Dear staartmees,

Could you provide an eBay link to your plates, please? If we can see them, perhaps we'd have some suggestions for you as to why they appear to be slow in gaining attention.

Best wishes,

Alan

Ebay use a ''Best Match'' system as default when you search for items , You are just not near the top of that ladder at the moment , Try advertising the item by linking it to Facebook or Twitter , that way you will get more views and it kind of cons Ebay into pushing you up the listings on that ''best match'' system I was talking about, Then you will grow from there.

But don't worry if you can't do that , you will just have to wait a bit longer but the views will come , also check your spelling and use of keywords in your title.

Best regards

Carl

Hello,

I don't really agree with you Carl. Of course your advice is absolutely right and should be followed but when you type 'kangxi plate' you will get 500 results - very easy to browse them all in one quick session.

There must be a different reason...

Like Alan said, it would be nice to have a look at those plates and how they were listed.

Regards,

Adrian

Hi Adrian

It depends how many Kangxi collectors are on Ebay in the space of the 1st 24 hours of listing , They are generally the people who will search for Kangxi porcelain , most dealers and such search generic Chinese  so not so specific.  From experience most people get bored and move on after searching 5-10 pages at the most.

EBay's best match comes as default as soon as you search so trying to get to the top of that 1st page or as high as you can makes sense for me anyway. Just my philosophy though , The cream usually rises to the top given time anyway.

There could also be another reason , but what?

Hi Carl,

I totally agree with you. Although I am still young I am a bit old school - lat 20 years I was buying and selling strictly on the regular fairs/markets across Europe and I am relatively new to ecommerce engines and mechanisms. I have set up my online store 3 years ago but I never had enough time to properly develop it. I am trying to catch up now as I must admit I am getting tired with all this packing, unpacking, setting up and packing all over again. I love driving but the preparation process for doing a market is just too much for me right now. For example there are markets in France or Germany where I normally had a stall, always, rain or shine, but now I rather dive there totally and try to explore it as much as I can. Anyway I started listing and putting on sale items online (I also decided to make a rapid turn and completely abandon European stock in favour of strictly Chinese antiques) but I can see already that if the item is interesting (quality-wise) I can get 20-30 views in few hours, not 2 in a day like Staartmees complained. Moreover this shouldn't happen in case of Kangxi items as they're always bringing attention and sometimes high bids as well...

But there must be a lot of truth in what you are saying, I'm thinking now... Recently I was bidding a Kangxi plate (very nice one, the average price for those starts from 500$) I got clumsy in last seconds and I failed to raise the bid and it went to the other buyer for 65 pounds (90$)! Including me, there were 3 guys interested in this plate, apart of that there was no other interest, like nobody else came across this plate! I was quite surprised I must say...

So now I am having a second thoughts - maybe I am missing something here regarding the engine of selling online and it might be Staartmees's case as well!

Thanks for your time and comments, Carl - we're learning something everyday!

Regards,

Adrian

Thanks Adrian , Wow what a life travelling to markets across Europe , I bet that was exciting for a while ,  I think you are doing well if you are getting 20-30 views in the first few hours , You must be offering some high quality pieces with very good titles and photo's to match.

Maybe a look at Staartmees auction would be a good idea as Alan and yourself advised , that would be a good place to start to try and analyse.

Regards

Carl

Hi Carl,

I assume you are based in USA, is that correct? Now I live in UK and I can see the difference between UK and continental markets - there's no way to compare those. France is absolute No.1 in terms of antiques, the quality and their quantity (Benelux as well, but that's basically same historical market). For many years I was a regular stall holder in Leipzig (Germany) - there is very decent in size monthly antique market, always busy and there is a lot of buyers (unfortunately dealers rather than collectors I would say). At that time I was into European paintings and I must admit that I have got some very interesting buys out there. Going deeper West was like discovering unknown land - I will never forget the first market I did in Belgium - Ciney! There was a lot of professional French dealers and basically on 4 stalls around me there were like 40-60 top quality antiques of all sorts and styles - that's something very rare actually as normally elsewhere one would have to do some walking to find 2-3 items worth picking up and asking for a price! But there's nothing as good as France in my opinion - the best markets are those held 1/2/3 times a year. They are closing a centre of the city or even a whole small town and you can walk for miles browsing 2000-3000 or even more stalls! That's absolutely insane! Lille was on top of my list, I always combined buying and selling there. To get a pitch I had to pay a guy who was there for a whole week before the opening of the market just to hold a place for me and I was joining him 2 days prior 🙂 It was worth it, now it changed a lot due to the security issues in Europe and attacks in France - it shrinked and got more controlled but I am sure it will come back to it's original shape soon when 2 days was not enough to explore it all!  You have to see it one day if you haven't yet!

