Pablo & Paul | Overview

It seems that there is a copy of the famous "Lunch atop a Skyscraper" photograph in every other German home. Most people, however, want something special to put on their walls at home: In Germany alone, 29 million people are interested in art (source: Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach 2013). Often, these people simply lack the time and the knowledge about art as well as the money to buy it. Also, affordable and unique art is not easily accessible. Still, exclusive works of art do not have to be expensive or require a trip to an art gallery.

We enable people to easily access art. Pablo & Paul is the new platform for exclusive and affordable art. From the wide range of contemporary art, we select unique paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, and mixed-media artworks (for which artists use various materials such as paper, metal, vinyl, etc.) and offer them for sale on our platform. We put special emphasis on a high quality and on exclusiveness when selecting artworks. As a result, customers of Pablo & Paul are able to purchase unique artworks and exclusive editions, i.e., limited editions. Each artwork costs between 80 and 2,500 euros and is in the lower or medium price segment of a growth market; the median sales price within the art market is 1,920 euros (source: European Fine Art Foundation 2013).

Pablo & Paul Artworks

Pablo & Paul may be found wherever people purchase artworks. In addition to our online shop, which we launched in January 2014, we also opened our first store-within-a-store at BoConcept, a Danish designer furniture retailer, in July. In this store, potential customers can view and purchase artworks on very large touch screens.

Pablo & Paul-Online-Shop

Customers operate our touch screens through intuitive gestures and icons that have not been available in this way in conventional stores before. Thus, browsing our artworks is pleasant and very easy. Our quality seals indicate whether the artwork was made by an artist who has already won prizes or sold his or her works to renowned museums. In this way, we have created a new art shopping experience.

Pablo & Paul at BoConcept

During our first business year, we generated medium five-digit revenue and have already made a first partnership agreement for our store-within-a-store concept with BoConcept (which has over 260 stores worldwide). Moreover, we are proud that ProSiebenSat.1, one of the leading European media corporations, invested in our company. Consequently, we have exclusive and free access to experts on PR, marketing, production (for TV and the internet), and IT, and we benefit from considerable media presence.

According to the German Federal Statistical Office (German only), approximately 20 million Germans visit art museums and galleries each year (source: Federal Statistical Office 2014). People love beautiful things, and consumer behavior focuses increasingly on lifestyle, individualism, and authenticity (source: Roland Berger luxury study 2011; McKinsey Akzente 2010). The uniqueness of artworks enables people to satisfy their need for individualism. Through Pablo & Paul, we address people willing to buy high-quality originals at an affordable price, no matter whether they want to replace posters they bought during their college days or wish to avoid buying unlimited editions of almost worthless photographs or expensive originals.

Demand for contemporary art is as high as never before. In 2013, contemporary artworks worth 482 million euros were sold in Germany (the global value was 9.2 billion euros). Until 2018, a market growth to approx. 850 million euros can be expected in Germany.

Development of Revenue within the Contemporary Art Market (2013-2018)

At Pablo & Paul, we combine a passion for art with expertise in business. Our company structure is very lean, and we focus on the key areas of artist acquisition and management, sales (online shop and store-within-a-store), and marketing. 

In the area of artist acquisition, we are looking for today's talents and tomorrow's stars. Our curators are well connected within the art scene. In addition, we use relevant publications (art price lists, art magazines, etc.), are in close contact with producer galleries and ateliers, and attend diploma exhibitions and annual exhibitions at important academies. Moreover, our high-quality art advisory board (consisting of collectors and academy members among others) and a network of voluntary scouts support us in our search for new artists. While selecting artworks, we have high standards concerning quality and currency, ensuring that only high-quality works appear on our platform.

Simultaneously, we support our artists in their artistic development and promote their careers. Artists are very satisfied with us because we take care of marketing and selling their artworks so that they can focus on the thing that makes them unique: their art. 

At Pablo & Paul, we combine our online shop with stationary sales spaces to achieve a multi-channel strategy. Why we also sell our art offline? Approximately 91 percent of consumers still buy artworks and design objects offline because they prefer the advice they get in stores and want to see the original artworks first. We provide consumers with personal advice by our qualified employees in order to support them in a competent manner while they are making their decision and buying artworks. Thus, we are further reducing the barriers to customers' purchase of artworks. Our stationary strategy is based on two pillars.

1. Store-within-a-store in powerful partner stores: Because of our partnership with BoConcept, we have access to a target group with a high affinity for design and to a major store chain. We plan to start additional store-within-a-store partnerships outside the designer furniture industry as well in order to scale up our business fast and inexpensively at the national and international level.
2. Own Pablo & Paul stores: We will open our own stores in select major cities (with more than 600,000 people). For high-involvement products such as artworks, 67 % of decisions to purchase are made emotionally (source: Reinventing Retail Studie 2014, Roland Berger). This is why we carefully stage the presentation of art in our stores by combining large touch screens, original artworks, personal advice, and events (e.g., vernissages and discussions with artists) in a unique fashion and create a target-group-relevant experience.

