Pricing Photography Wall Art Prints, Part 2: Why I Favour Consistency & Transparency Over Sales & Promotions

Last autumn I wrote a post about pricing wall art photography, which has proven popular, and in that post I promised to follow-up with a Part 2, covering strategies such as sales, discounts, and other marketing practices for wall art. So here we are!

In short, I prefer a straightforward, transparent pricing approach, over marketing-driven strategies like sales, discounts, and limited editions. I believe (possibly naively) that clarity and consistency foster trust. Rather than using promotional tricks to create urgency, I focus on offering honest, fair pricing, reflecting the true value of the work, and respecting both the artwork and the customer. However, it's fair to say I appear to be an outlier in this position, and since everyone will see these options differently, there's always room for discussion and opinion. This is an opportunity for me to talk through my approach, and for others to decide where they sit on this subject.

Sales

As a consumer, even with some of my favourite brands it’s often the case that I can only justify making a purchase if the product is on sale, since most brands and products regularly are, at different times of the year. So it creates a situation where there’s really no reason to buy anything if it’s not on sale because I know that I can just wait it out and buy it when it inevitably is on sale. And that goes for everything from chocolate, to toasters, to my favourite brown boots.

Obviously what these brands are really doing is over-pricing their products to begin with, in the knowledge that they will still deliver their target profit when on sale. - We all know this, but I still find it a disingenuous game, and it’s just not something I want to be part of.

So as a photographer selling prints, I’m on the other side of that equation and it feels to me that if I offered sales a couple of times a year, I’m kind of making a mug of those customers who paid full price, whilst encouraging the majority to hold fire outside those times, and maybe revisit the idea of making a purchase during a sale period.

In addition to that, I don’t think buying something positive & exciting should be a stressful game of cat and mouse, where you’re monitoring prices as they change, and hoping to buy at a low. Big brands have made that the norm, with dynamic pricing and frequent sales, but I personally find that extremely frustrating.

Where sales do make sense to me is when stock is involved. Many business are looking to sell a surplus of stock, and need to reduce the price in order to do so. For example, a clothing retailer might have a batch of winter scarves still not sold by April, so it makes sense to put them in the sale, to shift the stock. It becomes a better value proposition to sell them for less, than to pay to store them until next winter.

Some photographers and artists will be dealing with stock issues. Especially those selling at art fairs, or other environments where prints need to be made ahead of time. But like the majority of artists, I follow the print-on-demand model. I have my prints made to order, so I never accrue stock, and don't have a reason to have to shift prints quickly.

Ultimately when it comes to sales, I would rather try to price my prints fairly in the first place, so that everyone pays the same, and nobody pays over-the-odds.

Discounts

Again, like sales, I can't help but feel like I'd be cheating the people who pay full price, and disincentivising others from doing the same. I often think about offering a discount to my favourite people; those who subscribe to this blog. But I still struggle with the ethics and practicality of effectively creating a 2-tier pricing structure.

We're all too familiar with websites that pop-up asking for your email address to get a discount off your first purchase. This approach obviously works or it wouldn't be so widespread, but as users, we all hate it. I want my website to provide a calm, enjoyable experience for users, not one that shouts in their face, and gets in the way of what they're doing. So that's another reason why I prefer to keep things simple, and prices consistent.

Often when pricing for commercial clients, they will ask for a discount purely because they’re a commercial buyer. I've got to say, I don’t really see that as a reason. But one way in which I will offer discounts to commercial buyers is if they’re buying several prints/images for a project. At that point, I think it’s fair to make the outlay more efficient for them, in return for more business.

Limited Edition Prints

This is a hot potato of a topic. Many photographers will produce "Limited Edition" prints in order to foster an illusion of exclusivity for their work, and thus drive the price up. And indeed many galleries will require this means of creating “artificial scarcity” in order to take photographers on.

My primary problem with this is that I want my prints to be as affordable for people as possible (without compromising on quality). So I find it sad to both limit the number of people who can enjoy one, whilst also inflating the price and excluding people with a lower budget.

I do understand that limited editions are a useful tool for a handful of the world's most successful photographers, whose work is in such high demand, they can justify manipulating prices in this way. Or those who never want to look back - so would prefer to release a new photo, sell out, and move onto focussing on their new work. I can see the appeal of that. But for most photographers, I think limited editions end up creating a distortion that leaves a sour taste in the mouth of prospective buyers.

In addition to that, I often see this practice abused to create "limited" editions which are set beyond the photographer's expectation to sell in the first place (so it’s effectively no real limit at all). It's also exploited by creating a limited edition of prints of a particular photo, at a particular size - and when the edition sells out, it can be instantly replaced by a new limited edition of the same photo, subtly edited, cropped, or in a slightly different size. In other words, effectively a repeat of the previous "limited edition".

Of course not all limited editions are this cynical from the outset, and a lot of people do it simply because they're taught that that's what you have to do to sell prints. And I gather it does work. But as buyer, I don't think I would ever prefer to pay more for a limited edition print, than pay the going rate for a normal print. Why would I care if this was one print of fifty, or even a few hundred made? That's still pretty far from mainstream, in the grand scheme of things. What I do think is important is to offer an assurance to buyers that they won't see a version of their premium-priced prints slapped on a canvas for sale in Costco or IKEA, and sold in their tens of thousands around the globe.

I think as long as prints are sold in a boutique fashion, and printed to order by people who care, that in itself brings exclusivity by ensuring the product remains high-quality and low-volume.

With all that said, I'm still hesitant to rule out limited editions at some time in the future, if it were a requirement for something I was especially keen to be a part of. But for now, I prefer to avoid it, and keep my photos available to as many people as possible for as long as they’re in demand.

Tiered Pricing

This is the practice of offering the same photo(s) at different price points, based on the size and type of print. This is something I do, as it enables a broad range of buyers to enjoy my prints. At the more affordable end I offer unframed Fine Art Prints, and Rolled Canvas prints, which buyers can frame and mount at home for less. At the other end of the scale, I provide premium Metal and Acrylic prints, which produce striking wall art up to very large sizes, for statement pieces. By offering this range of options, it means that each can be priced fairly, whilst maintaining a hierarchy to suit a wide variety of budgets.

The alternative option is to pick which size or print type you think works best, and limit sales to just that (or some small variance of it). Again, this might work if you're very strict on who your audience is, and have the demand to sustain sales in this limited slice of the market. Personally, I prefer to keep my prints relatively accessible.

Conclusion

Reading this post back, I'm again faced with the fact that I don’t think I’m really cut out to be much of a capitalist! I think I’m too straightforward and too up-front for a lot of marketing strategies, and I’m certainly not prepared to try to manipulate people with gimmicks and pricing tricks that rush or pressure people into making a purchase. And I'm prepared to take the hit on that if consistency & transparency ultimately isn't what people prefer. But I hope it does resonate with some people.

If you're just starting out selling, I hope I put myself across fairly, and explored these options openly enough for you to consider, and to help you decide how they sit with your values for your own sales & marketing approach. I'm sure that these methods can be very effective, otherwise they wouldn't survive in competitive industries. But I don't think they're all for me, for the reasons I've explored here.

If you have any questions or comments on this topic, please leave them in the Comments section below. I certainly won't be offended if you have an opposing view on any of these sales strategies. Please feel free to join the conversation!

To read more about my wall art prints, check out this page. And you can browse my fine art nature photography galleries here.

Ta for now.

-

George