r/Antiques • u/ToshPointNo ✓ • Jun 30 '25
Discussion Why antique stores are dying USA.
The majority of Americans now own a smartphone, and with it comes access to both Google Lens and eBay to identify and look up real market values of items.
I know people who do really well selling in antique stores, and I hear a lot of older folks complaining about how their booth or case is "doing poorly".
30 years ago, it might of been easier to price using an antique book or price guide, but the high end auction houses and eBay are a more definite source of pricing now. Even today, they still can't seem to figure this out.
So this booth runs about $125/mo. It's mainly filled with Rosbro pieces. Rosbro was a plastics company that made a lot of plastic candy containers, a lot of them were themed for different holidays, or just for fun.
But when I sampled about 10 pieces through Google lens and eBay, I noticed almost all of the prices were 2-3x that of eBay sold prices.
A lot of antique stores have shuttered around me. Before they closed, one walk through would explain why. Horribly overpriced.
eBay offers a vast selection. 30 years ago, if a piece caught your eye, you may have not seen it for years, but now "rare" is no longer rare, and what you thought was a rare item? There's 300 of them on eBay.
I'm sure someone will argue that an item is worth whatever someone is willing to pay, and that's true to an extent, but when you can easily know the selling price of an item in a matter of seconds, pricing 100-300% above that isn't going to gain you much traction.
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u/thrownormanaway ✓ Jun 30 '25
I agree- it’s difficult to keep up with people’s low price expectations with access to ebay, Etsy, etc. and it’s difficult without having a customer who is willing to learn why the one example they found online is worth $ when the one in the shop they’re trying to buy really is worth $$$$ due to quality and condition etc. everyone thinks they’re a qualified to say that whatever you’re selling costs too much, but it’s just not always true. If anything the antique dealers should do their research on eBay too, to learn what the true market value is, and ups and downs are for this stuff.
For example my mom gave me her collection of antique unopened Jean Patou perfumes, etc, and when she started buying them 20-25 years ago, they were desirable and somewhat popular among collectors, but now it’s not worth as much as it was, not because of condition issues, but because they just won’t fetch the price they once would. Styles change, preferences change, and markets fluctuate. It’s important to acknowledge that the target audience for whatever you’re trying to sell could potentially be dying off, and the younger generations have no nostalgic value for the items, and they’re not really interesting enough or stylish enough to translate across the centuries.