Most antiques shops have a few cabinets typically containing small, fragile or valuable items. Renting a cabinet is a very common way to start selling antiques. However, doing so successfully is often a different matter, so it pays to plan ahead and know what you’re letting yourself in for.
Why would you rent a cabinet in the first place?
Cabinets in antiques shops are a very attractive way to display goods. The items on display are necessarily small and are often fragile and/or too valuable to left on an open shelf. Cabinets are also excellent for items that benefit from a careful set up that you don’t want customers casually handling.
A well arranged cabinet really talks up the contents. They give off the feeling of a good museum where everything just happens to be for sale. Well designed displays, with good labeling, will slow down, engage and even entertain a potential customer in a way that a large open display often can not. I’m a sucker for a good cabinet and will always aim for them when I first enter an antiques shop. This means they also get my best attention, before I glaze over from having seen too much.
Shops usually keep cabinets locked. This implies their contents are of quality and value. It also provides protection from accidental damage as only the shop staff should be reaching in. As no one else can move the stock it should also means that your carefully set up display remains looking attractive for longer periods of time. In general the staff will always try to put items back as they found them, including the all important label. Keeping the doors closed most of the time also means less dust, which is a real bugbear for any antiques display.
Many antiques shops have rather poor lighting. Cabinets should have interior lighting. The accentuate this, most cabinets also have glass shelves and often mirrored backs.
What could go wrong?
There are downsides to cabinets however, at least in comparison to open selling areas.
A cabinet is often the only space that’s available for traders new to an antiques shop. If a shop offers you an open selling area then, unless it’s just opening, I would be very wary. In a successful antiques shop, unoccupied open space is a rare and precious thing. It is very unlikely to be offered to a newcomer.
Customers are hesitant to ask for a cabinet to be opened. I know this to be the case from my own experience. I think there are a few reasons for it.
Firstly there is a natural shyness. A good antique shop is not like other shops on the high street. They do look a bit like a museum and hopefully your customers are respectful of their surroundings.
There is a common misconception that if you ask to handle an item you’re expected to buy it. If this is you, let me say it’s really not the case. Yes, we’d love to buy whatever you want to look at but if you decide no, that’s fine. It happens all the time and at least we learned what you were interested in.
Shyness is even worse if you don’t speak the local language. We sell to a lot of overseas buyers and often come up against this. This is a shame for both parties. It takes more confidence than many people can manage. In reality, a smile, a wave and pointing gets the message over.
I will add here that we sell to people from all over the world. There are lots of stereotypes about people from different countries being loud or shy but in my experience it’s not really true. Most people are amazingly polite and charming. If there’s any variation, I’d say it is more to do with age, with older people being more confident about asking for help. This is certainly true of my own confidence about asking for assistance in shops, especially since I started working in one.
Location location location
Cabinets should always be close to where the staff are. Staff are less likely to be asked to open a cabinet in a different room or on a different floor.
The only example of a business that gets around this, that I know of, is York Antiques Centre where they have buzzers all round the shop. In this case you press the buzzer and a staff member comes to you very quickly. This, of course, only works because the shop has a small army of staff members – probably the most staff I’ve seen in any antiques shop. They tend to be young and very fit! This is in marked contrast to most of us who work in antiques shops where whilst we aren’t antique, we are vintage.
It’s really important to get your display correct or else you’ll never have your cabinet opened. You must try to make sure the label and price of every item is visible, without the labels swamping the display. I’d like to write several lines about some things we want to sell but there isn’t space. In a sea of labels, small items of jewellery can be lost. This is a particular issue for jewellery where you need to be very precise about what you’re selling.
Cabinets typically offer quite small selling areas. Selling larger items from them is often a waste of your expensive space. Whilst cabinets will never sell low value items as well as open shelves, if it’s a cabinet you have then there’s no harm in trying.
Is it all worthwhile?
So we come to the thorny question of Will you make money? Cabinets can be successful. I know this to be the case because across a period of twelve months we make a profit from the cabinets we sell from. However some months we don’t cover the rent. Some people simply lose money all through the year but continue simply because they enjoy trading and their losses are less than they would spend on other hobbies. I have to be honest and say I probably couldn’t do that; but then not everyone is lucky enough to be born a Yorkshireman.
Before you decide to take the plunge you should think about what you expect to get out of the experience.
OK, so you’ve decided you have the stock to fill a cabinet and you want to have a go. How do you start? How do you go about getting a cabinet of your own?
