Loses out in both style and cost when compared to InstaPainting (where this is definitely derived from) but good effort, hope this improves livelihoods of Indian artists. What percentage of the share actually goes to them?
As for Instapainting, when ordering and requesting an artist directly, our fee is 26%, unless the artist quotes lower than our base pricing in which case our fee is the difference.
We have artists from India too! http://instapainting.com/gallery/made-in-india https://www.instapainting.com/artists/sunny https://www.instapainting.com/artists/lavdeep
We put you in direct contact with the artist and you can view your artwork through our website and collaborate directly
It looks like this is an MVP setup on shopify and is exactly how it should be started to test the waters. There's no reason not to start simply because Instapainting, etsy, or countless other sites exist already, but it does mean the grind is going to be long and hard (I've just been slowly iterating since 2014 and unbeknownst to me there were dozens of incumbents even back then) and unlikely to be VC-backed in this space. I've seen many come and go as most upstarts in this space find the revenue and profits unimpressive—this is honestly the biggest reason why most fail.
Getting press is generally hard because the idea isn't technically new, and people don't like to write about it as-is as it's too commercial.
SEO should be the main focus, as any such sites that don't rank on Google will quickly find ad-driven user acquisition costs to drive down the already thin margins too much.
I would also be prepared and iterate and implement a more robust tech based platform off this initial traction as quickly as possible. I honestly don't think there's much room in the space in the future for plain middlemen in this space between Instapainting and Etsy being available that enable direct artist participation. We look like we just forward orders over to artists but artists are basically running the show now on Instapainting, and we just try to surface the best performing ones.
I didn't read this post as an advertisement - if anything, I was surprised by the humbleness of their post, which made clear that they were not the first with this idea, and that they take a very reasonable percentage.
I'm curious, does the purchase transfer the copyright to the buyer? Or does it remain with the artist?
As an amateur painter myself it's nice to see this equitable approach which also leaves room for each artist to maintain an individual style. Well done!