Why a 0.18% Daily Sell-Through Rate Can Be a Winning Strategy for Antique Sellers

Recently, a fellow reseller asked me a simple question:

“How many items on average do you sell per day?”

My answer was:

I sell about 10 items a day. I’m at the high end of the resale market, selling to the public at full retail, aiming for maximum profit, and I keep all of that profit. Some days I wake up to a single customer buying thousands of pounds’ worth of stock in one bulk order.

If I lowered my prices, my sales would obviously go up – but I couldn’t handle the extra work and I already make more than I need from my current sales.

On top of that, owning my own website brings other revenue streams – advertising, promotions, sponsors and so on. I used to make about £1,000 a week on eBay and at least £1,000 a month went straight back to eBay in fees. Now I make a lot more than I ever did on eBay, and I keep it.

That question – and my answer – is the starting point for this article.

If you sell antiques, collectibles, or other niche items online, this will walk you through my business model in detail: how many items I sell, what my sell-through rate is, what eBay actually costs, and why I think a high-margin, low-volume website beats a high-fee, high-competition marketplace.

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Is a Low Daily Sell-Through Rate Bad for Online Sellers?

A 0.18% daily sell-through rate can be perfectly healthy for an antique or collectible business if prices are set for maximum profit, fees are low, and stock is treated as a long-term asset. For niche sellers, high margins and patient buyers often matter more than fast, high-volume sales.

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Why Do eBay Fees Take So Much of My Profit?

eBay’s total fee stack – final value fees on the item and postage, plus promoted listing charges – can easily cost sellers 25–50% of their turnover. Running your own niche website can let you keep around 99% of the sale price, even with a lower sell-through rate.

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1. Two Very Different E-commerce Strategies

Most online sellers fall into one of two camps:

1. Volume strategy – sell as many items as possible, as quickly as possible, often on platforms like eBay, even if that means lower margins.
2. Value strategy – sell fewer items, but at higher profit per item, usually from your own website, with minimal fees and a focus on long-term growth.

For mass-market products (clothing, electronics, consumables), the volume strategy can work well.

For antiques, collectibles and one-off items, it’s often the value strategy that wins in the long run – even if your daily percentage of stock sold looks “small”.

This article breaks down:

• A realistic niche business model with around 5,500 items and 10 sales per day
• How that compares to an antique shop previously selling on eBay
• The true cost of eBay fees, including final value fees on postage and promoted listings
• How to calculate your own sell-through rate and fee burden
• Why a seemingly tiny 0.18% daily sell-through rate can actually be a smart, profitable choice

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2. The Case Study: A High-Margin, Low-Volume Antique Website

Let’s begin with some straightforward numbers from a specialised antique website.

Key Figures

• Total inventory: around 5,500 unique items
• Average daily sales: about 10 items per day
• Days in a year: 365

How many items sell per year?

Here’s the simple breakdown:

• You sell 10 items per day
• There are 365 days in a year
• So: 10 × 365 = 3,650 items per year

That means roughly 3,650 items sell each year.

What percentage of your stock sells annually?

• 3,650 items sold per year
• Out of 5,500 items total

To keep it simple:
3,650 sold from 5,500 = about 66% of the stock sold each year.

So around two-thirds of the inventory sells annually, leaving about one-third still in stock.
For antiques, this is completely normal — and often desirable — because slower-moving pieces continue attracting collectors through search.

Daily Sell-Through Rate (STR)

The sell-through rate shows what percentage of your inventory sells in a single day.

• Daily sales: 10 items
• Total inventory: 5,500 items

So:
10 sold out of 5,500 = about 0.18% per day.

This 0.18% daily STR might look low compared to fast retail, but in the antiques market — where items are unique, priced higher, and sold to the right buyer — it can be exactly what you want.

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💡 Website Costs for Antique Sellers: Full Transparency Breakdown

🏷️ The Real Cost of Running Your Own Website

When people hear “build your own ecommerce website,” they often assume it’s expensive, technical, and hard to maintain. The truth is, for niche sellers like antique dealers, running your own site is not only affordable—it’s often far cheaper than selling on eBay or other high-fee platforms.

Below is a transparent, real-world breakdown of what it actually costs to run a profitable antique e-commerce website, based on the tools I personally use.

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📊 Annual Website Cost Breakdown

Item	Annual Cost (GBP)	What It Covers
Hosting (WPX Starter Plan)	£145	Fast, secure managed hosting (1 site) with support, backups, email hosting, SSL, and malware protection.
.co.uk Domain Name (123 Reg)	£3.99 first year / £11.99 after	Your website address. Price increases after the first year.
Royal Mail Worldwide Plugin	£89	Calculates international postage rates live at checkout.
WooCommerce	£0	Free ecommerce engine that powers your shop.
SSL Certificate	£0	Encrypts your site for security – included with WPX.
Business Email Hosting	£0	Use yourname@yourdomain.co.uk – included with WPX.
Payment Processing (e.g. PayPal)	~2.5% per sale	No fixed fee, only per transaction. PayPal, Stripe, etc.

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💰 Total Estimated Annual Cost

• First Year (discounted domain): ~£238
• Ongoing Years: ~£246–£260/year

This is your entire yearly overhead for owning a fully functional ecommerce shop that you control 100%.

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📈 What That Means for a £12,000/Year Turnover

Let’s say your website earns a modest £1,000 per month, which totals:

• £12,000 per year in sales

Now, subtract your fixed website costs:

Metric	Value
Annual Turnover	£12,000
Website Running Costs	~£250
% of Turnover Spent on Website	~2.08%
What You Keep (before payment fees)	~£11,750

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🧾 Key Takeaways

• Your website overhead is just ~2% of your yearly income — that’s incredibly low compared to eBay, where fees can eat up 25–50% of your turnover.
• You’re building a business asset that you own.
• Even with just £1,000/month turnover, your site more than pays for itself with room to grow.
• The more you earn, the smaller the percentage cost of running your own shop becomes.

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✅ Conclusion
Owning your own antique website is not expensive; it’s liberating. For less than the cost of one promoted listing campaign on eBay, you can run your entire online shop, keep almost all of your revenue, and build a long-term business asset that grows over time.

If you’re serious about increasing your margins and keeping control of your business, switching to your own website isn’t just smart — it’s essential.

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3. The Business Plan: Profit, Not Speed

This antique website follows a very deliberate strategy:

• Price for maximum profit, not maximum speed
• Build inventory over time as a long-term asset
• Use every product page and image as a way to attract organic traffic from search engines
• Avoid marketplace fees, keeping around 99% of the sale price (only a small payment handling fee)

Why build such a large inventory?

For antiques and one-off items, more stock isn’t just “more clutter”. It’s an asset.

1. Every product is a search entry point
   Each listing – especially with good photographs – is another opportunity for:
   • Google Search
   • Google Images
   • Other image-driven search tools
   to show your item to the exact collector who’s looking for it.
2. Inventory adds to business value
   In ten years, if you decide to sell the business:
   • The stock itself has a resale value
   • The website with thousands of indexed product pages has SEO value
   • The business becomes attractive not just for its profit, but for its tangible assets
3. Antiques are naturally slow moving
   • The right collector at the right price can take time
   • If you want instant sales, you usually have to sell to the trade or slash prices
   • Holding out for the right buyer means higher margins, even if it means a slower STR

Profit vs. labour

A key idea in this model:

“I make the same profit from 10 sales at my price as I would from 20 at a lower price – with half the work.”

Less work means:

• Fewer parcels to pack
• