing

You may have noticed that websites which have had a makeover recently are getting bigger and better images. Images are becoming very prominent on all sorts of sites.

​A contemporary website design for an artist’s website should provide a range of ways for displaying images.

• Image-Focused Design: Is Bigger Better?(September 28, 2014) Large images are visually appealing, but they can harm the overall user experience if they aren’t appropriately prioritized.

If you want people to but your art, people need to see what they are buying. On the other hand the speed of your website is a major factor in it ranking well.

TIPS:

• make sure image size is optimised for speed of loading. That basically means nothing higher than 72 dpi.
• use crops and close ups to demonstrate texture in paintings or quality of brushwork of paintings
• colours will render depending on the screen used to view them. All you can do is make sure you’re creating an image that is as close as possible to real colours.

Below are articles which provides information and tips on website design

• Are You Making Any of These Common Mistakes on Your Artist Website? | The Abundant Artist – this article highlights some of the more common mistakes that are made and explains how to fix or avoid them altogether
• Why colour converts and creates sales on websites– Did you make any deliberate decisions about which colours to use when putting together your website or blog?​
• Artist Websites and Good Design – 5 Rules from a Former Gallery Owner | Clint Watson / FASO

• The Fold Manifesto: Why the Page Fold Still Matters(February 1, 2015) What appears at the top of the page vs. what’s hidden will always influence the user experience—regardless of screen size.
• Where is the Fold? – this is a website which shows you where the page fold comes on different sized screens and with different browsers. Note how pages with deep headers with little content lose a lot of opportunity to make an impact – unless your image does it for you!

See also my section on this website about Selling Art

Things you need to think about when trying to sell art via your website include:

• a call to action button e.g. “add to basket”
• using enough text – but not too much
• making good use of white space – so you can items clearly
• good quality images – be prepared to provide large images!
• use of a visible/professional shopping cart
• use of a secure ecommerce facility for payments

Most importantly, you need to think about whether you are likely to sell enough art to make a proper ecommerce facility for your website a cost-effective proposition – or whether you might do better to use an external third party store/site (eg Etsy, eBay)

REFERENCE:

• How to Fix Common Design Mistakes that Hurt Your Online Sales – what turns people off and what fails to turn people on to buying your art

Contents:

• How people read the web
• How to structure text
• How to write the text
• How Google rates the content you create

This section is about how people read the web and why position on the page matters.

• people often read the headline…
• …and then track down the left hand side of the page
• content positioned on the right gets less attention

Reference: I learned a lot about evidence-based writingfrom Neilsen’s useit.com website

• Writing for the Web | useit.com – Results from several research projects and eyetracking studies about how users read on the Web and how authors should write their websites.

• F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content (Alertbox) – Eyetracking visualizations show that users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe.
• Reading on the Web (Alertbox) – Users don’t read Web pages, they scan. Highlighting and concise writing improved measured usability 47-58%. Users detested “marketese”; the promotional writing style with boastful subjective claims (“hottest ever”)

This is the hook to keep people reading when they scan a site.

A Strapline or tagline is memorable. It explains what you are marketing in a few words. It sums up how you want to be remembered as an artist. You usually find it on the landing page or first major page.

For example – I have a website about botanical art. The strapline is “Resources About Botanical Art and ForBotanical Artists” – click the link to see how it is used and positioned on the page. The italics are important.

• Tagline Blues: What’s the Site About? (Alertbox July 2001) This article is about companies – but you can transpose the messages into a test for an artist’s website. It focuses on the tagline used for a website – which should identify what an artist does and what makes this artist unique when compared to others.

​Reference:

• Use Old Words When Writing for Findability – Familiar words spring to mind when users create their search queries. If your writing favors made-up terms over legacy words, users won’t find your site.
• Cringeworthy Words to Cut from Online Copy | NN/g – The right words can make or break trust; they affect your tone of voice and how people perceive your site.

Reference:

• Writing for the Web |usability.gov – How to Write User-Friendly Content. Use the words your users use. Chunk your content. Front-load the important information. Use pronouns. Use active voice. Use short sentences and paragraphs. Use bullets and numbered lists. Use clear headlines and subheads.
• Writing for the web | BBC Journalism Academy – When writing for the web, tell the story upfront. For it to work across all possible platforms and devices, it needs to be told in essence in the first four paragraphs

• Writing for gov.uk – all about writing for government and your audience – but the basic lessons and principles are the same for everybody.

It’s ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL  to get to grips with what’s involved in being mobile-friendly now that:

• More than 50% of browsing for art takes place on mobile devices.
• Google has decided to rank sites by how mobile-friendly they are.

​
This page covers:

• The Mobile Friendly Checklist
• Prioritising for Mobile Devices
• Responsive Templates
• More readings about being mobile-friendly

The two main search engines both have a tool to test out whether or not a website or blog is mobile friendly.

