This past year has been tough for artists and creative types alike; the lockdowns and general anxiety about leaving the house and visiting your favorite stores have begun to eat away at the creative spark that drives them.
One of the biggest issues facing many artists and creative people is getting art suppliers to work with.
Under normal circumstances, you would think nothing of walking into your favorite local art shop and buying your art supplies, and there’s something special about being able to look at, touch, and feel the materials that you’re going to work with before you get to take them home.
This is, unfortunately, not something you can do very easily with art supplies that you have bought online, and sometimes this can prove difficult, especially if you are buying from a store that you have never visited in person.
Buying Online: Tips For Success
It’s always best to try and buy your art supplies from your local store, or at least a store whose supplies and brand you can trust and whose customer service is always on point.
However, if this isn’t possible, following these simple tips for buying your art supplies online will help you ensure you always have the best suppliers for your money to keep your creativity flowing as best as possible, even in these most difficult times.
Order Trackable Items
There are two reasons you should make sure that your order will come furnished with a tracking number. One has to do with pure logistics, and the other has to do with creativity.
For pure logistics, it’s better if your order has a tracking number because you will be able to track your suppliers through the post network and know if they are on their way so that you can stay in and sign for them.
Most companies will provide proof of delivery to show that the item has been delivered, and if you can track this beforehand, it makes it easier for you to organize your day so that you can receive your parcel.
On the creativity side of things, there’s nothing like watching your supplies being shipped across the world and waiting in anticipation for them to turn up at your door to spark that light of creativity!
Check The Shipping Time
Just as you want to make sure that your art supplies are tracked when you are buying them, you also want to check the shipping time for your supplies.
Most people have been caught out more than once when ordering online; you think you have ordered something that will turn up in a few days only to find out later that it’s not due to arrive for a minimum of 3 weeks.
For creative types, that wait is just far too long! However, if you know your shipping time, you can at least prepare yourself with how long you will have to wait for your new supplies.
Check The Shipping Fees
If you checked your shipping time and are happy with that, and you know that your parcel of supplies will be fully trackable and traceable, the last thing to check is the shipping fees.
If you are ordering from your own country, then the shipping fees should be fairly cheap if not free.
If you’re ordering from another country and hoping for your supplies to be delivered to your country, it’s worth checking whether or not the international shipping and handling will mean that you are paying extra on top of your purchase, and also whether or not your country is likely to charge you customs fees which may increase the price that you have spent on your item or items significantly.
Only Shop on Secure Websites
This one is a common tip, and it almost goes without saying, but it is the most important tip on this list; you must select a trusted website to order your supplies from.
A trusted website doesn’t need to be a high-street branded store, but you must ensure that your chosen art suppliers are coming from a website with a valid security certificate and that you can check out using a secure method of payment.
There are many secure payment methods, the most common online being PayPal, but things like Sagepay to allow you to pay with your credit or debit card are also very popular and provide secure checkout options for you and the business that you are buying from.
Look For Coupons
Just because you’re buying art supplies for your next project and hoping to spark a little bit of extra creativity with your new art supplies, there’s no reason that you should be spending more money than you need to.
There are lots of websites online that offer coupons and promo codes for all kinds of various shopping experiences; it’s worth doing a quick Google search for your chosen website name and ‘coupon codes’ in the search bar to see if you can get any money off vouchers when you are ordering.
Plug-ins such as Honey and pocket for your browser make finding coupon codes and deals even easier by automatically applying well-known coupon codes and promo codes at the checkout before you checkout, possibly saving you quite a bit of money in the process.
Look At Their Returns Policy
Last but not least, you must look at the returns policy for the website that you are ordering from.
Most websites will have a returns policy for goods bought and sold, but there is no specific legal requirement for them to do so, especially if that website is selling end of line or heavily discounted goods or seconds.
Check that the website you’re ordering from will allow you to return damaged, faulty, or incorrect goods and their policy for doing so.
This is somewhere that many online purchases fall down because they find out that the postage requirements for items to be returned are such that they will end up paying more for postage than the item itself costs.