Proving your credentials
Most antiques shops will only rent space to established traders. Don’t despair and stop reading at this point! In the UK, you will need to be registered as a sole trader, but you don’t have to set up a business. Your turnover is going to be more than £1000 a year to make a cabinet work, indeed your rent is likely to be more than that, so sole trader status is unavoidable unless you have a different business already set up.
If you’ve not tried selling at an antiques fair, I’d suggest you do this a couple of times first. I’ve even written a couple of guides to get you started. This will be enough to “qualify” you as a trader for most places as it proves a level of commitment and interest. It will also give you a much better idea of whether your stock is likely to be on interest to buyers, although be aware that people attending antiques fairs can be very different to those who visit antiques shops (although some of us clearly do both).
If you work in an antiques shop it’s no uncommon for people to walk in and ask about renting a cabinet. Most of these people clearly haven’t though through the process, the costs or the commitment required, let alone read an interesting and informative blog posting on the subject (so you’re ahead of them already).
It is hard enough managing upwards of twenty experienced traders, so you can understand why shop owners are cautious with newcomers. Being able to say you’ve sold at a few local fairs is a great start.
Choosing a shop, choosing a cabinet
When choosing a cabinet you’re going to need to put in a bit of legwork. Obviously you need to find shops that actually have cabinets to rent. Not all do and there will be an even smaller subset that actually have cabinets available when you visit.
Timing can be important. Few antiques shops do well through the winter. If you’re going to give up space then it will usually be in December or January and most people taking on a cabinet will wait until Easter is approaching. For someone trying to start trading, the best months for research are probably January and February. Sure you might end up with a couple of slow months in Spring but at least you have the prospect of things picking up through the summer.
Assuming you’re lucky enough to have a choice of cabinets available, what you should you look for? Size is important. The bigger you can get the better. If you don’t think you can fill the biggest cabinet you can rent then I’d suggest you’re not thinking hard enough.
There are things that trump size though. Avoid dark, out of the way corners. Spend some time in the shop and (discretely) watch customers as they walk around. Don’t rent a cabinet people don’t look into. Your cabinet should be in eye contact of where the staff are normally stationed, typically the till. To have a cabinet opened, you really don’t want a potential customer to have to ascend or descend stairs. Remember, like the staff, the typical antique buyer is at least vintage themselves and a lot struggle with stairs.
Before agreeing to a cabinet, check the lock mechanism. Ask to unlock it, open the doors fully and relock it. If the lock is poor then ask for a replacement. You should be certain the door is secure when locked. Check the security of the cabinet. This is very important, so don’t skip my notes on this later on.
What’s it going to cost?
Contracts for antiques shops are as varied as the shops themselves but there are plenty of common themes.
You will be expected to pay your rent a month in advance. This is basically to stop you taking your stock out a the end of a bad month and not paying your rent. On top of that there are a few extra charges you may or may not incur.
Some shops simply swallow card charges but some will pass them on to the dealer. This can get very messy, is a pain to administer and as a dealer you have to trust the owner is accounting correctly. This is particularly true with overseas credit cards which typically attract a higher fee than their domestic equivalents. You probably don’t want to rent from a shop that accepts American Express either.
Some shops will charge you commission based on a percentage of your sales. This can be quite high, sometimes up towards 10%. If this is the case think carefully about your pricing as most shops will offer some sort of discount if the customer asks for it. With 10% commission and 10% discount you’re losing 19% of your ticket price (yes it is 19% not 20% as the commission is 10% of the discounted value). That’s a lot of money.
Working your rent
Some shops will expect you to work in them a few days a month. This is the most contentious part of most contracts. The question of who does and who does not have to work in a shop can become a running sore, especially if the rota starts to run short of people.
This is a bigger subject than I want to cover here but in general if you can do some time behind the counter it will really help you. It can be onerous, especially in winter when there are few customers around, but you get a much clearer view of what sells, how customers move around the shop, what they take an interest in. You should also expect to get something back either in terms of payment or reduced rent or commission. If you need this as real income then you probably need to look elsewhere as traders working part of their rent in an antiques shop don’t usually get anywhere near minimum wage.
Getting paid
One final, but very important, set of questions relate to receiving payment for your takings. Most shops operate a monthly payment cycle. You must ask about when you get paid and how. Some shops are very slow about paying out. Frankly, if this is the case, I’d look elsewhere.