I recommend you use both as I find they give slightly different results.

• Google Developers: Mobile Friendly Test
• Bing: Mobile Friendliness Test Tool

This is what this website looks like ​on the Google Mobile-Friendly Test

Is it easy to navigate using a mobile device?

• Can you find the main menu easily?
• Are the options all available or is the list truncated?

Can you read the text easily?

• without changing the magnification?
• in bright sunshine?
• Is the font size appropriate?
• Is there a good contrast between the colour of the font and the background?

Is scrolling easy?

• Do you have to scroll horizontally (bad)
• or is all scrolling limited to vertical (i.e. OK)?

Does the content resize to the size of the viewable screen?

• Is your website using a responsive template?

Does it load quickly using mobile broadband?

Is it compatible with all devices?

• For example is it read easily by iPads and iPhones (which do NOT use Flash) as well as tablets and Android smart phones?
• Can browsers and search engines crawl and read all the code on the page?

Do URLs and html stay the same?

Does it pass the Google Mobile-Friendly Test?

• check whether or not your website is regarded as mobile friendly by using a test developed by Google

It’s essential that a website works well on a mobile device for the customer. That means:

• you can read the context easily
• you can access the navigation easily
• you can perform basic and important actions easily

Google recommends that you Optimize your entire site for mobile devices.  Google now ranks websites accessed via mobile devices by whether or not the website has been optimised for a mobile experience. If you’ve not updated your website will not rank well for mobile devices.

Mobile devices are now the technology of choice for many people browsing websites.

• lots of people have switched to mobile devices for browsing (and the numbers are increasing exponentially every quarter). Hence you need to deliver a good experience on every type of mobile device both tablets and smartphones.

• Over 50% of traffic to retail sites now comes from mobile devices.

• Failure to rework a website so that it is compatible with mobile devices can mean that traffic reduces over time.

Responsive templates enable a web design to resize automatically for any screen size. Plus when using a responsive web design:

• the html stays the same
• the URLs for each page stay the same (i.e. no ‘mobile version’ URLs)

If your site is NOT mobile friendly it will be difficult if not impossible to read easily on a mobile device.
​
Google recommends responsive web design and provides some excellent advice about:

• Multi-Device Layouts.  I recommend studying this.

• Principles of Site Design – this covers home page and site navigation and usability plus tips for those wanting to include e-commerce on their website

In my blog post Companies who can resize your website for different screen sizes I detail a list of companies that Google is highlighting as approved multi-screen vendors.

Getting Started – includes tips on:

• top 3 things to know when building mobile websites
• top 3 mistakes to avoid

• Our approach to mobile-friendly search | Bing – this is what matters to Bing
• Mobile Friendliness | Bing – This article describes the Mobile Friendliness Test Tool and the factors that determine mobile friendliness

E-commerce is about buying and selling goods online and commercial transactions conducted electronically via the internet.

Viewing and buying art online is one of the growth areas of the internet.

Much of the advice you can find below is generic and applicable to all artists no matter where they live.  Where information is country-specific, it tends to focus on on the UK. It also provides information relevant to the US market

If you like this site please recommend to friends and/or add a link to it on your website

Whether you are an emerging or experienced artist, this site helps you find out about:

• THE RULES about selling art online – specifically the law and regulations in the UK and USA relating to selling online
• TECHNICAL TIPS for how to drive traffic to your chosen sales venue; e-commerce and payment systems for selling online and other tools and webware which can help with e-commerce for artist.
• ADVICE about how to stay safe when selling online
• OPTIONS for where best to sell art online – via your websites, blog, shopping carts, auctions, online galleries, online stores, print on demand and email marketing and reviews of the various sites offering to help you sell your art online

Here are some brief pointers for selling art online

• Customer Profile: you need to understand the characteristics of the online consumer you’re trying to attract

• Communicate: you need to be able to tell a story about your art online in the same way that a gallery owner might or you would do if selling from your own studio

• Social Media: use Blogs, Facebook and Twitter to tell people about new art you’ve produced. Those sharing work while it is being produced sometimes sell it before it is finished.
• Convey value: you need to communicate value in terms of how you describe your art and the art materials used to produce it
• No surprises: make it easy for people to understand what it costs to buy your art – don’t have any hidden surprises​
• Presentation – framed or unframed: decide whether you are selling framed or unframed. The latter is far cheaper, presents fewer supply and delivery problems and offers better value to the customer. However framed does look good. If you’re selling unframed you can always provide advice as to the best type of frame for the work – or offer to arrange to take it to a framer. (see Frame Art for more about framing)

• Packing and shipping: don’t start selling online until you’ve worked out how you are going to fulfil orders in terms of packing and shipping ( see How to pack, post and ship art)
• Payment: Make it easy for people to pay and make payment secure. Paypal is acceptable to many but most important is the security padlock around payments and personal data. Sometimes you have to conclude the financial transaction offline, especially if the sums involves are large.
• Security: if accepting payments online you need a robust and secure ecommerce site for people to feel safe about buying online. You also need to think about getting a security certificate for your site
• Privacy: If marketing to sellers in Europe you MUST be compliant with regulations on Data Privacy – or face significant fines – no matter where you live in the world
• Returns: make sure you are compliant with the law on returning goods and getting a refund
• Crunch the numbers: learn how to use Google Analytics to understand how people get to your site, what they do when they get there and how they arrive at a buy decision:

Selling art online means you must know, understand and observe the law and regulations for e-commerce.

