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Good Evening Forum,
I wanted to reach out and see opinions on working with dealers/galleries. I just had a very strange and unpleasant experience with a dealer that I always found to be nice and helpful, as well as is somewhat well known. I am honestly very bothered by the exchange as it was downright mean.
The dealer is based in a large city, and I have asked a few times on prices of pieces that were listed, and unfortunately all have been out of my price range. I always thank him for his time and have told him they were a bit more over what I could spend at the time. He was always very nice in his response.
I have been saving up a bit to buy a good piece (with the intention of wanting to buy from him since I love his inventory) and reached out on a piece but never got a response. I waited a bit over two weeks and l sent an email "just kindly following up on the my previous email". I got a very mean response back saying that I "waste his time asking for prices and that he doesn't answer toxic people like me who are nothing but curious looky-losers and can't afford anything from him".
I really held this dealer in high regards and this genuinely hurt my feelings. 😥
I am hoping for some genuine feedback or constructive criticism from you all if I did something wrong. I usually have a max budget of up to $1,000 usd or so after saving up for a bit (sometimes a bit more) and the about 4 or 5 pieces I have reached out on over the course of about a year and a half have all been a bit over what I was able to spend at the time. Is it not ok to reach out to dealers and ask pricing? Should I not reach out to a seller in a bigger city? Or give my budget up front? I guess I am just trying to figure out how to avoid this, because it honestly has really bothered me. He has pieces in my budget, just not the ones I asked on.
I guess I understand where he is coming from, but I don't see the need to use nasty names and words to someone who is providing you with praise on your catalogues and genuinely loves your inventory. It is very discouraging to a collector in their 20's who is just trying to learn.
Thanks for letting me vent everyone.
Best
Justin
I think that is unprofessional of him. Responding to emails is pretty easy.
I will stay, I knew someone who used to have a retail store. There were several customers who came in every week to look around. They never bought anything, and used her bathrooms and toilet paper every time they came in. There was talk about charging people to come into the shops regardless of whether or not they buy anything. Some incredibly easy purchases (less than 5 dollar items) were offered, but this did not work either.
You should never spend money on a rude business if they can’t provide reasonable customer service then I would walk away. I would have to say that lately Asian art has become very aggressive and competitive I’m starting to get that bad taste in my mouth lately.
Very rude and unprofessional dealer.
I often have one client (or potentially) ask about numerous items with regards to price etc.
Courtesy costs nothing.
It takes many conversations and months to build up trust between dealers and new clients. Responses like these are destructive.
Mark
Sounds like he's a bad business person who has now lost a future customer because of his rudeness. What a shame.
How unpleasant for you! Good customer service is the basis of a good business. If he doesn’t want people asking about prices, they should be clearly displayed
Sorry, too late to edit my last post, but I can't get it out of my head. His/her attitude will impact on other dealers, because it is the kind of thing that makes one hesitate to reach out to them and start conversations about their pieces. I think you have been very restrained by not naming and shaming.
Quite an appalling response,sorry that it happened to you.
I once contacted an American Dealer of Whieldon pottery and got a similar sour reply.
Vic
That sounds really unpleasant. I don’t know how old the dealer is but have had experience with an old woman I had a good contact with for many years. Then suddenly she accused me without reason - it was because she had started to suffer from dementia.
Birgit
Thanks everyone, I appreciate your replies. I heard back from him again and aparently he thought I was asking the price for everything in his catalogue? (I don't understand why he would think that, as I put the name of the piece from the website in the subject line, and asked for the price of "this piece".) I guess that was the reason for the aggressive response? I am not sure.
While I am actually able to afford the piece I asked for, I honestly don't think I want to buy from him anymore. This kind of ruined my feelings on his gallery, which is really unfortunate. It gave me "people with smaller budgets aren't worth my time" vibes, aparently even when that time is a one sentence email response.
I know we are all guilty sometimes of snap judgement or harsh words, but good lord. I never could condone name calling or anything like that.
Oh well I guess, it just really bothered me last night and I appreciate everyone confirming that I wasn't crazy!
Justin
@jg1133 It is worse to have no custom. That same person may find a purchase on another day. In this case, the person misread an email, perhaps the misreading due to some other stress, be the bigger person. If it went beyond looky loo, take your custom else where.
Hey Justin,
I am sorry you’ve had such a bad experience. I cannot imagine responding like that. I get maybe a hundred and fifty to two hundred emails a day, many are shipping quotes(which are ungodly high right now) and many are people who are probably looky-loos. Never in a million years would I send a response like that, especially if I didn’t list prices. I probably would have responded in kind, we don’t need toxic dealers and I would take my business elsewhere.
Jeremy
@rahawkins Thanks for the laugh, toilet paper as a capital expense.
@jg1133 Justin,
There's no good excuse for treating a customer rudely, but as you might have seen from reading many posts regarding the Chinese antique business, there is an excess of bad actors who pose as buyers who try to manipulate sales, beat down sellers on their prices, and othewise cause more trouble than its worth to do business with that person. So, there are good reasons why sellers get irritated with buyers.
Since you have never actually spent any money with this seller, he or she has no way to judge your true intentions...only your actions (or lack there of since you have not bought anything).
Additionally, good/genuine Chinese antiques are in short supply, so dealers (even myself) can be very selective over whom we do business with.
Is this seller a valuable resource for future purchases for you? If so, you should try to rekindle a better relationship....ultimately to prove your worth as a client, you will need to spend some money.
I was not unlike you in my earier years...going to every antique store, asking best prices, and not buying unless I felt it was a real bargain. In part, the seller was often at fault for having overly high expectations on price, or the piece turned out to be not quite as good as I orginally thought.
However, from the seller's point of view, they have overhead and other expenses, and perhaps your inquiries which are not resulting in sales are irritating... not your fault, but it is a good idea to keep in mind the seller's point of view if you hope to do business one day.
@greeno107 that is honestly what I was thinking, I have kind of let it go for now and will probably proceed with buying this piece. That is if he will sell it to me, I really am not sure based on the correspondence. I think he genuinely believed that I was asking for prices for his entire catalog which is over 100 pieces, so I would see why he would be angry if he genuinely thought that's what I was asking for.
I understand what you are saying with the irritation that would come with giving details on a piece and then not getting a sale, but I kind of feel like that comes with the territory a bit. Not every interaction will lead to a sale in anything. Especially considering the pieces that I asked him in regards to previously were all, except for one, in an auction where he consigned some of his pieces. So I did not have control over the prices they ended up going for, which were over what I was looking to spend at the time.
I'm over it at this point, I was just very bothered by it before I realized what the cause of his anger was which sounds as though it was the open asking of prices for the entirety of his catalog.
The most off-putting part about this entire thing was that the email started with me complimenting him on how good his recent catalog was, and how it was a very interesting read and that I really enjoyed it. So to get that kind of response back was very surprising and took me off guard. Hopefully things will be fine going forward, I was hoping that once he realized he was wrong with what he thought I was asking for a price on an individual piece, I would get an apology for his mistake, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen.
Hopefully proceeding with a purchase and showing that I am not just wasting his time will be the best thing. I did genuinely appreciate his help in the past, many of the items we discussed before were in auctions so it wasn't like I could just go and buy something flat out anyway. One thing I should definitely take note of going forward to not take everything so personally 😊
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