Amazon has launched a Collectibles and Fine Art section on its website in a bid to further extend its scope and to attract more high spending customers.
The launch follows months of talks with galleries which have agreed to supply the new marketplace, as we reported at the beginning of last month, and who clearly believe there are customers that will spend tens of thousands of pounds on works listed on the site.
There are an estimated 150 art dealers and galleries supplying the project which works in the same way as its existing marketplace with Amazon taking a cut of the sale and sellers responsible for product and shipping. Amazon normally charges its sellers 5-20 per cent of the sale price.
There are about 4,500 artists listed and 40,000 items - 18,000 of which are under $1,000 and 29,000 under $5,000.
The artworks include works and photographs from little known artists starting at $10, lithographs - oil and water prints for which there can be multiple copies available - from artists such as Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali and original paintings including Claude Monet's 'L'Enfant a la tasse' at $1.45 million and a Norman Rockwell for $4.85 million.
As well as the predictable sneers, there has also been praise for how user friendly the site is allowing users to search colour, size, price, subject matter. Amazon also has the advantage that it is familiar to most young people - the possible target market for the the project.
'Young collectors are a lot more comfortable buying things online,' Matthew Glasser, the Director of Marketing and Communications for Exceptional Children's Foundation at DAC Gallery, told The Business Insider - although we feel duty bound to point out that Jeff Bezos has shares in the Business Insider operation. 'So when they go through new artwork, they're willing to purchase the work based on the image alone.'
However, others were not so impressed. Commentator and economist Tyler Cowen wrote in a post entitled 'Is Amazon Art a doomed venture? Let's hope so' on the Marginal Revolution that much of the art is low quality and overpriced. 'It looks like dealers trying to unload unwanted, hard to sell inventory at sucker prices.'
The launch of the site came just one day after Amazon founder acquired US newspaper The Washington Post.
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