Smart Collecting: Love Local
Patrons at FOG Design + Art 2024 in San Francisco, CA.
Courtney Sharps | Curator, New York, NY
Smart Collecting: Love Local
Artsy recently published an article describing fine art shipping as a “necessary evil.” They quote gallerists and logistics firms who agree that the cost of shipping is the industry’s biggest, “dirty little secret”. This may be salacious language, but it is an excellent report on this real pain point for collectors and galleries. As someone who worked in fine art shipping at one of the largest providers, I was inspired to share some additional perspectives and point to options for making smarter choices.
Fine art shipping is high stress, complex, and occasionally thrilling. I climbed over crated Monets, triple-checked shuttle logs, and designed custom client plans for cross-country and global projects whose requirements changed on a moment's notice. I saw firsthand how quickly costs multiply for artists, galleries, and collectors. Every touch along the way—packing, crating, transport, customs, installation—adds a fee. Often these fees aren’t transparent, and they become multiplied by a clients’ urgency or tight budgets.
Artsy highlights several challenges that have made shipping so expensive:
Persistent inflation: Freight, packing, crating, and handling costs have not returned to pre-COVID levels, even though some raw material prices have stabilized.
Complex bureaucracy: Customs, taxes, and multiple invoices make shipping confusing as well as costly.
Market impact: High logistics costs deter buyers, especially when shipping accounts for a disproportionate share of a work’s price.
Lower-priced works suffer most: Collectors often expect shipping to remain under 10 percent of an artwork’s value, a benchmark that is increasingly unrealistic.
There are additional factors not captured in the limits of a short, but excellent article. Fine art logistics has become a big-money business. Today, the global fine art logistics market is estimated at 3.5 billion dollars and is projected to grow to 6 billion through the early 2030s, with dominant players including Crozier Fine Arts, Uovo, Cadogan Tate, Dietl International, and U.S. Art Company. The scale and consolidation of these mega-shippers shape costs, timelines, and the collector experience in ways that smaller, local operations once handled more personally.
The behind the scenes of a fine art shipper’s warehouse.
Private equity has also moved into this industry, and insiders can see its effect. The local charm and craftsmanship are replaced by broad mandates for growth and profit maximization schemes. These firms are consolidating once-independent companies into global conglomerates which serve an art market, whose upper end has a reliance on global art fairs and auctions. But for local galleries, trusted relationships have disappeared and options have narrowed. Every gallery cultivates long-standing connections with lighting experts, conservators, installers, and shippers. These relationships have always been essential in an industry with surprisingly thin margins.
What I learned during my time in fine art logistics is simple: shipping is not just a cost. It’s a sophisticated system that runs on expertise and relationships. I watched artists request cross-country quotes only to discover the shipping alone could exceed a month’s rent on their studio. I saw galleries change a whole show’s direction because a pivotal artwork was stuck in customs. When shipping mishaps happen, artists lose opportunities, sellers lose commissions, and collectors miss out.
Here is my insider tip: buy local. Purchasing art locally is better for your wallet and your experience as a collector. You can meet the artist, see the work in person, and build a connection that scrolling and virtual galleries cannot fully replicate. You also avoid the anxiety of long shipping journeys, unexpected invoices, tax and customs complexity and potential damage.
Imagine an artwork already close to your home–or already in your home, for C-lective members. No excessive packing fees, no cross-country freight bills, no customs forms. Installation is simple and often included. Your budget stretches further, allowing for custom framing or even a second piece by the same artist. At a local gallery like ours, you can even pick up the work yourself. The experience is personal, joyful, and deeply satisfying.
Fine art shipping is expensive and only getting more so. Now is the moment to embrace local collecting. Supporting local artists and galleries simplifies the process, preserves the joy of interacting with art, and allows collectors to spend smarter while experiencing the full richness of art within their own communities.
Works Cited:
Kazakina, Katya. “The Art Trade’s ‘Necessary Evil’ Keeps Getting More Expensive.” Artnet News, 16 Jan. 2026, https://news.artnet.com/market/art-shipping-problems-investigation-2737673.
“Fine Art Logistics Market Size, Share, and Trends Analysis Report 2024–2034.” Market.us, 2025, https://market.us/report/fine-art-logistics-market/
