If you are comparing websites for antique dealers in Dublin, start with who is going to look at yours. Half of them want to buy: a collector hunting a particular maker, a couple furnishing a house who want one real piece among the flat-pack, a tourist with a free morning, a designer sourcing for a client. The other half want to sell, or at least find out what the sideboard in their late mother’s house is worth. Both groups check the same things before they come near the shop: what you deal in, whether the stock is any good, roughly what it costs, and whether you are open today.
We build and run the page that answers those questions, and we keep it current while you are at the fairs.
Buyers and sellers are two different visitors
A buyer wants to see stock. Not a mood board, not a photo of the shopfront on Francis Street, but the actual pieces you have now: a Georgian chest with its measurements, a set of chairs with the price, a tray of silver with the hallmarks mentioned. If the stock on the site is six months old, a buyer assumes the shop is the same.
A seller wants to know what you buy and how to approach you. Most dealers have a line like “I buy single pieces and full house contents, Irish furniture, silver and paintings in particular, and I do not do reproduction.” That line belongs on its own page, with a form where someone can send three photos from their phone and a note about where the piece is. Those enquiries arrive in your email and on WhatsApp, and you answer them from the van. Probate clearances and downsizing move slowly, so a clear “I buy” page keeps working for months.
Photographs, measurements and the word “sold”
The photos that sell antiques are honest ones: the piece in daylight, the back, the drawer joints, the chip on the glaze if there is one. Serious buyers prefer to see the flaw before they travel. Each listing wants dimensions in centimetres, a short note on age and origin, condition in plain words, and a price. Dealers often leave the price off online, and we understand why, but a page of “price on request” pushes buyers towards the dealer who did put one on.
When a piece goes, mark it sold rather than deleting it. A row of sold pieces shows the kind of things that pass through your hands and gives a collector a reason to ask what is coming in. Your edit page lets you add a piece with photos, change a price or mark something sold from your phone. If you would rather, send us the photos on WhatsApp and we will list it.
Hours, fairs and the sign on the door
Antique shops keep their own hours. Closed Monday and Tuesday, open by appointment outside those, shut for a week in February for a buying trip, away at a fair on a Sunday. That is fine as long as Google and the site say so. Nothing loses a customer faster than driving across the city to a locked door, so we set the Google Business Profile up with your real hours and show you how to post “closed this weekend, back Tuesday” in a minute.
If you do fairs, list the upcoming ones with the dates. If you ship, say where to and that you will quote for crating. If you can hold a piece on a deposit, say that too. These small facts are what a buyer from Cork or London needs before they ring, and what AI search tools read when someone asks for a dealer in Dublin who handles Irish silver.
Instagram is good for dealers and we would keep posting there. The site is where Google sends people, where the price and the measurements live, and where your stock stays visible after the post has scrolled past. We set out the difference in whether you need a website if you have Instagram.
What we need from the shop
Photos of twenty or thirty current pieces, with the measurements and the prices, however rough your notes are. Your “I buy” paragraph in your own words. Your hours, including the odd ones. A photo of the shopfront and one of the interior. If you have a logo or old headed paper, send it; if not, the name set plainly is enough. Ten minutes in the shop covers the rest, and we will tell you which photos to retake.
Which plan, and what it costs
For most dealers we would start with Essentials, which is €499 to set up and €50 a month: the site, a .ie domain in your name, hosting, the Google listing, and the edit page for stock. Complete, at €1,499 and €100 a month, adds card payments for deposits and smaller pieces, business email on your own domain, and monthly posts to your Google listing. The comparison is on the pricing page. A fuller online shop with shipping and stock levels is an add-on we quote for separately. Dealers who carry a lot of jewellery can read how we approach sites for jewellers, where much of the thinking overlaps.