Pay What You Want

[Bongo]

This guy has a how-to Youtube channel, and as an experiment put on a two-day (3to 5 hours per day) sidewalk sale of some of his art - priced as pay what you want! This was his setup

and this is what he sold

for a total of $159.


I'm seriously considering an experiment with a sidewalk sale this summer myself. I'm thinking of doing a few things differently. I think "pay what you want" is a put-off for most people. They don't want to embarrass you or themselves by offering too little, or too much. So I would put one extremely low price on all of the paintings. If you subtract the outliers - the $4, and the $60 - the average sale price was $19. So in my opinion sidewalk sales such as this regardless of the quality- have to be priced extremely low. It's the nature of the venue.

I would make new paintings specifically for this, and all/most on the same theme or subject and horizontal rather than vertical format. People like the "shopping mall" experience so you need a lot of product on display even if there isn't much variation. That will be a challenge for me so might have to pull some from storage.

nothing but praise for this guy for doing such a gutsy experiment

 

[Enyaw]

One way to thin the herd and its more than the sin bin would get you. Certainly put your ego in place. Did one once at a Christmas craft show with ultra low prices and found you can’t go low enough that someone won’t try to under cut you. In 6 hours I sold one; a compassion sale from a vendor I knew. It’s more pleasurable to give them away.

 

[Artyczar]

I agree it's more pleasurable to give them away to people who truly want them.

 

[Bongo]

This guy has a how-to Youtube channel, and as an experiment put on a two-day (3to 5 hours per day) sidewalk sale of some of his art - priced as pay what you want! This was his setup
View attachment 40704

and this is what he sold
View attachment 40705
for a total of $159.


I'm seriously considering an experiment with a sidewalk sale this summer myself. I'm thinking of doing a few things differently. I think "pay what you want" is a put-off for most people. They don't want to embarrass you or themselves by offering too little, or too much. So I would put one extremely low price on all of the paintings. If you subtract the outliers - the $4, and the $60 - the average sale price was $19. So in my opinion sidewalk sales such as this regardless of the quality- have to be priced extremely low. It's the nature of the venue.

I would make new paintings specifically for this, and all/most on the same theme or subject and horizontal rather than vertical format. People like the "shopping mall" experience so you need a lot of product on display even if there isn't much variation. That will be a challenge for me so might have to pull some from storage.

nothing but praise for this guy for doing such a gutsy experiment

If your selling something no one wants, then it really doesn't matter to them how much it costs.

 

[Enyaw]

Maybe but I think it’s more venue than anything else. I sold a half dozen pieces between 1200.00 and 1500.00 out of a gallery but at the craft show I couldn’t get 50.00. Different breed with a different mentality. That guys pieces looked a lot better than a lot of stuff I have seen. 4 bucks is an ugly insult and sixty wasn’t much better. Feel bad for the guy having to hold up his end of an offer I’m sure he thought would have better results.

 

[Bongo]

years ago I witnessed a remarkably successful sidewalk sale. This guy just had pure crap, spray painted, stenciled, slopped onto random scraps of wood. And people were snapping it up, he'd have two or three people standing in line at a time waiting their turn to give him money. It was on a good corner in the University District, and the Christmas season. I think it was a combination of the location, the season, his personality, and the modern - pop albeit super(super super) -crappy artwork. There was no illusion of this being quality work by an accomplished artist. People would be crossing the street, see his stuff spread out and run to get a certain piece before someone else did.

He even asked me if I knew where he could get some wood scraps 'cause he was running out. When his sales started to dwindle, he disappeared and I never saw him again.

Somewhere in the back of my brain, that scene has stuck with me, and thoughts of how that magic might be recreated.

 

[Enyaw]

lol .. the gallery scene on the street…some crap sells, some good stuff sells, and there is no way to chase the market…you simply need to be in the right space at the right time. Life is a random generator it seems.