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One of the worlds premier decorations, art is hung, stood, and displayed in places all over the world. Whether a wall painting, sculpture, or online design, art is a topic that is frequently overlooked as a major influence on society. Much like it can be overlooked as something that simply belongs on a wall, the global art market is not often talked about in the economy. Despite this, the art industry is a 63.7 billion dollar global market that deserves attention.
The Art Market 2018 report shows a 12 percent increase in sales within the art market. This surge was led by the United States, which has the world’s largest art market at 42 percent of the total share. In second with 21 percent of the art market share is China, who narrowly beat out the United Kingdom’s 20 percent hold on the industry. These top three markets combined for over 80 percent of total global sales, with the rest of the world lagging far behind.
A large reason for the growth of the art industry is the rise of e-commerce. E-commerce allows companies to more easily distribute their product to buyers with the click of a button and also opens opportunities to single sellers to post their products on open-market websites. Online art sales accounted for 5.4 billion dollars in 2017, a number that is expected to grow in the coming decade. Another aspect of the increase in art sales comes from the necessity to advertise and produce convincing marketing campaigns in a world where consumers have many buying options.
Even with the introduction of online sales, fine art sales still takes home the largest chunk of the industry, generating over 14 billion dollars of revenue. As the New York Times notes, the art market is very difficult to monitor as many sales can go unrecorded, so there is potential fluctuation in the true value in countries around the world like China and the US.
At the end of the day, the art market seems to be a viable option to continue to grow in the future with a strong base in e-commerce and traditional selling auctions.
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