Online Art Buying Gains Market Share

APR 2017

Yves Klein's Blue

According to Artsy, these are the latest trends in buying art online:

• Sales in the online art market rose 15% to $3.75 billion in 2016, taking the online share of the overall art market to 8.4%, up one percentage point from 2015, according to the TEFAF Art Market Report 2017.
• A separate estimate, from Art Basel and UBS’s The Art Market 2017, put online sales of art and antiques at $4.9 billion, up 4% from the prior year.

Most of the gains from last year came from online traditional auction houses by established buyers.

• 33% of online sales are less than $500
• 27% of online sales are $500-$1,000
• 7% of online sales are $1,000-$5,000