​Ignorance is no defence.

Why the rules of engagement are upfront!

There are two main reasons why artists fail to get off on the right foot when it comes to selling their art online

1. It’s not that easy to know what you’re supposed to know – and then to find out all the relevant details. Hopefully this site goes some way to filling in the gaps. (If you find it helpful don’t forget to tell others!)
2. Not everybody does the research to find out what they need to know

This site can’t possibly explain the ins and outs of all the relevant law and regulations of all the countries that readers may live in.

In order to outline the basics, I’ve focused BELOW on:

• the UK (where I live) and
• the USA (where a lot of readers live)
• rules relating to Europe which people selling art need to be aware of (coming soon)

However you do need to do your own homework as well.

Remember ignorance is no defence in court or the eyes of the tax authorities!

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy aim to provide an accessible guide to those running a business of what they have to do to comply with the law.

it developed the

• Business Companion Website and
  
• Business Companion Quick Guides 

These include guides to

• selling online (distance selling) and
• selling any goods, services or digital goods online.

The default country is England but you have the option to change the country and review guidance for Wales and Scotland

In brief, laws relating to retailing goods and services in and from the UK cover:

• what you sell (goods, services or digital content)
• where you sell (in a shop or online, say)
• how you sell (treating customers fairly and abiding by any other rules that apply)​.

Distance selling takes place when a retailer – such as an artist – sells without face-to-face contact with the customer – such as online, mail order or by telephone

​For artists this covers

• goods (e.g. artwork for sale),
• services (e.g. art instruction online) and/or
• digital content (e.g. educational DVDs or access to same online)

In the UK retailers and consumers used to be guided by advice from The Office of Fair Trading – but this closed on 1 April 2014.

It’s been replaced by the Competition and Markets Authority. Its aim is to

• promote compliance and understanding of the law which protects consumers and
• empower consumers to make informed choices.

The CMA works with a range of business groups including:

• Trading Standards
• Citizens Advice and Citizens’ Advice Scotland
• Consumer Council for Northern Ireland

Two distinct types of legislation affect on-line retailers in the UK.

These are:

• the traditional consumer protection legislation which applies irrespective of there goods are sold
• specific rules which relate to distance selling and selling online.

In addition there are specific rules:

• for direct marketing via email or telephone
• for selling overseas – if you want to sell to customers living outside the UK.
• selling digital services within the EU – eg related to downloads

REFERENCE: GOVERNMENT GUIDANCE

The law and regulations in the UK cover the following.
Click the link in the name of the topic to access theBusiness Companion In-Depth Guide to that topic. You can print the guide or downl0ad a PDF

Guidance when you are not selling face to face / selling online

• Consumer contracts – distance sales
• Consumer protection from unfair trading
• Digital content
• Internet auction sites & marketplaces
• Online sales of age-restricted products
• Returns policies

General guidance about the sale and supply of goods following The Consumer Rights Act 2015

• The sale & supply of goods – regulations were different prior to 1 October 2015
• The supply of services – regulations were different prior to 1 October 2015

General guidance on trading and contractual and business terms

• Unfair contract terms  – see further below
• Business Information / Other – relates to business names and due diligence

Unfair contract terms
When doing business with customers, your contract terms need to be demonstrably fair. That’s because an ‘unfair’ contract term if not legally binding – and you cannot rely on it in any dispute should this get as far as court.

REFERENCE: Unfair terms and your business (March 2016)

• Fair terms for your customers: an introduction for businesses 
• Unfair terms explained for businesses: individual guides
• Unfair terms explained for businesses: full guide 
• Video guides on unfair terms in consumer contracts(October 2016)

These are specific government guides about what constitutes an unfair contract terms or condition. They also tell you what you should do.

• Deposits, advance payments and cancellation charges PDF, 605KB, 2 pages
• Cancelling a contract: when and how PDF, 519KB, 2 pages
• Excessive charges and disproportionate sanctionsPDF, 729KB, 2 pages
• Responsibility if things go wrong (limiting or excluding liability) PDF, 698KB, 2 pages
• Changing the terms of a contract (variation clauses)PDF, 741KB, 2 pages
• Subscriptions and automatic rollover PDF, 610KB, 2 pages
• Other terms that can be unfair PDF, 833KB, 2 pages

The Distance Selling Regulations (‘DSRs’) give buyers:

• A right to know who they are dealing with
• Key information about what they are buying
• An unconditional right to cancel within seven working days, and to receive a full refund
• Protection against online payment card fraud

Note that there are different rules for downloads and streaming services.

