BidAmount Site Survey User Results | Asian Art Newsletter

BidAmount Site Survey, What We Learned

BidAmount Site Survey User Results | Asian Art

BidAmount site survey reveals some surprises, more than a few actually. As a result, we'll be adding new site features and changing how and what we focus on while expanding content. We will not, however, be removing anything.

Our thanks to all of you who took the time to respond, it is deeply appreciated. Your invaluable input will play an integral part in our decision making in the coming weeks and months. Our hope is to build a unique community resource for folks who buy-sell-collect and love Asian art and antiques. Moving forward we will from time to time reach out again to our guests and friends for advice and opinions.

The BidAmount Site Survey: What we learned about our visitors. (In a nutshell)

Areas of Interest

Over 80% are collectors and nearly half are also collectors and dealers.
60% have been involved with Asian art as collectors or dealers for more than ten years. (A number of them have 5 or more decades of experience.)
93% buy, sell or are interested in Chinese objects.
90.5% buy, sell or are interested in Chinese porcelain
62% buy, sell or are interested in Qing bronzes and cloisonne.
37% buy, sell or are interested in jade.
41% buy, sell or are interested in Japanese objects.
The two most popular periods of collecting are the Qing and Ming dynasties respectively. (not a huge surprise, but good to know)
A large percentage "Like" scrolls and paintings, yet 27% "Never buy them".

Buying Habits

Over 17.6% buy something every week.
30.5% buy several times a month. (i.e. 48.1% in total buy more than one piece per month)
34% buy something every other month.
78% buy on eBay, half are BIN buyers.
58% also buy directly from dealers.

Site Wish List for BidAmount

50% would like to have a "Market Place" to connect buyers and sellers.
A number of dealers commented and eMailed asking about the possibility of placing advertisements on a regular basis, for both eBay listings, and on their own websites.
35% would like more auction-related news.
28% would like more museum news.
27% would like a community "Message Board" to share information and images.
A few also commented the site is at times difficult to navigate. (We'll be working on that by cleaning up the menus, they have gotten a bit unwieldy)

Changes and What to Look For Going Forward

1. The "elephant in the room". Nearly 50% of our visitors think we should have a Marketplace for buying and selling. We agree!

also 58% of the respondents said they buy directly from dealers.

Additionally, many dealers have specifically have inquired about having a page about their business on our site. Not only for their eBay listings but also, for their business websites as well.

So we've decided to set up two pages for sellers:

"BidAmount Marketplace", A place for sellers to post images and information about their items. It will be free. CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE
"The BidAmount Dealers Pages", for dealers and auctioneers. Each will be full page with unlimited text space, fully linked with image and video options to suit your needs and budget. Just send us your information, we'll do the rest. CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

For more information "Contact" us.

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2. More Auction News and Museum News Content

Auction & Museum News Page: Including Articles, catalogs and press release links for Christie's, Sotheby's, Bonhams, Doyles, Freeman's etc. Also, Museum events: exhibitions, online resources, and acquisitions.

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3. A "Message Board"

We've looked into a number of options for a Message Board with image capabilities. We so far have found only one that offers the flexibility and ability to share images that is clean and won't crash our site. Most message board plugins do not permit the uploading of images as we see on sites like Google Plus and Facebook. We're testing it currently, stay tuned.

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4. Site House Keeping and Navigation

As we work to implement the changes we've already discussed, Menus, Links, Search Catagories will be better organized as we move along. A "Site Navigation Page" has been added on to the menu to more easily get visitors started. All future site additions will be updated there.

BidAmount Site Survey User Results | The Details

"Survey Says!

Who uses the site?

" 8 % are straight up dealers,
46.5% are collectors,
34.8% both deal and collect,
9.3% are fans but do not collect or sell.
BidAmount Site Survey Results
1.1% left no response.

Our thoughts: This translates into some interesting numbers. We now know 42.9% of our users are involved in dealing Asian art or antiques. This is a larger number than we thought. We also knew we had a good number of collectors however when you combine collectors and collector-dealers the total rises to over 80%, excluding straight up dealers and "other."

Length of Interest in Asian Antiques

0% have been interested in Asian antiques less than a year.
12.7 % have been interested in Asian antiques for one to three years.
5.8% have been interested in Asian antiques for three to six years.
11.6% have been fans of Asian antiques for six to ten years.
60.4% have been interested in Asian antiques for over ten years. We also heard from a few who've been collecting for 50 to 60 years.

Our thoughts: This was good to see, we're now thinking of ways to engage some of these collectors who might be willing to perhaps contribute images and stories about their collections and collecting habits. Collecting stories are always unique, interesting and informative.

Areas or Countries of Origin are interest

92.9% China, this was a bit of a surprise
41.1 % Japan, this was also a surprise given the relative quietness of the Japanese market compared to China
10.9% Korea
4.7% Thailand
2.3% Cambodia
4.7% Vietnam

Our thoughts: Interestingly there is a distinct amount of overlap here with both Chinese and Japanese antique collectors-dealers. In total, Japanese antiques garner more interest than Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam combined.

Bidamount Site Survey Asian Art

Materials collected, bought sold studied and coveted.

90.5% Porcelain
37.6% Jade
32.9% Bronzes
25.8% to 32.9% are interested evenly in each: paintings, scholar's objects, export wares, carved wood-treen wares.

Our thoughts: While we knew porcelains were a top category, we were pretty surprised it went over 90% and jades came in ahead of bronzes and scholar's objects.

Most collected types of enamel and colored porcelain

53.6% Famille Rose
47.5% Famille Verte
40.2% Doucai
42.6% Wucai
20.7 Sancai
50% Monochromes
12.% Arita
13.4% Imari (Japanese)
17% Satsuma
14.6% Tea Wares
4.8% do not buy porcelain

Our thoughts: Not surprisingly Famille Rose was the most popular, however, it was surprising how much interest there is in Famille verte, Wucai and monochromes only slightly behind Famille Rose. We didn't include blue and white as we already knew it was in the 70% range from our own data. Additionally, Japanese ceramics showed more interest than we had anticipated.

Bronzes and Cloisonne

62.1% Qing dynasty
44% Ming Dynasty
27% Pre-Ming dynasty
21% Japanese
18.9% have never bought either. (kinda surprising)

How often do you make a purchase?

17.6% At least once a week.
30.5% Several times a month.
34.1% Every other month.
8.2% Once every six months.
4.7% Once a year.

Sources I buy from

33.3% Mostly live auctions.
47.6 Live auctions other than eBay
78.5% eBay auctions.
34.5% eBay Buy It Nows
58.3% Dealers
34.5% Flea Markets and Boot Sales

Things you would like to see added to BidAmount.com

13.5% More categories of antiques.
9.4% The News-Letter page updated more than once a week.
35.1% More news from the auction market.
28.3% More news about museum events.
27% Community Message board with image sharing.
50% A Market Place with items for sale.