Taking a share of income from client site

Tom
You won't get 40 50% - I'm sure you realize that. The gallery has building and advertising costs as well as an established clientele to draw from.

20% is what I've done on physical products - and for big ticket items that involve a high wholesale purchase price, its 20% of the gross (profit).

Personally, I wouldn't expect you to make a large profit from something like this as its been my experience that most people with a limited budget to build the store don't have a suitable budget for advertising.

No traffic = no sales.

Your best bet is to get as much up front as possible and then take payments for the balance. You'll be further ahead in the long run.

Thanks for the input Debbie,

I don't know why, but the first % that came to mind was 20%. You bring up a good point about advertising. I'll have to see what he planned to do for advertising, and if he has a mailing/customer list to work with.

Another issue comes to mind: Normally, I get the store/website up and running for a fixed cost, but then charge by the hour for all updates and management time; I'd expect it to be tricky to navigate.

Tom

If this were an essential product that appeals to the masses then I would say, take a chance. But its art and art generally needs to be seen in person to move you.

I have a glass store. It contains beautiful imported and handmade glass items such as wine glasses, decanters, flowers, figurines, vases etc. Items that are very difficult to photograph and capture the true beauty. The nice part is when my customers buy they are rarely disappointed. The items are much more beautiful in person then on the website.
Because they are works of art, I have a pretty lenient return policy for items that don't fit the decor.

And thats the challenge of selling "art" online. Unless the artist has a reputation and the website is a way to order work the customer is already familiar with, its difficult to close a new sale on a high ticket piece of art.
So your market is already narrow due to the nature of the product.

The other challenge you will have is motivating the individual to advertise and promote the website. We all know there are tons of ways to promote a product online but they all take knowledge, time and some take money.
I'm going to assume your client doesn't know these methods so he will be coming to you for constant advice. Once again if this were a product that appeals to the masses it wouldn't be a problem.

Then there is trust. With products like that, its not uncommon for deals to be made over the phone vs ordered online. The customer may have seen the item online but talks to the vendor to get more information - especially if there is a lot of money involved. The higher the cost of the item the more personal attention will be involved with the customer.
Can you trust that your client will give you credit for the sale even though the order is not showing in the store?

Then there is duration of the "contract". How long must the vendor continue to pay you 20% in order to pay for his obligation to you? People get greedy over time. After a while paying you is going to be a nuisance and he's not going to want to do it.

Another point - You are relying on someone else's motivation to make money for the site.
Lets say the store costs $4,000 but he can only afford to pay $1,000 so you are doing the 20% deal to cover the remainder.
A guy who spends $4,000 on the store is going to be more motivated to make it work then the guy who spends only $1,000.

I'd say for this type of product/store, put a package deal together for the price of the store and a yearly maintenance package that gets him XX hrs a month. Get as much money down and "finance" the rest for him. You can set the terms that the payments start 3 months from the date the store opens so he has a chance to generate some cash. Set the monthly payment schedule to something realistic and charge him interest to carry him.
Personally, I wouldn't do a joint venture / profit share arrangement with this type of product.

Just my 2 cents worth.

IMO The design of the web site is only a very small percentage of the cost of operating an on line store.
To even think of getting 10% - 20% of revenue is completely un realistic.
Most selling stores would not have those kind of margins and as someone has already said NO TRAFFIC = NO SALES
getting traffic Costs BIG TIME
I operate several on line stores and we spend MEGA bucks on Adwords and other PPC as well as letter box drops and TV
If I had 10% - 20% to spare I would be retired!!

( we spend MEGA bucks on Adwords and other PPC as well as letter box drops and TV )
I forgot to mention SEO Costs as we are on page 1 of Google Yahoo and MSN for many search terms. and that was not FREE