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Summary: mwants expresses concerns about decreased views and followers for their antique listings, despite maintaining high seller status and using promoted listings. eoma689485 advises against mass promotion for high-end items due to increased costs and potential negative impact on search rankings, suggesting targeted promotion with detailed item descriptions instead. fullers_uk and stainlessenginecovers discuss demographic shifts affecting antique sales, noting younger generations are less interested in collectibles. lb23cavaliersmvp suggests diversifying items beyond those popular 30 years ago. tobaccocardyahoo recommends using fixed prices, listing more items, and educating buyers to adapt to changing market dynamics.
I have been selling for 30 years. I have been successful listing quality antiques & collectibles. Single items up to $10,000, some years gross to $60.000+. I am trying to become more active. The lack of views & followers for items that customarily sell for amounts well exceeding my starts is appalling. I know very well that times have changed. I have promoted listings a few times, it does not seem to matter. I have high ranking seller status. Is mass promotion the key.? I can generally afford it. Any experienced sellers in antiques have some input?
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 month agoThe number of Ebay auctions continues to shrink.
The number of items sold on one bid continues to rise. You have mostly 1 bid sales, and even your 2 bid sale was one motivated bidder who made a second unnecessary bid.
And this is true across most categories.
This is going on at the same time as many antiques and collectibles are appealing to a more narrow audience.
Using auctions will hasten the sales of some items, if there is actually a potential buyer visiting the site during the week the auction is running. It will however, depress prices realized. It will also deter many buyers who do not wish to wait to find out if they have made a purchase.
I think you need to consider a strategy which is
List as fixed price
List more items
Expect longer times to make a sale
Include in your description educational information on the item, so that a buyer knows what this item is and how it fits in antiques history.
Most buyers will never have seen anything like the items you are offering, and if we do not snag new buyers, this sort of item will eventually wind up in a landfill.
Like it or not, the naysayers are raising important issues, and acting to make the reality positive requires becoming an evangelist for what we sell.
mwants
OP1 month agoty
frugalmarketplace
·1 month agoThe naysayers are always around…..just ignore them. Everyone doesn’t want to live in a house with black trim, grey walls, and looks like everyone’s.
lb23cavaliersmvp
·1 month agoCurrently you have 24 listings and respectfully I'd estimate that half are items that were popular 30 years ago and have little hope of attracting meaningful views/sales. Last, as is your right, you are looking for close to full retail which limits interest. More listings with items in the current collectible categories would be helpful. Best of luck.
mwants
OP1 month agoty
stainlessenginecovers
·1 month agoThose that collected are now selling or dying and their 'kids' are bulk selling or getting a big dumpster to clean out the house.
Collectibles, Antique stores have been dying for from 2000 to 2010 and then completed said death in the 2010s'.
In Orange County Calif alone I saw swap meets that were 10 acres for 40 years get down to less than 1.
I saw antique stores in Circle Of Orange (100's of stores) went down to Zero.
Bottom line is Antiques/Collectibles are going the way of the DoDoBird, Buggy Whips and Hoola Hoops.
fullers_uk
·1 month agoI am seeing the same as you are here in the UK, we have one large car boot sale but its mainly goods that have been bought in bulk or blobby branded stuff, there’s very few cash transactions most have card readers, the kids inheriting there parents collectable haven’t got the self discipline to sell individual items over a period of time, all they see is a life insurance policy, car and a home they want emptied as fast as possible and a for sale board outside, they want the big price tag items.
chapeau-noir
·1 month ago<<the kids inheriting there parents collectable haven’t got the self discipline to sell individual items over a period of time>>
I don't see self-discipline in the equation. I do see time apportionment in what is probably already busy lives with their own families and work. It's really a service to kids to get rid of that stuff, if possible, and not land them with clutter on top of grief and everything else, then expecting that they set up eBay, etc., accounts to sell each piece for years.
I know, my sibling and I ended up with boxes of 'stuff'.
fullers_uk
·1 month agoAs I am seeing, the age group that buys my products is dying off so my sales are slowing, could that be a cause of lower sales?
eoma689485
·1 month agoAdopting a "blanket" promotion strategy usually yields poor returns for high-end collectibles for two reasons:
The "Pay-to-Play" Trap: If you opt into mass promotion, you might drive up your advertising costs just to get your item in front of casual window-shoppers rather than serious collectors.
Low Conversion Signals: If mass promotion shows your $10,000 item to 10,000 unqualified buyers who click but don't buy, the algorithm flags the item as "low conversion" and pushes it down in organic search rankings.
Instead of mass promoting every listing, only promote your highest-margin or most unique items. Set a fixed, low ad rate cap (e.g., 2-3%) rather than letting the platform dynamically scale the fee. You want to pay only for the exact keyword match, not broad category visibility.
Modern search engines favor exact specifications. A title like "Stunning 19th Century French Carriage Clock" gets buried. Change your naming convention to mimic specific collector search terms: "1880 French Carriage Clock Brass Striking Repeater [Maker Name] Working". Include every possible identification mark, patent date, and material in the first four words.
mwants
OP1 month agoty