General Information
Q. How will Gallery Express save me time and money?
A. We save you time by providing complete management services that will track your inventory, daily sales, employee commissions and payments to artists/consignors. We'll save you money by providing a superior web publishing module that integrates with your current inventory. No need to pay staff to update your website - it can all be done by the click of a button as often as you like.
Q. Can Gallery Express help me increase sales?
A. Yes. In addition to the web publishing module that allows you to easily maintain your inventory, shows and exhibitions on-line, we also provide features to generate emails and mailing lists to clients based on their preferences and sales history.
Q. What support is available once I purchase Gallery Express?
A. You are never alone. Use our extensive on-line help that is always up-to-date with the latest features, free email support or our limited free phone support. We also provide packages to put your gallery on-line quickly and professionally at any level of service you need.
Q. Can I try before I buy?
A. Download our free full feature demo and try us for a month. We are confident you'll like it! All functionality is available in the demo version, and if you buy you can still use all the data you have input. Or just download our sample database for practice.
Q. I already use software to manage my gallery. Will I have to enter all my data again?
A. Our staff are experienced in data conversion. Contact us for a quote on importing your current data.
Q. Can I use Gallery Express on my network?
A. Gallery Express supports networking on local area networks (LAN) using Windows
98/NT/2000/XP/Vista. You can also use remote access software such as pcAnywhere to access your files. If you are a larger organization that operates over a wide area network (WAN), contact us to discuss the options we have available.
Q. What security features are available?
A. We provide different levels of security based on the individual employee. For instance, an employee with administrative status can access all accounting reports and update sensitive data but an employee with sales status can only perform day to day duties such as receiving inventory and processing sales orders.
Compare Our Features
Q. Other competitors offer web publishing. How is yours different?
A. Our web publishing module creates real html web pages where other products create web pages dynamically from information stored in a database.
What this means to you is:
- You are able to maintain your website wherever you want at competitive market prices rather that being committed to signing long term contracts at costs that are often from $50.00 to $150.00 per month higher.
- Your web pages will load faster on your client's computer.
- Your pages can be indexed by search engines so that anyone searching for a particular artist or work of art will find your site!
Also, some publishing systems require galleries to enter their inventory through a web interface. Gallery Express integrated inventory management eliminates duplicate data entry for the gallery point of sale program and again for the web site.
Inventory Management
Q. How do I enter editions?
A. You only need to enter your descriptive information once. You can then receive multiple editions simply by entering the edition number. You can also edit the price, supplier and framing status fields for each individual edition so you can manage artist proofs, framed editions and re-consigned works.
Q. How are my images being saved?
A. All images are saved in jpeg format. You control the size, but we recommend 400 pixels for optimum detail while keeping the file size small. Images for current inventory are saved within your database to keep your system totally portable!
Q. Are my records easy to find?
A. Our special 'Find' form locates your inventory based on artist name, title or inventory number. Search either all inventory records, or only the inventory currently available in stock.
Q. How is my inventory categorized?
A. We have provided some suggested categories with your software, but like most Gallery Express settings you can add or modify these to suit your needs.
Q. I also sell items that are not unique such as posters and books. Can your software manage these items too?
A. Yes, we provide a separate module for handling these items. The regular inventory module works just like any other point of sale software, maintaining inventory levels and costs based on the FIFO accounting method.
Accounting
Q. What features do you provide that will help with my bookkeeping?
A. While Gallery Express will not fully replace your current accounting software, we provide many detail and summary reports that will make your bookkeeping easier and assist you with the management of your gallery.
A few of these are:
- daily sales summary so you can balance your register.
- employee commissions owing reports and commission statements for your employee's records.
- supplier consignment records that are created only when an art work is fully paid for, and consignment statements for your supplier's records.
- cost of goods sold report summarizes your profit margins - and includes any framing/conservation charges applied against an item.
- customer statements and aged receivables report.
Web Publishing
Q. You say this is a one-click solution. How does this work?
A. It really is that easy. Whenever you receive an art work that you wish to include on your website, just check the 'Post to Web' box. Then whenever you want your site updated, just click our 'Publish' button. Gallery Express will automatically create a real html web page for any new items that you have received. At the same time, your site is reviewed. Any sold inventory is either removed, or marked as sold depending on your selected configuration. Artist biography pages are updated, or created for any new artist you are now posting inventory for. And any shows or exhibitions that you have currently selected as being published to your web site are updated.
Q. How are my new pages uploaded to my web site?
A. We offer two alternatives. For web sites where you use FTP, we include a built in FTP program that will update your site. Or if you use MS FrontPage to manage your site, our program will use your current software. Either way, we still manage it all. Just click the 'Upload' button and new or edited pages are uploaded and any existing pages that are no longer needed are removed.
Q. Do I need to change my Internet Service Provider (ISP)?
A. No. Our web publishing will work with existing sites on Windows or
Unix/Linux servers. We do offer complete web services such as web hosting as part of our commitment to you, and our software has been fully tested with the services we provide.
Q. I already have a web site. Do I need to re-design my site to accommodate your web publishing?
A. No, our web publishing can work with your existing site. Either have your current web designer work with our templates, or have the Gallery Express staff complete the conversion quickly.
Q. Can I use e-commerce on my site.
A. Yes, we can either provide a full e-commerce solution, or you can simply use our templates to integrate with your chosen e-commerce provider. As with all Gallery Express services, you can choose how involved you want us to be!
Customer Contact
Q. Does Gallery Express print mailing labels?
A. Yes, and you can filter your customer list by preferred artist and sales history.
Q. I use an outside source to send my bulk advertising. What does Gallery Express do for me?
A. You can export your customer list in a wide variety of formats that you can submit to your printer.
Q. Does Gallery Express provide any other services to help me reach my customers?
A. Gallery Express comes with its own email software specifically designed for submitting messages to multiple recipients. As with the mailing list, you can filter the recipients of your message by preferred artist and sales history.