With the trade in art and antiques in a state of shall we say flux, my readers have doubtless discerned my frequent and so far not completely successful grappling with the why of this. The major salesrooms have had problems with revenue growth and profitability, with the most graphic result of this the head rolling at the highest levels in both major houses. The retail trade in art and antiques has seen some of its major players sink below the waves over the course of the last decade, and traditional venues have shrunk to sizes now minuscule, if they continue to exist at all.
Some have said that much of this has been the result of changing tastes, pointing out that so-called ’traditional’ material is less desirable than mid 20th century or contemporary. For those who think there may be something to this, I point out that the numbers of those dealers whose speciality runs to the more recent are themselves rather thin on the ground. In fact, I read just yesterday of one of the most prominent of their number ‘rationalizing’ their stock in trade through the sale of much of it at auction. Hmmm….
Amidst all of this, I see the growth and expansion of a number (by which I mean ‘plethora’) of companies whose sole focus is the sale of vintage and lower priced new and used items on the internet. Aided by sites like Pinterest and any number of TV shows on cable, that ordinary people can be their own designer and do it on the cheap has captured the greater public imagination- and significantly undercut the market for good and fine quality art and antiques.
Hugely testimonial to this phenomenon is the IPO last week of Etsy, which is now, according to Skate’s Art Market Research, the company with the largest market capitalization in the decorative arts industry. Do they offer what I sell? No. However, they do offer the thrill of online shopping. What we’ve found, whatever stripe of buyer, they all have a budget- not just for the purchase of a particular item, but overall. If it is $5,000, that can be spent on one item, or an aggregate of 5 or 10 items, but once spent, the budget is exhausted. Consequently, my prospective purchasers, if they’ve spent their money on Etsy, will always have less to spend with me, or any other member of the accredited trade. So, while not a direct competitor, the finite buyer budget now, for good or for ill, now has many more opportunities to dissipate itself.
Of course, so much of what’s purchased constitutes garage sale items of the (probably not so distant) future, but so what? In the short term, and for the foreseeable future it still functions, even obliquely as competition.