“Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got,
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn’t you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they’re always glad you came….”

These words from Gary Portnoy’s and Judy Hart Angelo’s theme song for Cheers are especially cogent as the antiques and collectibles industry enters the final three months of 2008. Many in the trade, especially those buying and selling on eBay, are rapidly coming to the conclusion that no one knows their name or cares.

The antiques and collectibles business is a personal business. Its strength rests on face-to-face, one-on-one relationships, relationships that have been badly bruised at best and more likely shattered and broken, the result of consolidation, Big Box mentality, globalization, and technology.

Restoring face-to-face, one-on-one relationships is the greatest challenge facing the antiques and collectibles trade. We are individuals, human beings. Our humanity is critical. We are not statistics and pawns. While our lack of organization makes it difficult to speak with a common voice, we think, believe, grieve, and bleed as a community, our love of antiques and collectibles is the glue that makes us one.

We cannot return to the old ways. Technological advances, globalization, and eBay make this impossible. Survival requires change. We know this. We are capable and adaptable. Antiques and collectibles always will have a future.

There is good news. A new wave of entrepreneurs, more seasoned and cautious than those of ten years ago, have reviewed the changes of the past fifteen years, identified their flaws and faults as well as their positive aspects, and now are developing new playing fields designed to give back the trade its sense of community.

EBay arrived on the scene less than fifteen years ago. We, the members of the antiques and collectibles community, gave it life. Without our support, eBay may have failed or, at the very least, its growth would have been slower.

How were we rewarded? During eBay’s first ten years, the antiques and collectibles platforms received strong support. Admittedly, there was a cavalier attitude within eBay that what was good for eBay was good for the antiques and collectibles business. The eBay techies were in control. EBay required its employees to buy and/or sell actively on its site. However, it did not dictate what they bought and sold. While a few bought and sold antiques and collectibles, the vast majority did not.

EBay created two divisions, one for antiques and toys and one for collectibles. Advisory groups were formed for key collecting categories within them. Annual conferences, attended by representatives from the trade and eBay personnel, were held. Key members felt optimistic that they could play a role in making eBay a viable partner in our community. It did not happen. EBay’s internal promotion policy of moving employees every nine to fifteen months destroyed any hope of establishing long-term relationships. Members of the trade had to re-educate eBay employees on an annual basis. Promises were forgotten the moment an employee moved to another division.

As other eBay divisions, e.g., automotive, computers and electronics, clothing, tickets, etc., began to generate more income than the antiques and collectibles divisions, and eBay acquired companies, e.g., PayPal and Skype, its interest in antiques and collectibles waned. EBay eliminated its division structure more than two years ago and hope of influencing eBay’s internal policy from the outside vanished.

For the past year, I have received e-mails and letters from readers who are eBay buyers and sellers asking me to comment on one change or another, e.g., eBay no longer allowing buyers to accept cash, a money order, or a cashier’s check. Among the most recent was an e-mail from Steve, a WHATCHA GOT? (my nationally syndicated antiques and collectibles call-in radio show; see harryrinker.com) Internet listener, asking my opinion on eBay’s new shipping charge rules, a pet peeve of mine. I chose to remain silent. UNTIL NOW!

EBay finally added the proverbial straw, the one that broke my back and not that of the camel, to the pile. I pay for my eBay purchases using a personal check. It is one method I use to check my buying habit. (God, I love puns. I hope you do as well.) Now eBay has announced that it will no longer allow sellers to accept personal checks. I AM OUT OF THERE!!!

I am finished with eBay. I have close to 1,300 positive feedbacks as a buyer. I never sold a single object on eBay. I am a good customer. But, I will be damned to hell if I am going to allow eBay to dictate how I should pay for my purchases. My checks are good, none bounced. I am taking my business elsewhere.

[Author’s Note: I did not make the above decision lightly. In the past, I served as a spokesperson for eBay’s Collectibles Division and spoke at three eBay Live! conventions. This past summer I worked as a spokesperson for eBay Canada. Given the above, I doubt if eBay will come knocking on my door again. So be it. It is time to take a stand.]

As the 1990s ended, the antiques and collectibles community saw eBay as the 900 pound gorilla that no one could kill. EBay was king of the hill and destined to remain there for decades. A few quiet voices, I was one of them, cried out “this too shall pass,” but no one heard or believed us. We hoped to live long enough to see it happen.

I did not expect to see the Berlin Wall crumble in my lifetime. The events of 1989 were a shock. I never, even in my wildest dreams, thought eBay would come and go as quickly, in less than fifteen (15) years for our trade. It will. It must. The dice are cast. Opportunity knocks.

The balance of this column is devoted to looking at this opportunity and providing the builders of new playing fields advice on what shape these fields should take. The key is community, narrow rather than all encompassing.

The antiques and collectibles community needs a buy-sell environment that is restricted to its established collecting categories and only to its collecting categories—no used automobiles (not even antique and classic examples; there are other sites), electronics, or used utilitarian items ranging from clothing to tools. Definitely no modern/contemporary collectibles, let them develop their own site. Coins, stamps, and mineral specimens, the Big Three collecting categories of my youth, deserve to be part of our site.

We need multiple buy-sell sites—auction sites for individual sellers, auction sites to support the established auctioneering community, and storefront sites to serve dealers. The individual auction site needs to have a platform that allows the bidding to remain open until the last bidder is finished, perhaps eBay’s greatest weakness. We need cooperation between the sites whereby a common search engine provides the prospective buyer with the full range of possibilities. A satisfied customer is our best customer.

We need all sites to accept a full range of payments from cash to personal check to credit card. The buyer’s penalty, only fools call it a premium, now ingrained within the on-location auction community needs to be avoided at all costs. Shipping and handling charges have to be reasonable, fair to both buyer and seller. Reproductions (exact copies), copycats (stylistic copies), fantasy items, and fakes must be prohibited. New items must be clearly identified and, if possible, also avoided.

Opportunities abound outside the buy-sell sphere. Information sites providing accurate and easily usable information and, most importantly, quality education already are appearing.

The antiques and collectibles trade is experiencing a Field of Dreams moment—if you build it, they will come. EBay has posted an “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here” for our community. Like Moses and his flock, we need to trek across the desert looking for a promised land. The good news is that we do not have to worry about eBay’s army following us.

Where are you looking and what have you found? Share your thoughts and e-mail me at harrylrinker@aol.com.

Rinker Enterprises and Harry L. Rinker are on the Internet. Check out www.harryrinker.com.

You can listen and participate in WHATCHA GOT?, Harry’s antiques and collectibles radio call-in show, on Sunday mornings between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM Eastern Time. If you cannot find it on a station in your area, WHATCHA GOT? streams live and is archived on the Internet at www.goldenbroadcasters.com

SELL, KEEP OR TOSS? HOW TO DOWNSIZE A HOME, SETTLE AN ESTATE, AND APPRAISE PERSONAL PROPERTY (House of Collectibles, an imprint of the Random House Information Group, $16.95), Harry’s latest book, is available at your favorite bookstore and via www.harryrinker.com

Copyright © Rinker Enterprises, Inc. 2008