Selling antique furniture is challenging because of the detailed assessment. You need to work on multiple factors to determine the value of your items.
After that, you will struggle with the pictures, descriptions, and selling platforms. Maintenance is also a crucial part of the process.
You are watching: How To Sell Antique Furniture? 7 Steps To Get A Successful Sale
But don’t worry! You can still nail it with the pro tips we share right here. Let’s follow us and learn how to sell antique furniture for the best sale!
How To Sell Antique Furniture?
Making your first sales requires much effort, time, and money. But once you progress, it will become easier. You should follow this guide for the best result.
Step 1: Identify the antique furniture
The first step in making a successful sale is to conduct a comprehensive inspection of your antique furniture. It involves multiple factors to work with.
- Authenticity
You must first determine whether your furniture is actually an antique. It may require an appraiser’s assistance, which may be expensive and difficult to find. You can also look for these clues for confirmation.
The first step in making a successful sale is to conduct a comprehensive inspection of your antique furniture.
Start with the type of finish. For example, some furniture dealers may claim that their items came out at the beginning of the 18th century. However, some finishes, such as varnish and lacquer, weren’t available during that time.
Furniture’s writings can also help determine its age. And only on the tag or label area of wooden items can you see such.
Besides, genuine antique furniture has a variety of wood kinds. The high-quality ones cover the object’s body, whereas the low-quality ones remain hidden inside.
- Manufacturer’s mark
To identify your antique furniture’s authenticity, check for tangible proof, like the manufacturer’s mark.
The maker’s tag remains hidden under the furniture. Artisans do it because they want to maintain the furniture’s finish.
You can also locate the maker’s tag or label within your antique furniture, such as at the lower edge or underside of the item.
- Furniture marriage
Some antique furniture has two or more pieces of furniture. Each, however, differs from the others because of their age and origin.
For example, your furniture can likely be a marriage if the legs seem to be the incorrect size.
- Current condition
Antique dealers value antique furniture that has withstood the test of time more than aesthetically pleasing copies.
Thus, owners of such antique furniture make significant upkeep investments to prevent deterioration.
Step 2: Take photos
For valuation purposes and to attract potential purchasers, you must take photographs of the unique artwork.
Taking good pictures doesn’t mean that you must use a sophisticated camera. Instead, focus on setting the scene to highlight outstanding features of your antique furniture.
A professional photographer can perform this task with ease. If he will charge you a high cost, why don’t you take the photos on your own? These tips will help:
- Set up the antique furniture in a spot with lots of natural light.
- Remove distracting objects from the camera’s range of vision and set up a simple background.
- Use a tripod so you can handle your shaky hands.
- Take pictures of the object from different angles to emphasize all of its critical elements.
- Zoom in on specialty labels, marks, patterns, all distinguishable characteristics, and even damage.
- Check your pictures for color consistency and image clarity.
- Avoid editing the pictures too much as they won’t look authentic.
- Give detailed descriptions of the antiques in each picture’s caption.
- Put all images of a piece of furniture in a file folder and name it.
- Organize the folders so you can access and upload them easily.
This video will share with you more tips for taking good furniture pictures:
Step 3: Write descriptions
The description tells your customers about the products. Moreover, unique documentation will be the best thing to boost their value.
Owning a file drawer just for your antique furniture would be excellent. Each file may come with a few printed pictures for easy recognition.
Then, if any material is fascinating or relevant to you as an antique collector or dealer, you should keep tangible copies of it.
Here are some examples of items you may put in this folder:
- Notes on identification from your study.
- Any records related to the object’s artisan, manufacturer, and background.
- A description of how you got the antique object.
- Equivalent listings and prices for estimation.
- Receipts for any maintenance work.
- Reports of professional assessments.
Step 4: Value the furniture
To value antique items, you need a wide range of knowledge. So if you are not confident, we recommend hiring an expert or consulting verified documentation at this stage.
Yet, we also have some clues that help you estimate how much the furniture may cost. At least, you will have an idea of their price range.
- Age
Age is not the primary factor in determining if your antique furniture is of great worth. However, you need to include it in your assessment.
For example, 16th-century furniture that is still visually attractive can be quite expensive because it has been around for a very long time.
- Craftsmanship
The production process of your antique furniture also affects its market value.
There will be a huge difference between handcrafted products and those made with machines.
Handcrafted products require a lot of work, labor, and time to complete. The complicated process increases their value.
Meanwhile, as machine-made antique furniture demands less labor, its value is probably lower.