Just as important, ask about the error rate in the shop’s accounting. The trader must be correctly identified for each sale. After that, commission and card charges can be applied. Try to talk to someone who is already trading from the shop about error rates. When mistakes happen you need confidence they are corrected in a timely manor. I’ve heard horror stories about a some shops where errors take months to fix and are so common that traders are continuously having to chase a series of mistakes.
Moving In
As I’ve already mentioned, you will have the best chance of taking on space in the early months of the year. Take time to plan how you want your cabinet to look and plan what each shelf will contain.
Every item you sell will need a label. At the least this needs to contain the price and a dealer code to identify the item as yours. This is a long job so don’t leave it to the night before moving in!
You should also talk to the shop manager about what time of day they want you to move in. Some shops prefer you out by mid-morning so you don’t cause disruption, whilst others like traders to be around to talk to any prospective customers who are in the shop.
On the day of moving, be mindful of how much chaos you are causing and take care not to block access to other trader’s cabinets or displays. You really don’t want to start off on the wrong foot. Even for a small cabinet, moving in will take an hour and for larger cabinets, much more. If bending down is hard work then you’re in for a workout, so take your time.
Hopefully the cabinet will be empty when you arrive, but it’s unlikely to have been cleaned. A duster and glass cleaner are good thing to take. I would also suggest a screwdriver in case hinges need adjusting and a small can of oil is often useful as well.
How you set up your display is a matter of your best opinion, followed by trial and error over time. There’s no right answer or if there is, we haven’t found it. There’s lots of advice on the internet so have a read up, but of course only you know the exact mix of stock that you have, and hopefully that will be ever changing.
When it’s time to call it a day
People leave successful antiques shops very rarely. If you’re making money you keep going as long as you can. Less successful shops, or the poorer parts of less successful shops, tend to have a higher turnover. If you find it’s not working out for you, you shouldn’t feel embarrassed or angry. Often it’s nobody’s fault and whilst it’s frustrating to have tried something and it not worked, you’re not alone. Very few antiques traders have never left a place after trying it for a while.
Winter is a hard time for traders so if you’ve come in during the winter be patient. Ideally, and sometimes contractually, you should stay for six months if you can. I’ve seen small cabinets in shops sell almost nothing in six months. That’s the time to call it a day.
Whilst traders in the same shop will have a degree of competition, no one wants to see anyone lose money. If things aren’t working out, try to have a chat with some of the more experienced people. I know we got a lot of support in our early days that helped us through some very lean months whilst we figured out a little of what worked and what didn’t (two years in and we’re still in the foothills of learning).
In the end though, if you have to leave do so with as good grace as you can. The antiques business is a small one. Upsetting people in one shop will make it really hard to get accepted in another. Word gets around very quickly. On the other hand, if you’ve made friends and maybe worked well in the shop you’ll find doors open in other places.
Security
I’ll finish with a subject very much on the minds of people at the moment. Shoplifting is a hot subject in the UK right now, at least in the media. The good news is that antiques shops are rarely subject to much casual theft. However, professional thieves target them far too frequently.
The most lucrative part of the antiques market is in precious metals and gems; basically gold and jewellery. You must keep such high-value items in locked cabinets. If this is what you plan on selling, make sure you have the written agreement of shop manager before you bring in your stock. Some shops simply don’t allow it because of the risks it brings.
Your stock security is your responsibility but the shop itself may suffer significant loss if a theft occurs at night via a forced or violent entry. The shop’s insurance will include a figure for the maximum value of the stock in the shop and the owner may be required to prove this limit hasn’t been exceeded. This does not mean the shop insures your stock. That’s something you have to manage for yourself and if you exceeded the value you agreed with the shop then you may find yourself liable for a claim.
It is very hard to stop a professional thief. CCTV deters most casual thieves, but professionals seem unconcerned about being filmed. There is nowhere to circulate even good images of thieves and so long as they are not local, CCTV doesn’t seem to help much.
More useful are rigid cabinets, close fitting doors, good locks and cabinet alarms. If I was selling significant amounts of jewellery, then I would only do so from a cabinet close to and in direct view of the normal station for staff. There should always be at least two members of staff on duty at all times and the staff should understand that one of them remains at the normal station at all time, at least in larger shops with multiple rooms.
Daily checks need to be conducted on the cabinets to ensure they are locked and there are no signs of tampering. If signs of tampering are present, the CCTV footage can be reviewed to find out who was involved. If the would-be thief was simply disturbed, the likelihood of their return in the next few days is very high.