We cooperate with experienced service providers like DHL (shipping), Paymill and Sumup (payment processing), and Erler+Pless (production of photographs and special delivery) to ensure fast and secure order processing and delivery. We do not have our own warehouse because our unique artworks are shipped directly by the artists and photographs are shipped by our production service provider. For each artwork sold, we receive a sales commission in the upper two-digit percent range, which is common within the market.

Pablo & Paul has a unique position in the current competitive environment. In order to set ourselves apart from our competitors, we focus on affordable, unique artworks and exclusive editions, are present online and offline, and offer personal advice. There is currently no competitor with the ambition to create a similar platform. We have occupied this market niche very competently. Most galleries and auction houses sell only expensive art. Online-only sellers in our industry broker purchases of gallery art (e.g., Artsation), are open art platforms without curators (Saatchi Art), are limited to photographs (Seen.by), focus on affordable prints for walls and on other home accessories (Junique), or run auctions (Auctionata). The two major photograph sellers Lumas and YellowKorner are the only exceptions because they have both a network of stores and an online shop. However, they offer only photographs in editions that are usually very large or unlimited.

Our customers are very satisfied with our service. So far, we have not received a single customer return. We offer our customers special services, for instance our Art Advisory: Customers send us photos of their empty walls. We then come up with individual suggestions and insert artworks into the photos so that customers get an idea what the artworks will look like on their walls – just like a digital trial period. Of course, people may ask us which artwork is suitable for their kitchen or hallway. 

Pablo & Paul SWOT Analysis

Our two main goals are making Pablo & Paul popular and acquiring new customers. Our pilot marketing study has yielded some very promising results. For instance, the open rate and the click rate of our newsletters are significantly higher than the industry average of 17 and 3 percent respectively (source: Mailchimp Study 2014).   We currently have roughly 4,000 newsletter subscribers (and an 80 percent increase in subscribers each month). Concerning PR, we have achieved a high reach through a feature on the German TV station ZDF and articles in Süddeutsche Zeitung, Deco Home, and numerous art blogs. At Stroke Art Fair (20,000 visitors), Affordable Art Fair (17,000), and ARTMUC (5,000), we had our own exhibition stand. Our store-within-a-store at BoConcept is in a first-rate location in Munich's trendy Glockenbackviertel (in downtown Munich) and is visited by as many as 200 people each day). In early 2015, we will test package inserts and newsletter banners together with the design mail order company ikarus for the first time. 

The decision to found Pablo & Paul was influenced by our minds and our hearts alike: It was the perfect opportunity to combine a promising business concept with our passion for art.

Our two founders and managing directors Dr. Philipp Bode and Christoph Buchmann worked for the top strategy consulting firm A.T. Kearney for several years and advised clients from the areas of consumer goods and retail around the globe. Moreover, Philipp Bode worked for the venture capital subsidiary of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, and Christoph Buchmann founded MeinCasulo, a company selling affordable furniture. Elisabeth Wallner worked for the renowned Eigen+Art gallery, which represents the popular German artist Neo Rauch among others. She also founded a print graphics company. Each member of our team of six people loves art and shares our vision of making the wonderful world of art accessible to many people.

Past Company Achievements (Excerpt):

• Initial funding worth 100,000 euros through the EXIST program of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the European Union
• Launch of our online shop in January 2014
• Opening of our first store-within-a-store at BoConcept in Munich in July 2014
• Acceptance to the ProSiebenSat.1 Accelerator program and investment by ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG in early September 2014   

Goals for the Next 3 Years (Excerpt):

• Opening of approximately 20 stores-within-a-store and 5 own stores until late 2016
• Improvement of our art advisory service
• Internationalization through online shop and franchising system (with a special focus on Switzerland and the EU) from Q1/2016 onward

With your help, we want to speed up our company development. We plan to use your investments for the following activities in order to make Pablo & Paul the leading brand for young, exclusive, and affordable art:

If we reach or exceed the investment threshold of 50,000 euros, we plan to:

• increase our reach by means of targeted marketing activities such as SEO (search engine optimization), Facebook Ads, display banners in partner newsletters, package inserts, and content marketing from Q2/2015 onward
• expand our online shop and develop an app for the digital trial of artworks in Q2/2015

If we reach or exceed an amount of 125,000 euros, we also plan to:

• open a store-within-a-store in Frankfurt am Main in Q2/2015
• build a team in the area of art
• attend art fairs such as art berlin contemporary (in Berlin), Bloom, artcologne (in Cologne) or viennacontemporary (in Vienna), 

If we reach our funding goal of 250,000 euros, we plan to:

• open additional stores-within-a-store in Augsburg (in Q2/2015) and Hamburg (in Q3/2015)
• build a marketing and sales team
• attend the Affordable Art Fair in London

Pablo & Paul GmbH

Streitfeldstraße 33

81673 Munich, Germany

Phone: +49-89-200 70 366

Email: info@pabloundpaul.de

Web: www.pabloundpaul.de