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An antique or collectibles shop is often three ledgers: goods you own, goods on consignment, and a dealer booth or show circuit. Buyers will split them. Consignment does not become your inventory at closing. A following that buys because they trust your eye will discount if that eye is leaving with you.
Estate-sale crews, picker relationships, and auction-house paddles are the replenishment engine. If those names will not take a call from a successor, the room is a liquidation with a lease attached. We would rather map the top sources than admire the case.
Buyers sample, ask for invoices or estate paperwork, and discount pieces that only you still believe in. Reproductions mixed with period goods without labels become a diligence fight. A clean owned-vs-consigned list with asking prices and cost—where you have it—is the difference between a store sale and a rummage.
Shows, online marketplaces, and in-store sales need separate history. A year that was two good auctions and a quiet shop is not the same business as steady floor traffic plus a documented booth. Peak-show annualization is how these antique deals die in diligence.
Tell us which attorneys, auctioneers, and cleanout firms send you goods, and which of those introductions are personal. If you also appraise or do house calls, decide now whether that book is in the sale. Mixed personal-service income gets mispriced when it is dumped into one retail number.
A consulting period on authentication and pricing is common. A deal that requires you to keep buying for a year after close is a different structure. Decide that before anyone walks the sales room so we are not marketing a store that is really your weekends.
Request a confidential consult or call (352) 515-0226. We will tell you whether a sale is realistic before you go to market.