How can you distinguish an antique piece of furniture made by hand vs. by a machine? The handcrafted one has the maker’s name. On the other hand, machine-made products have the logo or name of the company on them.
- Beauty
Age and craftsmanship of the antique furniture are just some of the criteria to value the items. To some buyers, exotic materials play an essential role.
For instance, expensive antique furniture constructed of Ebony wood and set with genuine diamonds are more costly than regular pieces that just look old and handcrafted.
Step 5: Choose selling platforms
You can sell antique furniture locally or online. Your options are numerous, but we find the following places the most effective.
- Local stores
One of the best places to sell antique furniture locally soon is antique stores.
Although it’s convenient, you’ll probably have to sell your stuff for a price that’s 30% less than its retail value.
You might get much better prices when you sell your furniture through auction houses. However, the price can be lower than the product’s actual worth.
The problem occurs because the furniture cost is independent of the seller’s or buyer’s decision. Instead, it relies on the price of similar items in auction sales.
- Online platforms
You may want to sell your items online if you want to save money, time, and energy. Here are the best platforms for you.
Etsy
Etsy allows you to sell custom-made, handcrafted, and antique products. If you are an antique dealer, you fall under the “vintage” label.
Etsy says that antique objects must be at least 20 years old. It is technically impossible to sell products on this platform if they are younger than 20 years old.
Working on this site, you will have to pay some fees. For example, you will pay a 20-cent fee for listing. Moreover, the transaction fee is 5%.
Bonanza
There are no setup and listing fees for selling your antiques on Bonanza. But you’ll have to pay a charge of 3.5% once you sell a product.
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Besides, there will be an additional 5.5% cost if you decide to promote your product on Google AdWords.
To attract more buyers, Bonanza provides various advertising charges. This feature might be helpful if you’re often considering selling antiques.
OfferUp
You don’t have to pay to sell and list your items. Moreover, the platform has a special section for selling antiques only. It means that buyers can find your items easier.
Social media
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram employ many algorithms to identify and recommend people, groups, and businesses with the same interest as you.
Social networking may be helpful since it allows you to interact with like-minded people all around the world. A quick search for “antique furniture” brings up many articles you may read for advice, suggestions, facts, and more.
Step 6: Maintain your furniture
Even if it could sell quickly, you might need to keep your antique furniture as you look for the perfect buyer. The problem is you need to store these valuable items more carefully. Otherwise, they will suffer from gradual disintegration.
The most straightforward storage tip is to keep antique furniture in dry and safe places. Only in such areas can they maintain their conditions and selling value.
Besides, you can follow these storage tips:
- Keep the furniture as you usually do with it. For example, do not let the table legs face up.
- Do not stack your precious items on top of one another. If possible, avoid contact between them.
- Choose a site with lots of storage space that allows you to access quickly and reposition the items effortlessly.
- Wipe off all the dust and debris on the surfaces before storing.
- Use a blanket or plastic cover to shield the antique pieces.
- Set up a climate-controlled room for the best storage conditions.
Step 7: Sell your furniture
Now everything is ready. You can sell your furniture to the ones who care about and appreciate them.
Finding buyers may take some time, depending on the sort of furniture you sell. Be patient and ensure your listing is available for at least a couple of weeks.
Once you’ve found a buyer, you must plan for delivery and pickup of the item, depending on what you both agree on.
Put in every effort during this period to guarantee that the object can come to the customer in the described condition.
Utilizing special delivery services and materials can be necessary. And remember to include a receipt and make a copy for your records.
Extra Tips For Selling Antique Furniture
The seven steps above are already helpful for you to get successful sales. Yet, we have some extra tips to help you get the most money from the furniture.
Buy insurance
Your items may get damaged during delivery. If disasters happen, you will lose a lot of money.
In this case, we advise getting insurance for your items, especially the highly valuable ones. So in case of damage, compensation will save your day.
Build a collection
People may see you as a collector if you sell your antique furniture list online. They also assume that you are well aware of their market value.
As a result, this tip will give you the jurisdiction you need to establish yourself as a professional antique dealer.
Do your research
You can find out the average price range of your items and how many people sell the same items. Once you identify the price range, you can value your furniture a little higher to leave room for negotiation.
Conclusion
If you intend to sell antique furniture, you will need to assess its value, choose the selling platforms, and maintain the objects properly. It may sound simple, but it only works when you put effort into every step.
Hopefully, you will find this guide helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. We will get back to you soon.
Thank you for reading!
Source: https://antiquewolrd.com
Categories: Antique News
