posted on September 10, 2002 08:18:10 AM new
Hi All! I was wondering if anyone has used GoAntiques or Rubylane to sell antique furniture? If so, what was your experience with it. One of the owners of GoAntiques said that buyers prefer using their system over Ebay because they wish to deal with reputable antiques dealers. He also said that Ebay Sellers are switching to their system with better results. I don't know if it's sales hype or the truth, so I thought I would post this message on the board.
I am sure that Ebay is the source for those who want a "deal" no matter what. We seem to sell the item for less than we hoped when the piece doesn't meet it's reserve after the auction. That has been our Ebay experience for this summer. Would love your input! Thanks again, DLE
I have had a shop on Ruby Lane for almost a year. While I sell smalls and not furniture I have been more than pleased with the way the site is run and the sales volume. There is NO commission and a small listing and monthly per item fee that remains the same no matter what the price of the item.
The site has discussion boards. There are boards that are open to non-shop owners that the shopowners frequent to answer questions. You could post a query on the board directed to furniture sellers. They will most likely answer.
posted on September 10, 2002 11:03:52 AM new
there is a go antiques on yahoo shopping which gets high visibility,are you referring to that one??
i would like to know if yahoo is a place to see used/vintage and antique items??
posted on September 10, 2002 12:22:35 PM new
I just opened a shop on RubyLane a couple of weeks ago and I have already had two sales. I don't sell furniture, mostly small antiques and glassware. I wasn't expecting it to take off too fast and both sales were for pieces I had already tried on eBay and didn't want to lower my price. I have been really pleased.
posted on September 10, 2002 12:36:09 PM new
RubyLane users: how compatible [if at all] is Ruby Lane to an AW user like me? ... i have all my ebay auctions, plus an AW storefront [no sales yet] .... how hard would it be to take my AW/ebay unsold items, to rubylanes?
posted on September 10, 2002 01:15:39 PM new
you can log on to www.rubylane.com to find out yourself.
if you have a lot of items to transfer from one site to rubylane,they may write some programs just to help you move your files.
i think their rate is going up.
yahoo shopping is becoming more price competitive-49.95 for hosting ,10 cents per item and 1/2 &% transaction fee for item sold and 3 1/2 % commission for order coming thru yahoo network.
but you must have merchant account to have a shop on yahoo/
Ruby Lane has an FTP capacity for pic uploads. It is really simple to use the site. You can move a picture to there from anywhere with the url. I use cut and paste to move an auction from my auction manager (Not AW) and just upload the pic from my computer. You can send to auction from RL with no problems and the auction will have a link (legal) to a gallery of your RL items at auction. There is no limit to the number of items you can have in your shop.
The price is NOT going up. The cost is .25 to list an item and then .25 per month per item. You can cut your costs in 1/2 with a program based on # of items sold & listed. This 1/2 price discount will end 10/1. If you sign up before then you will be grandfathered in. You can pay for clicks and your shop is submitted to the major search engines. THERE ARE NO FINAL VALUE FEES.
Items must meet specific guidelines for each category of shop.
No I don't work for RL but I'm glad I opened my shop there. When ebay was slow this summer my shop was chugging along.
posted on September 10, 2002 10:07:15 PM new
Hi Stopwhining,
Goantiques claims to use a lot of search engines to promote their site and Yahoo is one of them. Right now if you sign up with Goantiques there is no commission, but there is a $79.00 fee per month to list your items. Your business address is not listed which may be a minus because it doesn't promote your brick and mortar business. I do like the idea of search engines support though. I am sure that Rubylane has the same thing.
It sounds like those who replied to this thread have had a good experience with Rubylane. It does hurt to give it a try. I have been using their counters forever. I will also post a message to their board and see how furniture does. It wouldn't hurt to list some smalls as well.
posted on September 11, 2002 06:01:21 AM new
if you go to yahoo shopping home page,you will find go antiques as a featured shop.
if you do a search on items which are available in go antiques and other yahoo shops,go antiques comes out ahead.
so yahoo is more than a search engine for go antiques,it may be a yahoo shop itself.
you shop name will be listed when you go and browse the whole list or else how can anyone buy from you if they dont know who you are.
rubylane is mostly for smalls,they did have a antique furniture shop from beverly hills at one time,it may have left??
posted on September 11, 2002 06:28:22 AM new
I have been contemplating Ruby lane for quite a while and am actually going to open a shop this month. All the feedback I've heard has been positive. I've also considered (and am still considering) GoAntiques but am debating between them and Trocadero.com, another antique site worth considering. Good luck and keep us posted!
By the way, GoAntiques DOES charge commissions, Trocadero does NOT!
[ edited by bkkofaz on Sep 11, 2002 06:42 AM ]
[ edited by bkkofaz on Sep 11, 2002 06:43 AM ]
posted on September 11, 2002 06:46:36 AM new
go antiques items are rather pricey,no offense,but i think the dealers should learn to take better pictures.
some ebay sellers take superb pictures.
posted on September 11, 2002 09:25:08 AM new
I was considering Trocadero.com as well, but I don't know how popular they are. Their minimum package is $15 a month for one picture and as was said on this thread, no commissions.