Regarding the views on ebay - I am still struggling to understand the mechanism behind it. Sometimes I got 80 views in 3 days and then it stops, just to reach 100 views after another 3 days. On the other hand I can get less than 20 views in 4 days (5 a day) for less popular items like famille rose. I tried to follow your advice and I have reviewed my listing looking  closer at titles - indeed those listing with better titles attract more users and get more views. I will also include twitter as well. I am trying to be active on instagram and facebook but that takes a lot of time which I don't really have. 

Bids on the other hand I think is a matter of reputation and being recognizable. I know dealers of Asian antiques who are pricing their stock absolutely ridiculously, yet they are selling a lot! So it's a matter of time and persistence I think...

All the best,

Adrian

Hi Adrian

No I am from the U.K as well , I would love to travel the continent on a buying mission , I am 36 years old and have been dealing for 15 years , I want to broaden my horizons and start sourcing bigger and better pieces , The continent looks a good place to travel.

Good pictures and good titles with plenty of keywords are the most important , Good knowledge in the description as well.

In my opinion most people go on Ebay for bargains , auctions or crafty buy now's , so they probably search Chinese and look at the 'newly listed' items to find a mistake , That's one option , Then they might go to the 'Ending soonest' items to look for overlooked items , everything in the middle seems to get lost for a while , collectors of a specific item will search but they will be shown the 'Best match' default and Ebay hold the secret of the algorithm for getting to the top of that ladder , Good keywords , Titles , Pictures , Free shipping can move you up the ladder apparently but the only cast iron way I see to getting more visibility on Ebay is to pay them more money by using the Paid Ad's .

But I am a little old school as well to be honest , Good products , good pictures and a good service should be the most important.

You have me thinking about booking a 'holiday' to France .

Dear Carl and Adrian,

I'm from Germany and not far from you guys. Maybe we can meet each other and arrange an antiques hunting event in Europe ? Will be very nice to exchange and share our experience with each other.

Best

Xin

Thanks everybody..I still do not have a bid. 29 views now in 5 days. Here is the link :

https://www.ebay.com/itm/142784198254

If you have tips, please let me know. Maybe this pair is not that rare at all 🙂

I by the way live in the Netherlands, so could meet up too !

Kind regards

Staartmees

Posted by: staartmees

Thanks everybody..I still do not have a bid. 29 views now in 5 days. Here is the link :

https://www.ebay.com/itm/142784198254

If you have tips, please let me know. Maybe this pair is not that rare at all 🙂

I by the way live in the Netherlands, so could meet up too !

Kind regards

Staartmees

I would change the title to 

ANTIQUE CHINESE EXPORT PORCELAIN BLUE AND WHITE LOTUS AND DUCK PLATE KANGXI PERIOD QING DYNASTY

You have here four important keywords:

1. antique chinese export porcelain
2. blue and white 
3. Kangxi period
4. Qing dynasty

Best

Xin

Dear Staartmees,

I'm afraid that after seeing your listing, I'm at a loss to know why your items aren't attracting more attention, though I would suggest that you reflect on some of the advice given in the earlier posts by Carl and Adrian. The lighting in the photographs you have taken could perhaps improve somewhat, because to my eye, the characteristic Kangxi blue doesn't appear to its best advantage. Whether this alone may be sufficient to put bidders off, though, I'm not so sure.

I will check your items again later today to see how they are doing. If by then they haven't got a bid, I will place a bid on them myself. Perhaps that may help to start the ball rolling.

Best wishes,

Alan

Posted by: Xin_FAWIS

Dear Carl and Adrian,

I'm from Germany and not far from you guys. Maybe we can meet each other and arrange an antiques hunting event in Europe ? Will be very nice to exchange and share our experience with each other.

Best

Xin

Hi Xin and Carl.

That would be awesome, really good idea!

