A business website allows you to display current nventory, as well as to list the type of merchandise you are looking to buy.
A business website is also a great place to list
contact information, information on your showroom or shows you will be selling
at, and any other pertinent information you wish to share with your customers.
Your website can also serve as a platform to
promote an e-mail list. E-mail lists can be used to advertise items that are
for sale, announce items that you are seeking to purchase, and to promote shows
where you will be selling. E-mail lists work best if the customer feels that
they are receiving value from the subscription so make sure to include good
information and not always try to "sell" something to your
subscribers.
Research every purchase as carefully as possible
if you are not certain what you are buying. Purchasing a warehouse of inventory
that cannot be sold at a profit is a quick trip to being out of business.
Choosing one or two specialties can help to avoid the confusion that goes with
trying to master multiple types of antiques and collectibles.
Best
Places to Shop for Antiques, Reproductions and Collectibles in Bangkok,
Thailand
eBay
Partnering Kaboodle to Promote My Collectibles.
Organize and keep track of
your entire collection
- Share your collection with
friends, family, and other collectors
- Explore collections from
around the world
- Rate other collections and
collectors
- Find collectors that share your
passion
- While the eBay/Kaboodle
collaboration is being touted by both partners as a free, Web 2.0
communications and sharing tool for collectors, it is designed to promote
the sale of many different types of items offered for sale at eBay.
Shown below are the top five finalists for Selling Collectibles in
their order of finish.
Antique Appraisals Onlinewww.roykas.comNationally known expert Seen on TV Find out the value of
your items
Old cameras to selladorama.com/Used_DepartmentAdorama Buys & Sells Used Photo Equipment.
Shop Vintage and Antiqueswww.rubylane.comChoose From Over 500,000 Items Own Something Special!
Webstore
Webstore is a free marketplace that "hopes to bring
the 'Garage Sale' to the online world." When checking out their thousands
of listings, they just might realize the dream. In a good way.
Artfire
This is the newbie in the bunch, starting just a few short
years ago. Although the company's mission is for the "handmade, art, and
indie business", sellers have also found a niche for selling their vintage
collectibles.
Etsy
As with the Buying nominations, Etsy also had a strong
following for selling collectibles and antiques. With the fees also being very
affordable, many vintage sellers apparently list here as an alternative market
place.
Ruby Lane
RubyLane has been around since the 1998 and includes
categories such as Antiques, Fine Arts, Jewelry and Collectibles. Of the top
five nominations, RubyLane has some of tightest restrictions on what may and
may not be sold on their website, along with strict requirements for their
sellers.
About the
Readers' Choice Awards
About.com's Readers' Choice Awards provide users with a
chance to voice their opinions about the best products across some of the most
popular categories on About.com. The recipients of the Reader's Choice Awards
will have the unique opportunity to display the coveted About.com Reader's
Choice Awards badge on their Web site.
Google: Buyers looking for
antiques and collectibles can search by image, topics, websites etc. OK, I
don't have explain Google to you, just know that there are unlimited ways to
search for items, and buyers are more likely to use Google's search box than
any other source.
eBay: Yup that's right, even with all it's recent problems and
controversial changes, if you want to get the job done, the online auction
giant still offers the best chance of actually selling your item.
Amazon: They have great
customer support for a company this size, you can actually get them on the
phone!
Worthpoint: From out of nowhere came this company
which calls itself a Social Network for Antiquers. It's achieved hyper-rapid
growth and is approaching 60,000 users! Worthpoint is where you want to go if you have a
high end item that you would like to get in a major auction house, but need
assistance.
Their experts, or "Worthologists" as they are called,
will guide you in an appraisal and if needed turn it over to their team of
brokers to negotiate proper placement and the best possible commission
percentage in major auction houses throughout the world. Watch for big things
to come from this company as they have just purchased GoAntiques, the online
antiques mall with over 300,000 users!
Bonanzle: This site is fun, fun, fun and very simple. It brags that
you can post a listing in 60 seconds, so I signed up and put it to the test,
you can. I was on the site for the day, chatting with users and making business
connections. It's all about social selling. When you sign up for Bonanzle,
you get a "booth" that has it's own chat room.
People can either buy from you live when your online, or drag
and drop any of the items in your booth to the easy check-out shopping cart.
Lots of sites claim they are easy to use, and then are just plain hell when you
try to get started. Bonanzle is as easy as it claims. Because of this and it's
neat social selling aspect, I think the site is going to do well. It's also
experiencing rapid growth.
Your own site: Google's powerful search engine is grows every day, making it much easier, more efficient and profitable than ever to sell on your own site. I'm not advocating that you sell only on your own website, rather dovetail your efforts with another good selling platform to multiply your efforts exponentially. Selling multi-channel is a must as it helps to gain experience and increase your customer base, but make no mistake do need a unique web presence.
Your own site: Google's powerful search engine is grows every day, making it much easier, more efficient and profitable than ever to sell on your own site. I'm not advocating that you sell only on your own website, rather dovetail your efforts with another good selling platform to multiply your efforts exponentially. Selling multi-channel is a must as it helps to gain experience and increase your customer base, but make no mistake do need a unique web presence.
EveryplaceIsell.com: A great anchor to all of these things
is a wonderful online directory called Everyplace I Sell .com It's
exactly what it sounds like, it's free to use and is run by the very capable
staff who brought you Auctionbytes.com, the #1 online auction magazine. Simply
stated, EveryplaceIsell.com is a directory where people can find you no matter
which platform you sell on, be it your own, or any other.
