We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Samantha Wilkerson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Samantha below.

Hi Samantha, thanks for joining us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

One particular issue we are currently maneuvering at Annapolis Marine Art Gallery is the ongoing construction taking place on our street. It is part of a large plan to mitigate coastal flooding, implement a park, and build a new welcome center in Downtown Annapolis, Maryland.
The art gallery has been dealing with the weekly road closures and loss of parking spaces that have many customers complaining but have also reduced the foot traffic along Dock St, where we are located. Other businesses on the street have noticed a 20% reduction in revenue and the project is slated to last a little over a year and a half. During this time, there will be a nine month span where our parking out front of the store will be closed down completely.
Due to these changes, we have been working towards making online purchasing easier and have really turned to social media marketing to promote our artists and artworks. It has led to a lot of uncertainty and so we do our best and take it day by day.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My mother and I are the third owners of the Annapolis Marine Art Gallery which opened in 1978 and is coming up on it’s 47th year in business. I was working under the previous owner as an associate and when he was getting ready to retire, my mother and I decided to make this a family venture.
After four years we have provided artists with a space to sell and have helped customers from near and far to decorate their homes and build their own art collections.
The artwork we provide is all marine themed but we are more than a place to decorate your beach house. From local artists and scenes, to world famous artists who support goals like ocean conservancy and naval history education, we take pride in the work our artists create.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

We run our online shop on Shopify. This is what the business used before we took over so a pro would definitely be having it set up for us already however it wasn’t always kept up with and I found myself deleting old inventory and updating pages as I went. It’s a great way to sell outside of the gallery but we do run into the issue of customers not trusting the technology. For example, not everyone is going to be comfortable enough to buy a $10,000 painting solely online- customers tend to want to speak over the phone and have that relationship with a salesperson that they can trust to reach out to if something goes wrong- especially when you’re handling larger purchases and shipping all over the world. So in that case, the website really acts as an online inventory rather than a purchase point.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

Marketing can be tricky because you can’t always track where the sale originated from. Maybe someone sees something on Instagram and goes to your website a few times before clicking ‘buy’. Or they might see an ad a few times in different places before clicking one so the acquisition data isn’t 100% accurate.
When my mother and I bought the gallery, we set up a Tiktok account which is still a slow-growing social media account for us compared to other platforms. A lot of our artwork appeals to the older crowd and it’s pricey too. That being said- I was pleasantly surprised one day when a Tiktok I posted highlighting a single piece of art caught the attention of a user and they went from there to our website and purchased it. Not only that but they commented saying they just bought it so that was a highlight!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://annapolismarineart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annapolis_marineartgallery/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ANNAPMARART/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/annapolis-marine-art-gallery

Image Credits

Willard Bond, USNA Watercolor by Daven Anderson, print by John M. Barber