 |
| | |
| | |
|
 | Strategies for Selling High-End Antiques
| Provide your customers with the confidence they need to invest in your high-value antiques. Let eBay's tips on selling high-end items help you get the attention you deserve.
- Independent Verification: Verify the authenticity of your object with the help of a certified grading service or professional appraiser. For antiquarian books, try PKBooks Include a scan of your certificate of authenticity or appraisal report in your listing.
- Visual Proof: Include a gallery of images in your listing with different views and close-ups. Photograph key identifying marks. See example.
- Provenance: Provide a detailed history of ownership for the item, which can increase its value. Also, consider listing reference texts in your description to validate your object and market. Help potential bidders conduct their own research.
- Guarantee: Stand behind your sales. Offer a money-back guarantee, minus shipping and third-party fees.Suggest an escrow service for the safe transfer of funds and property.
- Feedback: Maintain a high positive feedback rating. Offer PayPal and ship the day payment clears for increased feedback.
- Marketing: Toot your horn by listing degrees, accreditations, professional affiliations, and honors on your About Me page. Then, link to it from your listings. See example.
- Promotion: Invest in promotion, particularly eBay listing upgrades such as Bold, Gallery and Featured Plus!
Develop trust and credibility with your high-end antique buyers from the start.
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
|
Select the Right Antiques Category
Serious collectors are particular. They expect property to be catalogued correctly. Don't jeopardize your success by carelessly categorizing your antiques.
Take note of these important category-selection tips:
- Use the "Other Antiques" category sparingly. eBay research indicates that items in this category obtain lower conversion rates than in targeted Antiques categories.
- Leverage eBay's "List in 2 Categories" feature to simplify category selection. eBay research indicates that it can increase bidding and final price by 15% and 18%*, respectively. Learn more.
Consider the drawbacks of improperly selecting your antique categories. Miscataloging...
- Diminishes credibility with serious collectors.
- Limits your qualified audience.
- Encourages unsatisfactory transactions and poor feedback.
Reach the right collectors the first time. Be precise with your category selection and realize results.
* This represents an average based on data from February 2002 transactions. No representation is made that a seller's final price or conversion rate of a specific item will increase by the average percentages noted above.
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
|
 | marinoimports (154), Marino Imports
Staying Competitive
| Fine European furniture dealer Candice Pon is a realist. She understands how competitive her business can be and runs her operation accordingly.
Pon's business Marino Imports keeps its options open, selling at wholesale prices to both dealers and collectors from her appointment-only facility in San Francisco. In short, she's diversified her business to remain as competitive as possible.
Her latest competitive advantage is eBay. Transitioning to eBay has been easy for Pon. For one, she has appropriate wholesale product, bought in bulk at the source in Europe. Additionally, eBay provides her the tools she needs to sell her pieces in volume. Her strategy: Use Buy It Now liberally. Also, list without reserves, but set a starting price close to her Buy It Now price. The goal, according to Pon, is to advertise the price she wants and quickly find one or two qualified buyers.
"I use Buy It Now and no reserve to move overstock fast," says Pon. Listing without a reserve also has promotional value, providing her with an extra incentive to include those terms in her listing titles.
For an edge over the competition, Pon uses very market-specific listing titles. They're rife with the buzzwords buyers are using in their searches, from "Cottage Furniture" to "Shabby Chic." She uses equally precise trade language and terminology in her descriptions, which she says helps attract a diversity of buyers, from collectors and dealers to designers.
"Furniture language is pretty universal," says Pon. "I attract all types of buyers. I even have customers from Hong Kong, Germany, Paris and Italy contacting me in the States."
| | |
| | |
| | |
Must use Buy It Now and PayPal.