The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 (‘ECRs’) require all commercial websites to provide to customers – via the website –

• an email address for direct and effective communication.
• the company’s name, postal address (and registered office address if this is different) and email address;
• the company’s registration number;
• any Trade or Professional Association memberships;
• the company’s VAT number.

Value Added Tax (VAT) applies to ALL retailers if you’re supplying digital services to consumers based in other EU countries (irrespective or turnover).

You must either:

• register for VAT in each country where you’re supplying digital services; or
• sign up for the VAT MOSS service in the UK

Invoices: The government provides a very clear statement about Invoices – what they must include

The government website also provides a clear statement of what laws apply in relation to accepting returns and giving refunds: the law

Artists MUST take note of all local state regulations relating to selling art and selling art online. A useful principle is to assume a law or regulation applies to you until such time as you find a government website which says it doesn’t!

The links listed below are primarily to government sites (rather than articles by people writing about the legislation and regulation). However you should check out dates on all information. What has been true in the past may no longer be relevant.

It’s impossible for me to cover all the variations at a local level. Listed below are links to the the main Federal websites which set out the laws and regulations you need to observe

This site does not warrant that all links lead to the most current and up to date information. I do not live in the USA although I do try and review and update periodically. Frankly trying to keep up with changes at the moment under the current administration is also taxing and confusing.

If you know of more relevant and up to date information, please contact me by leaving a comment and a URL for the site which is provides that information.

Federal Trade Commission: CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business 
This page explains federal requirements and penalties for those who send commercial emails, including consumers’ right to ask e-mailers to stop spamming them.

Federal Trade Commission – .com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising
Digital advertising applies to print, on radio or TV, or on the InternetThis publication offers practical tips on how to make effective disclosures up front and online.
View PDF (2.22 MB)It describes the information businesses should consider as they develop online ads to ensure that they comply with the law.

Get Safe Online is the UK government’s focus for advice for retailers and consumers about being safe online. Note the recommendations they give to people about shopping online and what to look for in a website

This is The Rough Guide to Online Safety – this is a very accessible read in the style of the “Rough Guide”. Information and advice is clearly structures and covers

• Tips for Avoiding eCommerce Consumer Fraud – TopTenREVIEWS – An eCommerce business can provide flexibility, convenience and often it can be a lucrative experience. However, as an online merchant, you must be prepared for the bad with the good. Here are some tips to protect your business from fraud…..

PayPal has a number of reference points relating to buying and selling online and being secure.

If you propose to use PayPal as part of being retailing your art online then they are all a recommended read for the following reasons

• in order to protect yourself
• in order to know what people will want to see with respect to ordering online safely (e.g. secure website using appropriate precautions around customer’s personal data)​

Selling securely and how to prevent fraud and losses
PayPal provides advice about selling securely and how to prevent fraud and losses through its PayPal Seller Protection Programme – including, for example:

• Helping prevent identity theft
• Helping avoid fraudulent orders
• Helping avoid fraud with PayPal Here
• Helping avoid disputes and charge-backs

Dispute Resolution

• PayPal – The Seller’s Guide to Dispute Resolution
  Every once in a while, something goes wrong with an order. But this is a normal, expected part of doing business – and it doesn’t have to lead to serious problems.

eCommerce software options

Most offer 14 day free trials. If you’re going to take the plunge make sure you are a in position to properly test the software

• Shopify – One of the most well known. Started in 2006 and now has 160,000 Shopify Stores which have sold $8 billion worth of sales
• BigCommerce – has some very impressive clients and an impressive growth rate. Appears to be very on the ball and keeping pace with changes in technology and retail trends
• Volusion – they boast that Volusion merchants have generated over $18 billion in sales, that’s 4x more sales than competitors’ merchants.
• 3Dcart – Hosted shopping cart sortware to build an online store. Looks less wizzy than the others.

Reviews of eCommerce software

It’s always difficult to know whether reviews have been sponsored – there’s certainly quite a few reviews out there which are destined to favour one provider!

• Comparison of shopping cart software | Wikipedia – list of different e-commerce options for online stores and highlights key features of them

• e-commerce Software Reviews | Reviews.com – started with a list of 64 ecommerce software solutions. Identified 6 best products to review based on 113 of the most important features.

• Bigcommerce review (2015) – indepth overview of what it does and review of how effective it is

• The MC Hammer Guide to Shopify vs Bigcommerce – Shopify and Bigcommerce are the two best known hosted carts. So which do you choose?