A Business Niche Guide to Selling Antiques and Marketing Them Online
If you’re interested in selling antiques, you’re in for a great time! There are a lot of popular items out there that you can buy and sell. The most popular kind of antique is any sort of mid-century modern piece, but costume jewelry, fashion items, and collectible memorabilia are sure to reel in a lot of cash, too.
If you think that the internet is a great venue to sell antiques, you’re right. Since you’re looking to sell to a niche market, you’re going to want to reach a very specific audience, and there’s no better place to target sales than online.
Here, we’re going to give you the best tips for selling antiques online. From targeting the right customers to making sure that you’ve got the correct prices, we’re going to help you figure it all out… and maybe expand your business, too, if you want to.
Do Your Research
The first step to making any sale is to do your research. Since you’ve already started reading this article, congratulations! It looks like you already have a head start on this step.
The first thing you’re going to want to look into is how much your antiques are generally worth. This means figuring out what the most popular types of items and time periods are. You can look at the individual products later, but before you can even start thinking about selling anything you should at least know the general range of profit you might get.
Once you determine that your products are worth marketing and selling, the next thing you’ll want to research is what your target buyer is like. Is there a specific age that likes to collect the types of memorabilia you have? Do you have jewelry, which is more likely to be popular among women, or wartime memorabilia, which men may prefer?
Deciding this is the first step to creating a buyer base. The way you’re going to advertise for your product depends wholly on these factors.
Figure Out Your Product’s Value
Before setting up shop on any old web platform, you’re going to want to figure out the value of specific products that you want to sell. Since you’ve hopefully already done an initial appraisal of your inventory and know roughly how much the average sale will be, you need to try to determine more specifically which pieces will sell for more money than the rest. It’s important not to skip this step if you want to make a profit out of selling collectibles.
For example, you can learn a lot about styles like Eames Design from a quick Google search. This is probably the result of great online marketing that shows you their designs when you enter keywords.
You can also use search engines to find similar items online. See how people who will be your competitors have priced items from the same time period and collections as your inventory.
Remember that even though you want to make a profit, you shouldn’t be pricing your items up too far. If people see a better deal on a similar item on another website, you’re definitely going to lose sales.
Know How Much You’re Selling
The next question to ask yourself is how big you want your platform to be. Maybe you’re just trying to sell old family pieces that you don’t need anymore. If this is the case, you’re going to need to do a lot less marketing than if you want to start up a small business for antique dealing.
If you fall into the latter category, you’re going to need to establish a platform and marketing techniques that allow you to actually grow your business over time. Deciding on an online platform isn’t just a good idea in this case: it’s crucial.
Decide on Online Venues
If you’re only looking to sell a few items, eBay and Craigslist might be good bets. They’re simple, easy to use, and aren’t going to take much time or money to set up. Just list your items and wait for people who love antiques to search, and voila! Instant sale.
But you’re going to have to do a little more work if you want to either sell a lot of items or start up an actual business. In these cases, establishing your own website is key. Making a website will let you effectively market yourself through pictures and thorough descriptions of products.
If potential buyers like your website and think you look professional, you’re likely to make more sales. Remember to leave a section for reviews, too, so satisfied customers can tell other possible buyers how awesome your antiques are!
It’s also important to stay open-minded. Leave a section of your webpage open so people can contact you. Answer specific questions and be consumer-friendly.
It might also be a good idea to be open to haggling and price drops when someone finds better deals elsewhere. Flexibility is always appreciated by the customers of a business, and this will ensure that you don’t lose sales to competitors.
It’s All About Marketing
Once you’ve set up a website, you’re going to want to make sure that it targets the right people. If you aren’t letting people in the very niche market that you’re working in see the web page, no one is going to buy from you.
A great thing you can do to help show your page to people interested in antiques is to use a search engine optimization service, also known as SEO. Using SEO will put your page high up in search engines by using algorithms to show it to people who have searched for keywords relating to your products.
Social media like Facebook and Twitter can also really help you out. If you can get people to like and share your page, more people with similar interests are bound to find it.
Start Selling Antiques Online!
The bottom line when selling antiques is that you need to know what you’re doing, have a marketing platform, and keep an open mind when engaging with potential customers.
Now that you know the best tips for selling antiques and marketing them online, check out the ‘blog’ section of our page! Here, you can read more interesting articles about selling products… and maybe advice on how to turn your sales into a business.
Good luck! Or as they said back when some of your antiques were new… Godspeed!
