Market confidence returning?

The entrance to the BADA Fair at the Dule of York Square, London.

Having just tentatively completed the BADA Fine Art & Antique Fair in London, we come away feeling that there may be a degree of truth in Mr Brown’s tales of “green shoots” returning to the British economy. Whilst attendance and interest in the fair was high, the magic sales were a slow to get off the mark. On the opening day we made some headway, however did find a slight reluctance in the decision making process by many visitors. It was though people wanted to make business and do deals, but yet there was a mysterious force keeping their hands away from cheque books and wallets.

As the days progresses, the initial reluctance started turning into commitment and things began selling. It was though clients were making doubly sure that they wanted something before making the final decision. One customer who bought an important piece after the fair closed, commented that he “.. could only put up with a bear market for so long, as it became tediously boring after a while…”
Interestingly many of the long established large London dealers did not start hearing the scratching of fountain pen on cheque till well into the fair, if they did at all. We on the other hand started slowly and gradually gained momentum, with two large sales coming after the close on Tuesday evening. All in all we were very happy with our BADA outing, despite the doom mongers that we still hear prolifically on TV, radio and in the press.

Maybe Gordon is right, there are some “green shoots” appearing in the economy.

Tags: antique, bada, dealer, exhibition, fair, grosvenor, london, olympia

That will do nicely sir……or will it?

This sometimes does not go very well in our favour. Some of our colleagues vary their prices depending on where they are marketing their wares; up them for a London fair and reduce them to get a deal if they want to turn some money over. This can result in see-saw pricing that can confuse the customer. “Hey this is nice, how much is it?” comes the Texan drawl, the dealer replies “£30,000 sir” then as the prospective customer starts to look interested the dealer  quips “But we can let you have it for £20,000”. Kind of makes a mockery of that dealer’s prices doesn’t it? Especially when it is on sale in his gallery for £23,000! So his American prospect sensing the dealer might strip the price to the bone offers £15,000, they eventually settle for £18,000 – a huge discount off the original £30k and still a huge discount off his £23k gallery price.

You've just got the best deal and now you want to charge it to your American Express.....

At Millington Adams, we take credit cards like most other antique dealers do these days.  However do we want to take these cards or do we take them to add convenience for the customer? Probably the latter, credit, debit or charge cards do make it easier for the customer to part with his or her money, because the large expenditure hit they are just committing to is not coming immediately out of their bank account.  We, unlike a lot of dealers, do pride ourselves on a upfront pricing structure, that is visible on the web and is exactly the same at an exclusive London fair.

So now our customer from Texas really moves in for the kill, he produces his American Express card! Our dealer’s face goes white and he swallows imperceptibly, he has been hammered down completely on the price and now with the production of this gentleman’s Amex, he is about to lose another 3% or so. This dealer has had his “old friend” piece of stock for a while and is now seeing any last bastions of profit disappearing, he would like to move this piece on and try something new, so the customer has got him over a barrel we will have to take another £540 hit on the commission – the Amex card is run through the machine, the stony faced dealer is struggling  to smile as the delighted Texan billionaire shakes his hand and heads out of the fair with the bargain of the year.

Millington Adams pricing structure is fairly uniform, we do not add onto the price of any piece just so we can “sell a discount”. When asked for our best price, that is what we will give you – our best price possible, please don’t be offended when we do not take offers below that level! Our best price will always be for payment by cheque, bank transfer or debit card. We are happy to accept credit cards and American Express, but not however when every last penny has been wrung out of the deal, we do have to try and run a business, so please be gentle with us!

Tags: american, amex, bargan, best price, card, credit, dealer, express, nicely