I can share with you my exact calendar for this year. It is way shorter in terms of antique hunting than any other year due to my wedding - I had to use 15 of 20 days of my annual leave entitlement just for the big day and a trip after - on the 2nd of June I am loosing my freedom forever 🙂 well.. it was lost long time ago :-). Anyway I was left with only 5 days and 3 of them I have already booked for Lille - that used to be the biggest antique market in Europe - it's held on first week of September (Saturday the 1st and Sunday the 2nd of September in 2018). I was a regular seller there for many years. 2 years ago it was cancelled due to the horrible attack in Nice - a guy used a lorry and he just plunged in to a crowd of people during the Bastille Day. It was in general a terrible and sad year for France and Belgium as well so events like Lille were cancelled of course. Last year they reopened the market but they introduced a lot of restrictions for both: public and sellers.  They asked a very expensive fee and I got scared that since it will be much smaller this year I will earn less then add those extra costs on top of that.. I changed my plans for strictly buying. That was a massive mistake because all those changes they came up with scared off a lot of sellers like me so whoever got there to sell was just flooded with customers who came there hungry for everything. The organisation of last Lille was just bad, there was no good information about how they reshaped the whole event. It used to be a vast part of the city centre totally occupied by sellers, hundreds of streets were packed with stalls - honestly it was impossible to see everything even if you walked for whole 2 days (3 actually). Fact is it was starting a day before on Friday afternoon guys on the outskirts (along the canal) they were setting up their stalls Friday afternoon. Last year they divided it into few separated, distanced,  well secured zones. I didn't know about this, I was just exploring one of those zones where I used to sell and it was microscopic regarding the previous years... So for me it was just one huge disappointing experience. I didn't do any research yet in terms of this years regulations but it has to be better then the previous one. I will be there 100% there's no doubt about that. I just have to make up my mind in terms of the tactics: selling or buying - that's the question. At the moment I am like 4 to 5 in favour of selling as I really want to declutter and get rid of European stock I gather over the years. One thing is sure: you can meet me there. I am always near the City Hall at Rue Saint-Sauveur, I used to have my stall there, always same spot: just next to the side entrance to the City Hall. Last year that side of the street was unavailable for sellers, the guy who was my neighbour seller moved his stall on the other side of the street. If I decide to sell I will be somewhere around there and grounded for few days as I am always coming there on Thursday afternoon and I camp there just looking after my pitch unlit the Friday's evening - after 6pm all privet cars have to leave designated streets (they are towed withing first few hours of that evening if the owners missed the signs) and then all the sellers start to take over the roads, pavement, lawns. At that time there is a lot of dealers walking and riding bicycles all over the place looking for early catches, some of them hang around the whole night. I used to pack around 1am just to get ruffly 4hrs of sleep and the whole fun starts for real on early Saturday's morning (5am it's getting really busy there). I am truly hoping this will come back this year and I think it will. Please don't blame me if the organisers will change it again and it won't be that impressive, at the end of the day the safety is more important and they are responsible to provide it at any cost.

I still have 2 days left of my AL and I will definitely spare that for antiques in France this year. There are good markets in Belgium as well but I want to go somewhere I haven't been yet. I am aiming at those events that are held once or twice a year, big ones - just in case Lille will be shrunken again. I have to plan it good and make the right choice. In my case it has to be during the weekend so I could take Monday off for a proper rest. Probably I will do 2 more good markets in France this year.

There is on I am always there. It is one-night  party: Amiens, northern France, twice a year, 1st one is already done, next one is on 7th October. Quite large, I have done it multiple times. Lots of dealers - store owners (a lot from UK as well - easy access from the tunnel, 100 miles) strictly buying so the competition is tough. Last one was a bit odd - the sellers got lazy and they started setting up their stalls really late (around 6am) when normally it was buzzing around 1am, so it annoyed me as the weather was just perfect, normally it's bloody cold out there but this time it was hot, yet the dealers didn't appreciated that, strange.. 

Putting all together: 100% I am in Lille and Amiens this autumn, so you can meet me there. I will let you know about my other plans for France in few months from now.

If you want details about Amiens, I can fix a post with all the details also if you want to sell there as I did that as well.

Regards,

Adrian

Hi,

I also think these are lovely plates, well-presented but my only comment would be that maybe take the word "marked" out of the title.  If people are just skimming the titles, "marked" can imply that they have been ruined some how.  People can also be sceptical about the word "pair." But I really am nit-picking, here!  It may simply be that there is so much Kangxi available and as has been said, they are not getting to the top of the viewing lists.

I also find that the higher the starting price, the less likely I am to get bids immediately, but I prefer that to setting a reserve.  At least you have some watchers, even though some may be people on this thread. 

I suppose you could also ask Peter if he might be so kind as to put them in his newsletter this week.  Especially if they have not had interest, people may sense a bargain and end up in a bidding war.

Best wishes,

Julia