Share
For all of you who have attempted to purchase my prints and found it frustrating to have them sell out while you are attempting to purchase I’d like to share a few things. First, I’m incredibly grateful that you like my art and support my work! I also work with my team to weed out bots and flippers using both advanced-Shopify bot protection software and tracking flippers online, who are then blocked from future sales. This eats up a good amount of time for my team purely in an effort to ensure that true fans get as many of the prints as possible. However, flippers are quite crafty about using new names, new IP addresses, and advanced software to bypass bot filters. For example on the AK-47 Lotus and AR-15 Lily prints 915 bots were blocked by our anti-bot software, yet several of those prints still ended up on Ebay. We use a captcha system which helps to filter out bots. I hear the frequent complaint that the captcha slowed down checkout, but it is part of bot protection. When releasing prints I’m trying to balance several considerations. I want the art to be affordable, but also special for collectors. I usually keep the print editions limited to from 350 to 550, which are large editions, but still well below the demand. When many more orders are being placed simultaneously than prints are available, some customers will inevitably reach the conclusion of checkout only to find the print has sold out during the time that process took to complete. I’m very frustrated by bots and flippers too. My team and I are trying to stop them as much as possible. I make open edition lithographs of some of my most popular images to make sure my art is always accessible. Please understand that I care a lot. Thanks for the support and understanding.
-Shepard
