Thank you all for your responses so far. I should probably clarify a few things though
1) Let me be perfectly clear, I am *NOT* going to be doing the printing myself! We have already contracted with existing custom labs (yes, ones you've heard of) to fulfill the print orders, ditto custom framing shops. Custom labs give us better pricing due to the net volume we supply, that's how we get good prices to our members.
2) I reiterate, we are planning to offer a total, turn-key, e-commerce enabled website for our members. This is in addition to the order fulfillment feature and in addition to marketing their work to potential COMMERCIAL art buyers. The fact this is all integrated into a one-stop shop for the artist is what makes it somewhat unique comapred to other companies offering only some of these parts.
3) There are two distinct types of art sales -- collectible and decorative. The artist selling collectible art is going to want to personally inspect and hand-sign each and every print they sell, whereas decorative art may be sold without that level of artist interaction, though it certainly can be. If you sell collectible art, you still might want to use our printing services and possibly mounting and matting services, but it is unlikely you would use our framing partners since you would want to inspect and sign the print before it was framed and delivered. The commercial buyers we are promoting artist's work to might want 50 copies of a single image to be part of the collective body of work that decorates say a new 1000-room hotel in Las Vegas. This type of work is usually sold at lower prices than collectible art, usually is not limited to a specific edition and it is unlikely an artist would feel the need to touch every piece before cashing the check. Obviously, an Artist may sell both types of work and our system would support both or either to varying dgrees.
4) Lastly, our fulfillment services might be useful even if you have an Epson 9800 sitting next to your desk. For example, I have a friend who has been asked to produce 25 images of specific size for a gallery show. He has an Epson large format printer, but is outsourcing this particular print job due to personal time constraints.
Cheers,