Shipping Stress Causes Damage As Much As 30% Of The Time
Art galleries and artists around the world must ship their own art. They often have to build their own crates or packaging, then must contend with the issue of arranging shipping, delivery and international paperwork. The biggest problem for these vendors is damage. Art is often very valuable and fragile. Shipping stresses cause damage as much as 30% of the time. Art is difficult to insure and repairs require reshipping the damaged art back to the gallery, or artist, for replacement or repair.
On top of these logistical issues, art galleries and artists usually pay the shipping charges themselves. They must purchase the materials for building crates or cardboard boxing and then hire people to build the containers. This requires space,vehicles, tools, employees, insurance and an entire range of facilities unrelated to their main income-generating business. Shipping is a loser. Antique stores and auction houses are faced with the same issues.Additionally, they find significant resistance
in collecting shipping costs at the point of sales.