Selling Art Through WhiteWall and Shopify

It’s a challenge to sell fine art photographs online. Many proofing galleries are set up to serve individual clients, and few offer you ways to sell various images in one specific size, format, or frame. Don’t even get me started about the space you’d need to sell a selection of frames. But WhiteWall, an award-winning photo lab, has developed a solution to streamline the process and make it easier to sell your fine art to anyone. You just need a Shopify storefront where you will install the WhiteWall app. From there, artists can configure their photos, choosing the materials and sizes, before listing prints for sale. In the gallery you can show potential buyers your fine art photographs displayed in a room setting, rendered in frames, or as final products, without any Photoshopping required.

If you already use Shopify, the installation/setup process will likely be simpler than it was for me starting from scratch. There are two steps to get up and running once you have a Shopify storefront: First, create a WhiteWall account, and then, install the WhiteWall app on your Shopify account and link the app to your WhiteWall account. WhiteWall has a document to guide you through this process, and they continue to revise it to make onboarding as simple as possible.

While logged into the WhiteWall website, you’ll need create a partner token. This unique identifier code gets pasted into the app’s preferences as an API token. If that sounds confusing, don’t worry. The code is simply the way to link your WhiteWall account to the WhiteWall app within your Shopify interface.

There are a few other things to set up on the WhiteWall website, but the key thing you’ll need to focus on is creating configurations under Shopify Product Management. These are settings that determine the medium (type of photographic paper), and whether framing components like glass, a mat, or a frame are included in the final product. You can create your own configurations or use WhiteWall’s sample configurations. Your configurations here will become the configurations available to you in the Shopify Integration.  

WhiteWall’s ultraHD image optimization is automatically applied to images before you upload them to your Shopify account. It's a subtle optimization that focuses on detail in the image. If you prefer no optimization, you can contact the company and have them disable it. 

Once you’re set up, jump over to the WhiteWall app on your Shopify account to upload the print-resolution image and finalize specific settings such as sizes and pricing. You can mark up all prices by a set amount or tailor the percentage for each print size. There’s a checkbox for “psychological pricing” if you prefer prices like $99.95 instead of $100.

When choosing image ratios and formats, Shopify offers perfect fit or standard formats. 

WhiteWall has a presence in the United States and Europe, where its app/web designers are based. Because of this, if you’re in the United States, you might notice a few departures from standard terminology. For example, the mat in a framed, matted image is referred to as a passpartout. I’m a big fan of the the customization options. You can define the size of the mat on each side of the image—both equally and independently—which is useful for fine art photographers who might want a bottom-weighted mat rather than two inches on each side. WhiteWall prints fine art photographs on demand when a client places their order, which means the photographer doesn’t have to maintain inventory or stock frames to fulfill orders.

The key draw for WhiteWall is that it helps clients visualize the final product. When the photographer creates a configuration and uploads the image, the WhiteWall app generates a series of renderings that display that image as it would appear printed in the mat and frame you specified, hanging on a wall. You don’t have to create product shots of the “final product” or spend time dropping your photos into a digitally rendered “room view.” WhiteWall does this automatically.

I love this concept. My fine art photographs are displayed elegantly as a final product that my clients can order, and it doesn’t cost me wall space or require a stocked inventory of frames. If you have non-client-related fine art pieces you’d like to sell as wall art, you can curate your own gallery and, if you take time to promote it, possibly start making passive income from it.

There are some features I asked about that don’t exist yet. Presently, you must upload a single image, select the desired configurations, and then wait for the app to render the images. I asked the developers about uploading a batch of images with identical configurations and was pleased to learn that this time-saving feature is in development. It’s good to hear that WhiteWall is working on some automation features that will allow photographers to create configurations and upload images in bulk rather than adding images to the online store a single photo at a time.

The WhiteWall app itself is free, even though Shopify requires app designers to offer a paid version (they’ve listed a duplicate of the free app for a nominal fee and tell people just to use the free version). Once installed, you can integrate your Shopify storefront with WhiteWall for a smooth front-end experience as well as seamless lab fulfillment when online orders are received.

To get started, you need to have a Shopify account. There are trials available, but the basic plan is $39/month, and you must be willing to use WhiteWall as your lab. If you want to order test/sample prints, WhiteWall’s FAQs has more details on that process.

Betsy Finn is a fine art portrait photographer based in Dexter, Michigan.