Shipping & print

Printing and shipping are the seller's cost, always — buyers pay the artwork price plus optional insurance, nothing else. This page is mostly for artists: how fulfillment actually works once an order lands in your queue, and what buyers can expect from packaging to delivery.

Who pays for what

Bello never adds a shipping or printing line to a buyer's checkout total. If you're an artist, that means your listed price needs to already account for what it costs you to produce and ship the work — materials, printing, framing, crating, and freight. We don't dictate your margins or your print method; we just keep those costs off the buyer's total so the price they see is the price they pay.

Physical fulfillment, step by step

1. Order confirmed, escrow held. Once a buyer checks out, payment sits in escrow — you don't need to worry about a payment falling through mid-production.
2. You produce or prepare the work. For a unique original already finished, this might just mean careful packing. For a limited or open edition, it means printing (or casting, or whatever your medium calls for) the specific numbered impression sold.
3. Photograph the condition report. Before the work leaves your studio, photograph it — this is your evidence baseline if a damage dispute is ever raised later, and it protects you as much as the buyer.
4. Include the certificate of authenticity. Every physical work ships with a signed certificate stating authenticity and, for editions, the impression number.
5. Ship with tracking. Attach carrier and tracking information to the order as soon as it's dispatched — this is what lets both you and the buyer follow the package and is the backbone of confirming delivery.
6. Mark delivered, wait for confirmation. Once the carrier confirms delivery (or the buyer confirms manually), the buyer has a window to inspect the work before escrow releases to your wallet.

Print methods and paper

Our shipping-rate infrastructure supports multiple carrier and print-method combinations — archival pigment printing on cotton-rag stock is the most common combination among our print-based sellers, chosen for longevity and consistent color reproduction, but you're free to work with whatever print method and paper suits your practice, as long as your listing accurately describes it.

Carriers

We support both standard regional post and express international courier service, with rates that vary by base cost plus a per-kilogram weight charge — useful context if you're pricing a larger, heavier piece and want to estimate your own fulfillment cost before setting a listing price. Whichever carrier you choose, tracking is not optional: it's the evidentiary backbone of the delivery-confirmation and dispute process described on our Escrow & disputes page.

Delegating to Bello

Some sellers prefer to handle every shipment personally; others use the delegate-to-seller option at checkout time so a buyer's shipping choice is coordinated more directly with your own fulfillment process. Either way, the underlying obligations — insurance eligibility, condition reporting, tracked shipment — stay the same.

International shipping

Bello is a global marketplace, and a meaningful share of orders cross borders. As the seller, you're responsible for accurately declaring shipment contents and value on any customs paperwork; buyers are responsible for any import duties or taxes their own country assesses, unless you've explicitly stated otherwise at the point of sale. Build reasonable customs-clearance time into the shipping estimate on your artist profile so buyers aren't caught off guard.

Insurance

Buyers can add transit insurance at checkout — 1.5% of the artwork price — which covers full replacement value if a work is lost or damaged before delivery is confirmed. The premium is held in escrow alongside the artwork price and isn't commissionable; if a claim is needed, it's handled through the same dispute process as any other delivery issue, using your condition report and the carrier's tracking record as the evidentiary basis.

Digital works

None of the above applies to digital-only listings — no printing, no carrier, no condition report. Digital works are delivered instantly once escrow is confirmed, and delivery confirmation is based on successful file access rather than a physical handoff.

Questions about a specific shipment or a rate you're not sure how to price into a listing? Reach us through the chat widget — we're glad to talk through the mechanics before you commit to a listing price.