Web Takes Byte Out of Area Antique Stores’ Trade
Joe Lavook’s downtown Ventura antiques and collectibles store looks like a history museum exploded: It’s a dusty collage of World War II-era armbands and Jayne Mansfield posters, Mickey Mouse banks and chubby Victorian dolls stacked together almost on top of each other.
But for a man whose Times Remembered store looks like it could be from any era but the 1990s, who doesn’t even own a computer, Lavook has begun thinking quite a bit about the cutting edge.
“The Web has had a huge impact on us,” Lavook said. “We go to the flea markets, and there’s nothing to buy. They’re putting all their good stuff online.”
This was one area of retail that seemed impervious to e-commerce. Certainly collectors would always want to see and feel these precious items, be able to examine each piece for flaws, store owners thought. But the meteoric rise in the last year of auction and fixed-price Web sites like eBay and Antiquenet has brought even these retailers, so focused on the past, into a complicated relationship with their computers.
Some Ventura County antique and collectible dealers are using the Web as an efficient way to market their rare items to a worldwide audience. Others fear that droves of buyers have turned to the Web--or that sellers will go straight to online auctions and leave them out as the middle men.
Despite the high profile of antiquing thanks to TV shows such as “Antiques Roadshow,” owners of many of the antique stores clustered in downtown Ventura and dotting Thousand Oaks Boulevard in Thousand Oaks say the year since eBay went public--and received a wave of media attention--has been a difficult one.
While they know they can’t attribute it completely to such sites, those who haven’t taken to the Web say they’re feeling some pain. Nevertheless, many insist they prefer to deal the old-fashioned way.
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“It’s been tough since April,” said Judie Cohen, owner of Maggie & Me Antiques in Thousand Oaks. “But I like the contact with people. I like to touch. Things will ease up” once people’s fascination with online collecting slows down.
The Web slowdown doesn’t appear to be coming any time soon. Antiques and collectibles are a targeted growth area at eBay, spokeswoman Jennifer Chu said.
Of the nearly 3.4 million items on sale last Thursday, about 75,000 were considered to be antiques. That’s far more than your average downtown Ventura store could ever carry. And the addition of regional eBay auction sites--including one for Los Angeles--means sellers will find it easier to deal with auctioning off larger items such as furniture.
“We’re beginning to see a lot of larger, harder-to-ship merchandise,” Chu said. “Within a region, it gives buyers the chance to go see [the item] and kick the tires.”
Dealers are aware of the advantages of the Web for buyers.
In the past, a collector had to search store by store, spending weeks or months to track down a treasured candlestick. But sites like eBay, in which sellers photograph and auction off their items online, could put 50 such candlesticks at a collector’s fingertips.
Online, where there’s less chance to browse through crammed and dusty shelves, buyers are less likely to stumble onto finds they hadn’t considered before, an antique store’s bread and butter.
Such online notoriety could be a blessing in disguise to old-fashioned retailers like the ones that dominate Ventura’s downtown, according to Holly Harris, who edits Secondhand.com, an online guide to secondhand and antiques stores.
“The thing that’s interesting about online selling is it’s bringing in a whole new market of resale shoppers,” Harris said. “People who wouldn’t buy used are starting to think about it.”
Even with the market growth, few in the county seem to be relying entirely on the Web for sales. Jason Stowell, manager at Nicholby’s in Ventura, spends quite a bit of time online selling specialized pieces but found that the Internet was eating up a lot of his time.
“For the average piece, it’s not worth it to go online,” he said. “You have to upload the picture and worry about shipping. It has to be a $300 or $400 item before it’s worth it.”
It’s also created a more educated consumer, one who is beginning to learn what pieces are worth. Though prices were once sky high on eBay, they’ve begun to be more reasonable, experts said.
“People are starting to realize that there are no rare items,” said Jeff Hill, editor of the Alameda-based Antiques Journal. “The Internet and eBay have become a great equalizer in the price field.”
That can be frustrating to dealers.
“It’s bringing prices down,” Stowell said. “Someone will come in and say, ‘I saw this on eBay for $125, and you’re selling it for $175.’ And I’ll say, ‘OK, you go ahead and deal with the shipment.’ ”
Even so, many retailers look to the future and see the Internet looming--and as much as they’d like to avoid it, they can see the advantages.
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Lavook hasn’t jumped on the Web, although he knows it could save a cherished piece from dusty obscurity or find an undervalued piece a loving home.
“Certain things here, there’s a chance in a million it’ll sell. If we put it on eBay, it would go quickly,” Lavook said.
With a kind of wistful realization, he pointed to a set of Art Deco bookends in the corner of his store, priced at $350. “No one knows we have it here. It will never be seen.”
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