Stopwhining is right about the pictures. A lot of Ebay sellers take some beautifully artistic pictures. Lighting is everything, if they can see the detail, why would they buy online and invest in shipping.
There was a shop in Beverly Hills that had gorgeous French Antiques, his prices were out of this world. I heard he did a lot of rentals for the movie industry. The studios pay a rental fee for the furniture and just use them for a few weeks. I heard it can be quite lucrative. And, of course, if they break it, they own it! Part of the rental contract.
Rubylane has a nice feature of being able to zoom in on the detail of a piece. I was on for about three months, two years ago and a few questions, but no bites. I guess I could try a couple of them and see how it goes.
posted on September 12, 2002 05:28:47 AM new
Edited: I just reread daleeric's next to last post. Is the fact it is just $79. a month, with no commission somewhere on their site or is that a special offer they mailed out?
I didn't see any other memberships besides the Platinum, but they seem to be saying they have more than one. The $79.00 is starred with commissions listed, but the other memberships might be different. I just couldn't find them.
This $79. plus fees seems a little steep for smalls, but if you are selling really expensive items it would work. Beats a monthly mortgage payment. I was poking around their site because I was not familar with them.
Contracting with them for $950.00 for a year
plus commission is pretty steep. Especially in this economy. One more terrorist attack and sales might drop even more.
On the other hand, their shops were showing up alot on google when I searched various antiques.
"* This is for our Platinum membership level. All memberships are subject to review. 1-year mininum contracts required. A small commission rate will be charged when we deliver a sale to you from our network. Commission rates are based on a sliding scale for each item sold: 6% of the first $1,000, 4% on the next $4,000 (up to $5,000), and 2% on everything over $5,000. There is also a flat 2% fee charged as a processing fee based on the total transaction."
http://www.goantiques.com/join/
[ edited by aposter on Sep 12, 2002 05:39 AM ]
[ edited by aposter on Sep 12, 2002 05:40 AM ]
posted on September 12, 2002 05:57:59 AM new
go to yahoo shopping home page and you will find GO ANTIQUES as a featured shop.
do a search for item which is offered in go antiques using yahoo search in arts and collectibles and go antiques always show up ahead of other stores.
so yahoo could consider go antiques as one shop and charges 1/2% processing fee and 3 1/2 % revenue share if the order originates from yahoo network.
so what you pay go antiques includes yahoo fee.
if it shows up a lot in google search,it could be go antiques pays google in the pay per click scheme .
950 a year is not bad if it brings you good traffic which leads to sales.
on the other hand,you could also open your own yahoo shop for 49.95 per month plus 10 cents per item per month ,plus 1/2 % order processing and 3 1/2% revenue share if order comes thru yahoo network.
if you have your own shop,you can promote your brick and mortar shop,sell electronic gift certificates,issue electronic coupons,accept credit cards,conduct email marketing,cross sell,set up your own shipping rates,include/exclude countries you want to do business with etc.
you have all the yahoo features under your control.
you can also review yesterday click trails to see how many people come to your shop and what items did they browse,what searches do they do in your shop and what are the top searches on yahoo shopping.
the only drawback is that yahoo top searches are for merchandise such as cameras,pc,dvd players,wallpapers,solar panels,wedding rings thats what many shoppers come to look for on yahoo.
also you are on your own when it comes to credit card processing,the system will accept card for you and do all the verifications,it is up to you to decide if you want to ship,there is no such thing as seller protection policy.
there are intl shoppers on yahoo and their credit cards except UK is not address verified,so it becomes dicey when they order high dollar items.
[ edited by stopwhining on Sep 12, 2002 05:59 AM ]
posted on September 12, 2002 07:31:19 PM new
Stopwhining, I don't know, there is something very unromantic about buying a wedding ring on Yahoo. If my hubby did that I don't know if I could have ever come out of the depression. I can certainly understand the electronics though. I did try Yahoo Auctions and they just don't have the visibility that Ebay does.
Just testing the waters to see what works. It is important to have other venues in addition to Ebay. Ebay seems to be hot and cold. I would love it if one of these other venues worked well.
To go over costs:a showcase in one of these popular malls is $100 a month and both Ebay, Goantiques and Rubylane would have more people browsing per month. I just featured a piece of furniture on Ebay and the listing fee was $25.50. Selling anywhere is costly these days. I am paying $650 in one mall space and $600 in the other. I am thinking that if this goes well I will be able to drop one of them.
The "no commission" on Goantiques is promotional for now. I don't know when that ends, but it is temporary. No shop address appears on your site in Goantiques. I guess, they want you to go thru their system only and not thru your store.
posted on September 13, 2002 11:19:53 AM new
i agree,shopping for wedding rings on yahoo is just not the right thing to do,may be the future grooms are just researching to see what is available out there.
i can understand go antiques does not want individual sellers to display their store names and phone numbers as it may not be getting the commission .
I did try Yahoo Auctions and they just don't have the visibility that Ebay does.