Colorado Artist Kelsey Shields Ships and Prints
Ready To Ship Painting
Colorado Artist Kelsey Shields likes to paint. She travels the country finding beautiful landscapes to paint, does live wedding painting, and more. The big downside of her business is that once she sells a painting, she has to ship it… packing and shipping is her least favorite thing to do. In September, Kelsey started shipping with Colorado art shipper Shipist and found that it makes art shipping a lot easier.
Shipping Supplies Space
A large portion of Kelsey’s bedroom is devoted to shipping supplies. As her business grows, boxes, bubble wrap, and tape take up more and more space. It’s a huge relief to get that sort of thing out of your living space! At Shipist’s CoShipping space, Kelsey has access to all of the shipping supplies she needs, all laid out for quick and efficient shipping.
Shipping and Packaging Cost
Kelsey saved big on Colorado Art Shipping from the very first painting shipped.
Shipping can seem very mysterious. Kelsey has frequently gone to the UPS store totally guessing at what the shipping cost will end up being, hoping that she charged enough to cover costs. And, as we’ve covered elsewhere, all sorts of surcharges can come into play that are hard to know about in advance.
UPS and FedEx have a few stock boxes available in store and offer packing services. But, for oddly shaped items, like gorgeous landscape paintings, there usually isn’t a perfect box so Kelsey ends up having to use a box that’s much too large. “The box plus their packing service can be up to $180!” Kelsey told us. That’s not even including shipping. Of course, with costs like that, Kelsey brings her items prepackaged (which is why her room is full of boxes!). Plus, the much-too-large box that she would have had to use at the store would result in oversize fees and a much higher dimensional weight.
Between the shipping cost (around $13 at Shipist as of September 2020) and the box cost ($14.99 for a folding art box plus unlimited tape/paper/bubble/etc.), the first painting she shipped was about $20 less than just the shipping cost would be at the UPS store.
Workflow
Like most people, Kelsey doesn’t particularly enjoy waiting in line at the post office of FedEx Office store. With an arm full of large packages the wait can be difficult and the impatience of the staff at having to process a large number of items can be particularly frustrating. “The staff sometimes seem annoyed at me for having so many items, so I try not to bring more than 10 at a time” Kelsey explained. Plus, if she is shipping a variety of small and large items, she could easily have to make a trip to USPS and to the UPS store. So much line waiting! At Shipist’s Littleton Colorado location, Kelsey can pack and ship art with all 3 carriers in one place. Colorado art shipping couldn’t be easier!
Reviewing print quality and color matching.
Getting Started With Art Prints
In March, Kelsey Shields started doing prints with Shipist (we call our print service Printist). Printist does fine art prints and can provide white label drop shipping for your sales made through your website so your customers will think it came straight from you! Kelsey used to order a big stack of prints, guessing which ones would sell. This often ended with Kelsey having left over inventory of some items and running out of others. With Printist, art prints are made on demand, so she doesn’t have up front costs.
We also launched our own market place where Kelsey is able to list her prints for sale. These prints are available for direct purchase and are available for our growing network of boutique stores to list in-store. Check out Kelsey’s available prints on our store.
Conclusion
We are so excited to get to work with Kelsey to make Denver art shipping less of a hassle! Be sure to follow Kelsey on Instagram and to check out her available paintings and prints on her website.
