Preparing a major print launch on your website is an exciting prospect. For it to be successful, it is essential that the instructions in this guide are followed.
Are you preparing for launch?
If you wish to run an online launch or e-commerce event that is likely to attract high traffic to your website, you should discuss this with us in advance. It is imperative that we receive a minimum of 10 business days notice to ensure that we have time to implement the necessary measures to prepare for the launch. If you are unsure, get in touch at support@artlogic.net.
Why prepare for a launch?
A print launch gives you the chance to create a buzz around your gallery and artists. Such an event should be taken very seriously and will take several weeks of planning and research in order to make sure you are appropriately prepared.
Artlogic websites are extremely robust, so a busy gallery site will typically be able to handle many thousands of visitors per day. However, a well-publicised print drop by a well-known artist can bring a significant spike of traffic to your site at a level that ordinarily would require a dedicated server or even multiple servers to handle.
If you intend to run this sort of event, even infrequently, your server needs to be capable of handling the maximum level of traffic to ensure the event is a success. This is especially true for clients with Bespoke websites and clients with dedicated servers.
Usage limit
Your online sales functionality will be limited depending on your hosting package. Please contact us for more information.
Standard hosting plan limits
Included in your standard hosting cost:
- 10 concurrent users in the shopping cart.
- Daily traffic limit of 2,000 sessions.
- These limits are fixed and not scalable.
Premium hosting plan limits
Starting at £205 per month +VAT:
- 25 concurrent users in the shopping cart.
- Use of scalable servers for the website and Artlogic database.
- Daily traffic limit of 4,000 sessions.
- On-demand performance increases - starting at £200 per day for 100 concurrent users.
Bespoke hosting plan and large-scale events
Please contact us for bespoke hosting and server options, we reserve the right to choose technology and equipment that is appropriate for your project and may charge extra development fees at our standard hourly rate of £100 +VAT.
Shopping cart user limits
We impose a maximum number of customers who are allowed to buy the work at any one time, this is because the shopping cart is dynamic and cannot be cached like the rest of the website. The shopping cart also makes several requests and live updates to your artworks database - so this limit exists in order to protect not only your website performance but also the performance of your back-end database system. The exact limit is dependent on your hosting package.
Preparation and schedule
Example launch schedule
Each step is outlined in more detail throughout this guide.
- Give Artlogic at least 10 days' notice.
- If necessary, announce a date of the launch to your audience but do not set an exact time. If you have a dedicated server coordinate this with Artlogic.
- Create your Edition Data Record/s and editions.
- Setup your artwork/s well in advance and test it thoroughly using your website's Preview mode (see the section on ‘testing’ in this document).
- Launch your print and wait for it to appear on the public-facing website domain.
- After the artwork is live, announce the launch to your audience.
Advance notice
Give Artlogic 10 business days (and a minimum of 24 hours notice) before your intended launch date. Supply us with this information:
- Expected demand. This could include information about previous print launches for the same artist and how fast the print sold-out.
- Quantity of prints available and the price.
- How you intend to publicise the event and your expected reach, e.g. number of people on your mailing list and social media following.
Dedicated servers
If you have a dedicated server and are expecting demand for your launch to be high, you must coordinate your launch with an Artlogic Website Specialist. This is because it will require our developers to prepare your server for a spike in traffic. If your server is not prepared, it can result in visitors to your site experiencing problems and unable to make purchases.
Do not set a specific launch time
Please do not set a specific time to launch your print and pre-announce this. Your website is cached in order to handle a high quantity of visitors, but this does mean that any changes to your site will not go live to the public instantly. By advertising a specific launch time you also risk significantly straining your website and, in extreme cases, it may stop responding, which will be frustrating for your customers and damaging to your reputation.
- Announcing a specific time creates an expectation from customers that it will be available at this time. In reality, it could take up to 30 minutes to appear after it is made available.
- Unscrupulous buyers can setup 'bots' to constantly check for updates every few seconds, this will unnecessarily add to the load of the website server and frustrate legitimate buyers.
- With advanced warning, you will create high demand from customers in a short space of time. This is more likely to cause problems in very high traffic events, thus overwhelming the website server.
- We highly recommend preparing the artwork to be available on the website before sending out any announcements on social media. This will result in a successful and stress-free process.
Lock-down specific prints in advance
Lock-down the number of prints that will be available for sale on the website and do not change this until after the launch has passed, ideally you will want to assign a selection of works to the website for online sales only to avoid any confusion over what is available to online sales.
Test
Setup your artwork/s in your Artlogic database
Create an artwork Edition Data Record and print editions in the database.
- Create an artwork Edition Data Record and then edition records.
- Go to the Share tab of the artwork Edition Data Record.
- Click Make available to website, and select all the appropriate options for how you would like it to appear on the website in exactly the same way as you would for a live artwork record. For an artwork available for sale, you must include: Add to online store, and Show price on website.
- Make sure you click the Preview mode option, this will mean it will only show on the website if a CMS admin is logged in and in preview mode.
- The artwork will take the usual amount of time to show up on the website in preview mode (within 30 mins).
Testing on the website
Preview the artwork on the website and make a test payment.
- Go to the website and login to the CMS.
- View the page where the work is expected to appear, e.g. the online store page, and on the toolbar along the top hover over Edit page and click Enable preview mode.
- If the artwork has been enabled correctly in preview mode, the work should then appear within the list of works on this page.
- Click the artwork to open the detail page, review the details of the work and check that the artwork is available to buy online – this will only be visible as you are in preview mode.
- Make a test transaction, making sure you tick Enable test mode on the shopping cart screen before you make the payment.
- Ensure the correct edition is sold in your database and the test payment goes through correctly.
- On the confirmation screen, clicking Revert availability will revert the artwork to its original, unsold state.
Launch
Dedicated servers
When you have fully tested your print launch and are ready for the print to go live, you must schedule a date and time with one of our Website Specialists who will be able to coordinate the launch with our developers.
Standard servers
When you are ready for the print to go live, simply change the artwork from Preview mode to Live. The print will take up to 30 minutes to start appearing on the website. Please wait for the print to appear on the public-facing domain of the website.