Selling Artwork Abroad

Do you sell through your website? More to the point, do you sell overseas through your website?

These day most artists have a website so we have the opportunity for a global audience as never before. An audience wanting to buy our art.

I sell my work (original paintings, limited edition giclee prints, greetings cards, puzzles) on my website via Paypal. So far all my sales have been in the UK, but I’m getting more & more interest in my work from overseas through my various networks.

So I can envisage selling to overseas buyers in the not too distant future. Thus far I’ve sold to non-UK nationals but those sales have always taken place in the UK and the buyer has been responsible for shipping their purchase home.

Presumably a website sale is different. It’s a business transaction, payment would be UK based but the goods would be shipped abroad, so that must count as an export. That implies appropriate fees and paperwork would be needed to satisfy customs.

What paperwork is required? Are there different rules for prints or originals? How do I know how the regulations vary from country to country? Which rules apply if the country is inside or outside the EU?

I’ve seen plenty of information on the web about selling art via the web, but nothing that mentions these questions, let alone answers them.

I’d really appreciate any feedback from other artists experiences or suggestions of where I can get more information on this subject. I don’t want to make things unnecessarily complicated but neither do I want to fall foul of the regulations.

So far I’ve put out a few requests on artists’ forums and to arts organisations and will post any useful answers on this blog as I receive them. In the meantime, please comment if you have any experience of this subject; I’d love to hear from you.