Getting Started For Collectors

Collectors love to talk about their collections and Artists love to talk about their work. We have designed myMuseo.com to be much more than an e-commerce site for selling art and collectibles. This is a community site, where you can enjoy the dialogue with others, and sell or buy if you choose.

Registration

To get started, click the "Register" link in the upper right of any page on myMuseo. Fill in your email address and enter a password you will remember. Passwords require 1 upper case letter, a number and a symbol. After you click the "Register" button you will receive a confirmation email with a link to Activate your account.

To complete your profile do the following:

Upload a profile image

Typically, this would be a portrait of yourself, but it can be any type of avatar you want. Keep in mind that community members do tend to respond to more favorably to an image of a person rather than an avatar.

Use the About section to your best advantage

Here you can write a narrative, however long or succinct, about your collecting passion(s). The more community members know about your ‘story’ the more likely they will want to connect with you.

Consider the Following:

• Where you were born and raised
• Where you currently live (we suggest for privacy reasons that you do not include a street address: only your city & state, or city only)
• Your areas of interest and why you are passionate about these areas

Your Personal Website and Websites You Like

During the registration process, you will be able to enter the names and URLs of your website or blog (if you do not have one, no worries) and websites you love that are related to your areas of interest. We’re sure you have come across some unique and amazing sites and sharing these with others is a gift to the community.

Set Your Privacy Preferences

myMuseo.com provides default privacy preferences that you can change during registration or at any time. These preferences are not dissimilar from most social media sites.

Please note: during the registration process, you will be able to skip these steps and you can come back at any time and edit your privacy preferences. From the menu at the top right of the site, select My Account from the menu and edit areas you have not completed.

Getting Started with Listings

Photos

myMuseo.com is a visual site. The better quality your images are, the more response you will have to your listings.

Consider the Following:

If you purchased items you are listing on myMuseo.com from an artist, gallery or another collector, you may want to contact them for photos if a professional photographer was used.

If you are taking your own photos the following suggestions will help:

• You don't need expensive lighting equipment. The goal is to take your photos against a light-colored background with minimal shadows. We recommend you shoot as 100 or 200 ISO and use a tripod to reduce camera. Using the self-timer with a tripod will minimize camera shake. Most digital cameras take excellent photos in low light: both DSLRs and point & shoot cameras.
• Shooting at 100 or 200 ISO will reduce JPG artifacts and give your images a sharp, high quality look.
• Make sure your light-source provides even color and no directional shadows or reflections, which will distract viewers from the artwork or collectible.
• If you are listing a large number of 3 dimensional items you may want to consider investing in an inexpensive light box. These are available on various online photography sites as well as e-commerce giants such as Amazon and can be used with any type of camera, including your smartphones.
• If you are using Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom or similar editing software, size your images for the best display. If you do not have Photoshop, most computers have editing tools built into the operating system that allow you to edit your images in. If you are unsure, contact us and we will advise you based on your operating system.

• Colors. If you are taking photos using standard interior lighting the color balance will distort yellows, greens and blues. We recommend that you take your photos during the day in an evenly lit room to maintain color purity as best as possible. This is the web, of course your images will be viewed in a browser and colors will vary based on a viewer’s monitor, the version of an operating system, and their lighting while viewing. However, we recommend you upload the best possible representation of the item you are listing
• Upload a JPEG file in RGB or sRGB color format only (not CMYK). We do not accept TIF, GIF or Raw Image
• Cropping. Crop excessive blank space to balance your item within the picture frame.
• Shoot your photos at the largest size setting on your camera. We recommend the largest size to be at maximized at least at 1000 pixels either in height or width, whichever is greater. Shooting your photos at the largest size will allow you to crop and downsize images while retaining image quality.
• Enlarging images. Increasing the image dimensions only decreases quality from its original size. Therefore, we do not recommend up-sizing. Rather than enlarging an image, use the highest quality settings on your camera.

Image Titles

All images you upload will show your name first on the items detail page. We suggest titling an item in the following format: Item title, Artist or manufacturer. Using this format, the item will appear on the site as: Your user name, Title, Artist or manufacturer and will appear as such:

• Jane Collector, Untitled, Jane Artist
• Bob Collector, Pink Floyd at Cheetah Club New York Concert Poster 1967, Unknown Artist
• Joe Collector, Erotic Vintage Photo – France 1920, Unknown Artist.
• Maria Collector, Japanese Antique Toy Dancing Monkey George, Masayuda Company

This formatting is especially important if you are both an artist and collector: This allows other members to distinguish your personal work from items you collect.

