Gallery Direct (a New Era Portfolio property) — a Web-based company specializing in custom canvas, wood, acrylic and aluminum prints of thousands of images (ranging from photography and exclusively numbered contemporary pieces to works from old world masters and vintage and Americana collections) — recently partnered with Springbox to tackle the unique challenge of translating art selection for the Web. The variety in their collections and print options attracts a wide range of clients, including home consumers and professional designers, all with their own artistic tastes and preferences. So as we started the discovery phase of the build, we knew designing a site that meets the needs of so many different people would be difficult. Understanding their clients' demographics and the different types of art these groups prefer would be integral. But how were going to do that in a cost-effective manner? 

Fortunately, in February of 2010, Gallery Direct launched Bazaarvoice's Ratings & Reviews on their category and product pages. Over the past year, reviewed products have averaged  4.78 out of 5.00 stars and 33% of all review content contains the term "love." This type of community feedback directly at the point of purchase no doubt helps Gallery Direct, which is an ecommerce site. But in addition to leaving feedback, many members of their community also provided helpful demographic information about their purposes, including: 

• Income 
• Age
• Gender
• Reason for purchase
• Location

We at Springbox organized this data by product and categories — enabling us to understand the type of art different people buy and why. We combined this data with internal sales and on-site analytics information, which permitted us to answer key site design questions, including: 

1. How do people buying art for business or interior design differ from those buying art for their homes? 
2. Do people who visit the site for photography prints also visit the site for fine art prints? 
3. The site permits people to upload their own photographs for printing. Are these folks the same people buying professional photographs as well? 
4. Do people most commonly visit the site for exclusive prints from contemporary artists or for more famous reprints from masters like Monet and Van Gough? Do the same people buy both? 
5. What are the common denominators across the demographics that might inform how to design the homepage, social media campaigns and promotional copy? 

Between Bazaarvoice's demographic data and Gallery Direct's sales information, we confirmed one interesting fact regarding art purchases across demographic groups: Gallery Direct's community as a whole favors its exclusive line of fine art prints from their artist community. People of different ages (18-65+), men and women, persons of different income brackets (>40-120K), and folks purchasing for themselves, their businesses and as gifts for others all especially appreciate modern, abstract and landscape pieces. Don't get us wrong, we love Monet. But it's great to see that 67% of the purchases on the site were for works from contemporary artists within New Era's exclusive community from around the country!