I received an e-mail from Dennis Hull and Gary Domzalski, co-owners of Affordable Antiques & More in Naperville, Illinois, in response to “Its Time For Some Good News,” a previous Rinker on Collectibles column. Their upbeat, positive attitude about the future of the antiques and collectibles marketplace is most refreshing.

Hull and Domzalski are good news creators. They do not sit around waiting for good news to happen. They make it happen. “Our new customers are quickly learning that shopping at Affordable Antiques & More is FUN, FUN, FUN.” The field needs a thousand, heck I’d settle for a hundred, Hull and Domzalski-types. Enough praise. I do not want their heads to swell to the point where they can no longer wear their hats.

The following is a paragraph from their e-mail:

“We have relaxed some of our age requirements so that we can better target younger customers. And we offer a newer line of garden-ware, understanding the overlap between garden and antique enthusiasts. Who cares if the purists in the trade might be upset. We’re giving the consumer what she wants and she couldn’t be happier.” Note these key words—age requirements, newer line of garden ware, and she.

The antiques and collectibles timeline barrier employed by antiques malls and shows is a plus and minus in the trade. When I entered the field in the early 1960s, the purists defined an antique as anything made prior to 1830. Their focused on hand-made, one-of-a-kind (at least in their minds) antiques. Mass-produced objects were evil, low class, and only to be appreciated by the peons. The few purists who still survive will die within a decade.

Many antiques malls and shows have a specific cut-off date. Objects made after that date are not allowed for resale. The cut-off date has shifted over the years. Although a few 1960s antiques shows allowed objects made before 1900, most favored 1880 as the end date. By the early 1970s, the cut-off date slipped forward to 1920, with a few shows adhering to what they considered a pre-World War I date of 1915. The antiques mall arrived on the scene in the early to mid-1980s. These early malls sold merchandise made prior to 1940 with merchandise from the 1950s creeping into the mix. A few upscale antiques malls held the line at 1920. By the early 1990s, most antiques malls used a 1960 or 1965 cut-off date. Antique shows advanced their timeline to 1940. The slippage pattern thus far suggests a fifty year gap, thirty-five years at the very least, as the viable cut-off point.

Then came Labor Day 1995—a day that lives in infamy as far as purist and traditionalist antiques collectors and dealers are concerned. EBay made everything collectible. It makes no difference if an item is new, one day old, one week old, one month old, one year old, or one decade old. PEZ and Beanie Babies now are offered side by side with Pattern Glass and Roseville. While antiques shows continue to hold the line, most limiting items to those made before 1970, antiques malls have not. Today’s antiques malls feature cases or booths containing contemporary discontinued items and/or items from the 1980s and 1990s.

Is this wrong? Absolutely not! This is what customers want. Whether or not the old guard approves is irrelevant. If they want to bury their heads in the sand, let them. The trade will move forward without them. Hull and Domzalski are right. The key to the survival of the antiques and collectibles trade is to provide the customers/consumers with what they want. As 2010 approaches, what they want is stuff from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Everything antique was once one day old.

Now is not the time to hold the line. We need to be flexible, willing to expand our approach and be creative. This also is not the time to be judgmental. All antiques and collectibles are created equal. Those who differentiate between high-brow and low-brow objects are harming the trade. Let us delight in the fact that people buy our product. Why a person buys and what a person buys are not important.

The one-stop antiques mall concept dates from the mid-1990s. The super mall was more than a place where antiques and collectibles were sold. The mall also included a bookstore, auction house, consignment room, frame shop, interior decorating department, restoration and refinishing services, educational programs, and a boutique restaurant—everything the antiques and collectibles shopper needed under one roof. Super malls still survive, but their number is diminishing.

Hull and Domzalski deserve credit for taking this concept a step further. Know your customer is one of the first lessons any business person learns. If an antiques and collectibles seller was asked to name the most important customer to the trade, he would most likely select collector. Wrong. The collector has not been the trade’s primary customer for over a decade. The person who buys antiques and collectibles for decorative or reuse purposes needs to be the focus of our attention.

This buyer is trend-driven and moves in and out of our market quickly. He expects items to be room ready, i.e., ready to be put into place or used. Bargains attract him. Showing how buying and using our products serves the environment appeals. He is most comfortable buying products he knows from past experiences.

Given this, it appears we know a great deal about our customer. Just the opposite is true. We have little knowledge of what else interests him. How old is he, what is his educational level, what is his income level, and what is his family size are a few of the many unanswered questions.

Hull and Domzalski identify a connection between antiquing and gardening. Is this possible? Of course, it is. Check the illustrations in any magazine in which antiques and collectibles are used for decorating purposes. Start with Country and Southern living magazines and progress to Martha Stewart Living. You will be surprised at the key role assigned to gardens, gardening, and garden products. Hull and Domzalski are onto something.

I deliberately have used “he” up to this point in the column when talking about the universal buyer. If you ask a hundred antiques and collectibles dealers to name the sex of the dominant buyer in the trade, sixty percent or more would select male. If the question dealt only with collectors, their answer is correct.

When applied to the market as a whole, their answer is wrong. Today’s dominant buyer in the trade is female. Females do the decorating. Females exhibit a higher concern for reuse and the environment. Hull and Domzalski are right on target when they wrote, “We are giving the consumer what she wants and she couldn’t be happier.”

Accepting the female as the dominant buyer within the antiques and collectibles trade requires a mental leap far larger than any made before. We need to cast aside the standard notion that women buy primarily ceramics, glass, and dolls. This is the collector “she.” The “she” identified by Hull and Domzalski is a much different she. She is a homemaker (who could well be single), cable television watcher, aware of the latest decorating and cooking trends, and in charge of the daily finances. She is not a collector, at least not in the traditional sense. If she collects, it is to fill a limited space. Once the space is filled, she stops.

Go back to the paragraph beginning “The buyer is trend-driven….” and substitute she for he and her for him in this paragraph and the one that follows. Underscore “bargains attract her.” The new she buyer is an experienced buyer, familiar with comparison and bargain shopping. She is less an impulse buyer than her male counterpart.

Times are changing. Hats off to Hull, Domzalski, and others in the antiques and collectibles trade who are leading change instead of reacting to it; or even worse hoping to wait it out.

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) is available at your favorite bookstore and via www.harryrinker.com.

Copyright © Rinker Enterprises, Inc. 2009

Note: The opinions expressed in this post are that of the author, and not necessarily of Ruby Lane.