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Overstock Art


Last Update: 2/24 10:08 am
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WICHITA, Kansas – It began in a Wichita basement in 2002 and today has grown into a worldwide operation. A Wichita business owner is proving how works of art can turn into a worthwhile business.

It’s a testament to WSU’s entrepreneurship program. David Sasson is a Kansas transplant from Israel who after graduating from Wichita's business school searched for the perfect business with growth potential. And he's struck oil -- oil paint, that is.

"We deal in handmade oil paintings,” Sasson said. “We buy the product overseas, we bring it to our facility and we are an online retailer of handmade oil paintings. They're mostly reproduction of famous artists like Van Gogh, Monet, Klimt, Picasso, and many others."

Sasson has no retail showroom. Paintings are sold worldwide through their online store overstockart.com. His partner remains overseas to inspect the works before sending them to the distribution center in Wichita where they are mounted, framed, and shipped to the end user.

He says that in a good month, they'll sell more than 1,000 paintings that come through the warehouse. The biggest misconception, he says, is that most people don't realize that they are actually hand painted. They are not prints. The artist will copy an original, but they'll start with a blank canvas.

“I think that we are the largest retailer right now,” Sasson said. “Our price points are more attractive. We hold stock while most of our competitors do not."

As with most startups, in 2002 he began the business in his basement. After just one year, he had the traction to lease warehouse space. They keep an inventory of about 1,500 popular titles so they can ship immediately. And, they'll do special orders if the client wants that.

As for copyrights –

"Most of these are public domain paintings, so we don't run into any kind of copyright or licensing issues,” he said.

Sasson and his partner don’t’ have any plans to sell the business, but they have built it with that eventually in mind.


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