Pricing Your Items

If you are selling on myMuseo.com, pricing is critical. Setting pricing is relative to the Artist whose work you are selling or comparative pricing for collectibles.

Some examples on how to price:

• If you are selling an item by an established artist look at prices from the same artists with similar dimensions, medium, materials, and dates
• If you are selling work by new or emerging artists look for comparable prices for works that have sold and have similar dimensions, medium, materials, and subject matter
• If you are selling a collectible item, look for comparative pricing for same type collectibles that have sold and have a similar condition to the item you have

Note: When pricing you have the ability to allow Offers. You set the minimum offer and if a community member meets your minimum offer you can accept or deny the offer.

Add a Description

On myMuseo.com descriptions are different from your standard e-commerce site and this is where it can really be fun. Take some time and tell the story about how you acquired the piece, when you acquired it and how it fits into your collection. Your item may be one of those once in a lifetime thrift store or yard sale finds, or you may have bought a painting directly from the artist and had him/her over for dinner to hang the piece. This is a great place to be creative: spin a yarn, tell a tale. Descriptions are a great way to draw community members into your world and engage them. We all love stories, and the story behind an item is as interesting or valuable as the item itself!

Collections Versus Single Items

You can arrange your item in collections or list them as single items. Depending upon the items you list you can group them in any number of ways. A few examples are:

• Jane Collector, Untitled, Jane Artist
• By Artist
• By Medium
• By item type (whether that be a category in art such as Painting, Sculpture or a collectible category such as Found Photography, Vintage Photography, ephemera, First edition Books, etc.)

We have designed myMuseo.com with a default set of top level categories. When uploading and adding details to an item you can select Other, and add a category. When adding a category, that category will appear in the all categories list and will be searchable from the search field.

Selling & Buying on myMuseo

All sales and purchases made between sellers and buyers on myMuseo.com are between the two parties. Transactions are not made through myMuseo.com and are made through payment services such as PayPal, Apple Pay and similar services. We discourage bank to bank transactions that may put your privacy and bank account at risk.

If a community member selects Buy Now on the detail page of any item you have listed for sale you will receive an email to the account listed with your myMuseo.com account. You will also see this same email in the Message Center of your dashboard (in the menu at the top right of the page when you have logged in, select My Dashboard, and click on the Message Center tab.

When a community member purchases an item, that item will be marked Pending Sale. The payment method and shipping method are made by agreement between the two parties. Messages may be sent via myMuseo.com – preferred for both buyer's & seller's privacy – or by exchanging messages outside the myMuseo.com system (discouraged). To close a sale in the myMuseo.com system the seller must enter the following information in their dashboard under the My Items tab:

• Buyer
• Shipper (i.e. UPS, Fed EX, etc.)
• Tracking Number

Once this information has been entered the item will be marked as sold. We do not remove sold items from the site. If an item has sold and you no longer want it to be on the site, please delete the item from your dashboard under the My Items tab.

Shipping

The shipping method of an item is an agreement between the seller and buyer. For your protection, we strongly recommend using a shipping method that is signature required and has a tracking number.

Connecting with Likeminded Community Members

• Optimize Your Profile. Make your profile as appealing to community members as much as possible. The more accessible you make yourself the more connections you will make. Consider the above suggestions to optimize your profile
• Groups. Groups are a great way to connect with likeminded community members. We have created a default set of groups and you can always start a new group! To start a new group select My Groups from the menu under your login name in the upper right and follow the prompts.
• Favorites. Fave an item – you are sure to get views by the community member whose item you faved as well as other members who view that same item
• Social Media Posts – use them to draw attention to your work, share relevant information to the community and more
• Comments & replies. Start a dialogue on an item you like or join the conversation. Ultimately the goal of myMuseo.com is community building. We take no revenue from sales as our love is the stories people have about their Art, Collections and collectibles.

Ultimately

We want you to enjoy engaging with the community at myMuseo.com. Whether you are selling or buying we want to provide the best experience without too much meddling from us. Connecting people and seeing your stories is our greatest reward. Have we covered everything here? Let us know if you have any questions or concerns we can add.

Questions? We love questions. Just email us and we will get back to you ASAP!