Profitable Art Gallery with Large Digital Presence

We are pleased to offer a very attractive art gallery located in the most desirable Lake Michigan shore community in all of West Michigan. The vibrant town boasts huge year-round tourist activity guaranteeing steady traffic of affluent customers. This successful, profitable 40 year old business resides in a free standing, architecturally relevant, two story, 3,000 square foot building with a 10,000 square foot adjacent outdoor sculpture garden. And there is ample parking at the front entrance. The facility is leased from an unrelated third party with an annual rental cost of less than 10% of the gallery’s revenues.

The business has lots of assets besides it outstanding reputation and facility – it is owned by art aficionados, not artists. That means that there is a broad range of interesting art from both U.S. and foreign artists which of course makes the curated offerings much more appealing than a gallery concentrating on just the owner’s artistic endeavors. And the current owners love to stress two points: (1) "In our previous experiences, we sold things that people needed and we always yearned to sell things that people WANT;” and (2) “to be successful in the gallery business you do not have to be an artist, rather a business person who knows how and likes to sell beautiful art objects.”

With respect to promoting the gallery, the owners do an outstanding job with digital marketing. This meant that (a) the business didn’t miss a beat during the Covid-19 shutdowns, and (b) meaningful business is generated during the slower foot traffic months of January – April (the gallery is open year-round). In fact, the gallery books a whopping 40% of its sales through its excellent digital marketing programs. The gallery’s strong digital marketing presence has impressively resulted in a worldwide customer base with no barriers to continued growth via online sales activity.

The business offers consigned artwork from 64 exclusive artists worldwide with on hand art representing a retail value approximating $1,000,000. The gallery generates nearly $600,000 of annual revenues with average SDE (seller discretionary earnings – the normalized annual cash flow available to service debt and pay the new owner) of $180,000 annually over the past three years. And in 2023, sales for the January-February two-month period are up a very impressive 79% from the same two 2022 months. 2023 is certainly off to a great start.

The gallery, which has a full-time manager and is open six hours daily, Wednesday through Sunday, is attractively priced by the retiring sellers at $459,000 which is 2.5x multiple of SDE. The price encompasses all non-cash assets of the business including of course the contracts with the artists and the above mentioned $1.0 million of on hand, consigned artwork, all of which is ready to sell. As part of the purchase price the sellers will give the buyers ample transition training with emphasis on curating the collections and digital marketing. The seller will also carry a high five figure seller note for a qualified buyer.

This art gallery has it all: it is located in a wonderful and desirable lakeshore community in a great artistic environment with loyal and thankful customers. The gallery is as gratifying as a “lifestyle” business, except lifestyle businesses do not have an annual $180,000 cash flow.

To learn more about this unique and extraordinary business opportunity, please contact Mike Greengard ([email protected] or 616-450-0707).