Art sales online
According to this BusinessWeek story:
But while many entrepreneurial artists such as Parker are exuberant at the possibilities, the virtual avalanche of art now available online has skeptics ....questioning whether or not the Web can work for anyone but the most established of artists. "It's like going to Reno and playing the slots," says Alan Bramberger, an art consultant and author of The Art of Buying Art. "You have a 1-in-10,000 chance they'll even land on your art to begin with. That's pretty dismal odds."
...But even on eBay, art sales are starting to take off. Each day the online-auction site sells more than 920 pieces in the "Affordable Art" section, which is just one of the eBay's 12 art categories. Sales in the "Self-Representing Artists" section increased 67% from 2003 to 2004, with 460 pieces now sold daily. And Costco (COST ), a somewhat unlikely outlet for art, recently sold a crayon-on-paper original Picasso online for almost $40,000.