Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
Leonard Joel takes the estate call. The Featherston walks past.
Antique stores fight on two fronts: the major auction houses (Sotheby's Australia, Leonard Joel, Mossgreen, Lawsons, Theodore Bruce) for the deceased-estate consignment call, and the international online dealers (1stDibs, Pamono, Etsy Vintage, Carter's Price Guide listings) for the discerning buyer. The auction houses have decades of brand authority and a phone book full of solicitors who route every probate estate their way; the online dealers have global reach and a niche-period customer who never walks into a physical shop. What both miss, and what the small AAADA dealer has, is the patient, on-the-floor expertise that knows the difference between a Federation and a Victorian sideboard at a glance, will travel for an estate of 200 lots, and can sit with a downsizer through a five-hour appraisal in their lounge room. The shame is that almost none of it, the appraisal service, the period-specific stock, the Featherston chairs in the back room, the AAADA membership, the Carter's Price Guide knowledge, the international shipping competence, lands on the website.
Good antique store marketing is three things, in this order: a period-page library that splits Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian, Federation, Art Deco, Mid-Century Modern Australian (Featherston, Fred Lowen) and Mid-Century Modern international (Eames, Wegner, Saarinen, Le Corbusier), each with the current stock photographed and priced from $200 small decorative through to $80K museum-grade; a Google Ads campaign on '[period] antique [city]', 'sell antiques [city]' and 'antique appraisal [city]' that picks up the downsizer and the deceased-estate consignor the auction houses route to a sales rep; and an Instagram, AAADA Antiques Fair and 1stDibs / Pamono cross-listing cadence that puts the major pieces in front of an international buyer. Add an appraisal-booking flow ($150 in-home, deducted from any consignment over $2,000) and you've turned the 'who buys antiques' Google search into a five-year buying relationship.
Six agents, working in your accounts.
Account Lead, Web, SEO, Advertising, Social Media, and Content. One platform, one bill, you approve the work.
Builds your annual plan around the periods you stock at depth (Edwardian, Federation, Art Deco, Mid-Century Modern Australian and international) and the estate-acquisition pipeline as the supply line. Briefs the other agents so the period pages, the 'sell antiques' Google Ads, the social cadence and the 1stDibs and Pamono cross-listing flow all push toward the small-to-mid estate the auction houses won't bother with and the international buyer the local market under-prices.
Imports your existing Shopify, WordPress or custom site so you stop paying for the hosting bill plus a CMS subscription, and makes shipping a new period page or piece a five-minute job. Builds dedicated pages for every period and designer you stock with proper provenance, condition notes and pricing tiers, plus a cross-listing flow to 1stDibs, Pamono and Etsy Vintage for the major pieces, to your live store in two taps.
Goes through your live site for the things that actually move local antique-store rankings: '[period] antique [city]' on the H1s, 'sell antiques [city]' on the appraisal-service page, antique-store schema (not generic store), AAADA member attribute, stocked-designer posts on the Google Business Profile. Auto-applies the low-risk fixes; flags anything bigger.
Launches Google Ads on the estate and appraisal queries the auction houses route to a sales rep ('sell antiques [city]', 'antique appraisal [city]', 'who buys antiques [city]', 'deceased estate clearance [city]') and on the period long tail ('Mid-Century Modern Australian [city]', 'Art Deco furniture [city]', 'Georgian sideboard [city]'). Runs a Meta retargeting layer for the appraisal-booking page. Lifts spend in the post-Christmas and post-end-of-financial-year downsizer waves.
Turns the estate intake, the appraisal visit, the back-room restoration and the AAADA fair into a weekly stream of posts in your real accounts: Saturday intake reveal, Wednesday provenance story, Friday 'on the floor today' walk-around, Tuesday international-sale celebration when a 1stDibs piece ships. Builds the patient-expertise trust signal an auction-house catalogue never quite does. You photograph the loading dock, the agent drafts the caption in your voice, you approve.
Drafts the long-form pieces collectors and the careful downsizer Google before they buy or sell: 'how to value a deceased estate of antiques: a dealer's guide', 'identifying a genuine Featherston Contour chair', 'Federation versus Victorian furniture: a buyer's guide', 'collecting Australian Mid-Century Modern: the names that matter'. Two drafts a month, in your voice, that pull in the careful estate-holder weeks before they call Leonard Joel.
Your first 30 days.
- Existing Shopify or WordPress store imported, hosting and CMS bills torn down; catalogue and major back-room stock photographed and re-wired
- Annual plan set by Sam around the periods you stock at depth and the small-to-mid estate pipeline as the supply line
- Google Business Profile primary category flipped from 'Store' to 'Antique Store', services expanded from 4 to 21, AAADA member badge added
- Period page library indexed for Georgian through to Mid-Century Modern with stocked designers made explicit
- Deceased-estate and downsizer appraisal-booking flow live with the '$150 in-home, deducted from consignment over $2,000' offer
- 1stDibs and Pamono cross-listing flow live for the major Mid-Century Modern and Art Deco pieces
- Saturday intake, Wednesday provenance, Friday 'on the floor' and Tuesday international-sale social cadence live in the dealer's voice
- 'How to value a deceased estate of antiques' and 'identifying a genuine Featherston Contour chair' explainers drafted for approval
Antique stores don't lose to Leonard Joel or 1stDibs on knowledge or stock. They lose because the Toorak downsizer who Googled 'who buys antiques [city]' clicks the auction-house ad ahead of yours and the back-room Featherston that should have sold to a New York buyer for $7,200 sells locally for $4,800 because the 1stDibs listing never went up. The auction houses route the estate to a junior sales rep; the online platforms sit on stock that won't move. None of them have your AAADA-member judgement, your period range, or your willingness to drive to a downsizer's house on a Tuesday morning. That is your entire moat, and it needs to be the loudest thing on your website.
Agencies are too dear to actually run the period pages, the 'sell antiques' ads and the 1stDibs cross-listings for $3.5k a month. Tools are cheap but the cross-listing for the Featherston still doesn't go up. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the period pages, launch the estate-acquisition ads, cross-list the major pieces internationally, and keep your Google Business Profile beating the auction houses in your postcode. You stay in the driver's seat, two taps to approve, minutes a day. Stop letting Leonard Joel take the estate call.