Selling collectables and antiques is rather difficult, and more so when you sell online. The prices of antiques have fallen over the years. it has become tougher to find buyers who’re ready to shell out the price according to your expectations.
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How to Sell Antiques Online 2017
If you’re planning to sell antiques online, this guide will help you with the process.
What Is An Antique?
An item is considered to be an antique only if it’s more than 100 years old.
The value of an antique artifact increases over time; it’s important that you get the right price for them. Selling and buying antiques is a lucrative money-making option. You can make a lot of profit if you stay in the business for a long time. Selling antiques become easy when you know how to do it the right way.
If you’re new to this business, you’ll need to know what to invest on, where to sell, and how to sell. Here, we tell you just that.
Where To Invest
Unless you’re planning to sell a family heirloom, you’ll need collect antiques first in order to sell them.
Look for original items that haven’t been touched, restored, or altered. Make sure the items you invest in come with provenance. This includes records of ownership and purchase receipts.
Where To Find Antiques?
There are registered antique dealers from where you can buy antiques. Antique centres bring together many such dealers under one roof. Some of the other great places to hunt for antiques and collectables are:
- Car boot sales and jumbles sales: these are places where you can pick up bargains and get antiques and art at great prices. If you’re lucky, you might come across some undiscovered treasures.
- Charity shops are suitable for low-end antique items and collectables. Items donated to such shops are usually bought by the antique dealers themselves; you can consider it too. There’s a high chance of securing unique items at bargain prices here.
- Antique fairs are ideal for antique hunting. You’ll find numerous stalls and dealers here with variety of unique pieces.
- Auctions are another great option you should consider. By visiting auctions, you can also learn a lot from experienced buyers and sellers; you’ll gain an idea of how this market works.
Once you’ve collected antiques and collectables, you’ll need a medium to sell them. Read on to know your options.
The Best Places To Sell Antiques
Get over brick-and-mortar stores; like with most other industries today, a number of antiques customers prefer to make their purchases online. There are many websites that allow you to sell antiques.
You can even consider building your antique online store and sell with complete freedom. Let’s look at some of the popular websites to sell antiques online:
eBay
Good ol’ eBay comes to every entrepreneur’s mind when they think of selling online. Initially, people had a great time selling through eBay, and even got great prices for their products.
However, with time, more and more people have started listing their antique items on eBay. This number keeps increasing, resulting in saturation. Unless you have something extraordinary or you’re offering antiques at the lowest prices, selling on eBay isn’t a very profitable option.
Etsy
Etsy is a great place to sell handmade and vintage items.
Etsy has a huge market of customers looking for such items, and that’s a huge plus. You have to pay 20¢ for listing a single product; it remains on their website for 4 months. If your item gets sold, they’ll take away 3.5% of your sale.
And if it doesn’t, you can choose to relist again (and pay 20¢), or not.
Ruby Lane
If you want to sell through Ruby Lane, you’ll need at least 10 items to start with. Each of these needs to be priced competitively. Vintage and antique items need to be at least 20 years old, and should be priced a minimum of $5.00. You’ll have to pay a minimum fee of $54.00 per month, plus 39¢ to list each item.
TIAS
TIAS is the place for antiques and collectables.
In order to list your items on this store, you’ll need to pay $39.95 per month.
Selling On Your Own Website
This is often the best way of selling, whether you’re selling antiques or something else. You make your own rules here. You can make use of store builders like Shopify, who let you set up your own store at costs as low as $29. They also let you sell through sites like Facebook and Pinterest.
These are only some of the options at your disposal when it comes to selling antiques. Starting your own store is a great option; you get all the freedom you want, and you aren’t required to share your profits with anyone! 🙂
