05.06.25

GALLERY WALL WATERCOLORS

It's been 13 years of navigating how to be able to make art, sell art, have customers love your art, keep prices affordable and offer the best service possible. It's a bit of a rollercoaster! When I started GWW I charged $4.00 for shipping. It covered shipping costs of up to 4 paintings within Canada and the USA. So amazing. That went on for years and then began the slow increase of postage, $5.00, $6.00, $7.00... I never raised my shipping costs, I always covered the additional fees because I wanted to make customers happy, and upping shipping charges was not going to do that.

Enter Covid and the entire world was shipping everything because we weren't leaving our homes. We expected free shipping and free shipping became the normal because we wanted people to be shopping from us and if we didn't they would go else where - so now I'm not raising the price of my art ( affordable has always been a priority to me ) and now I'm also covering the cost of shipping. If an order is for multiple pieces it's not a big deal, but when orders become one painting and I'm covering the shipping, profit is becoming less and less.. and as the quantity of mail is upping due to Covid, timelines are greatly increasing so the expectation of tracking is now paired with the expectation of free shipping. Oh boy. I just couldn't offer it so I stuck with my policy of if it doesn't arrive within a reasonable timeframe after the expected 10 business days I will re ship your order. You can see where this is going, and how hard it is to navigate something as simple as shipping while keeping customers shopping with you. Fast forward to today - to ship a package of paintings with tracking is upwards of $15.00. Just before the shop took a little break last year I mailed a painting with tracking within Canada ( my choice to up the shipping to have tracking as mail was taking forever to arrive due to winter storms ) and after Etsy fees I had made $1.00. You can imagine how discouraged I was. Not accounted in that was my time, the cost of paint, paper and shipping supplies, gas to the post office.... I had to close the shop.

While the shop has been closed I have been busy, but I have been missing this creative outlet and the connection to all the amazing people I have built relationships with over the course of all these years. You've all become friends as you bring me into your homes to help with colors and styles and curating the right collections. I've missed painting. But how do I do it and figure out how to make it financially feasible also?

So GWW is in the midst of a little refresh and makeover, you'll start to see some visual changes to the shop, I've started a dedicated IG account where I hope to create posts to inspire ( @gallerywallwatercolors ), the cost of paintings has raised slightly ( to help cover rising Etsy fees ) and there is now a shipping charge that includes tracking within Canada and the USA. It's hard. I didn't want to do any of it, but I do want to keep creating. I appreciate all of you who have supported Gallery Wall Watercolors for the last 13 years and I'm excited to see where we can take it from here! X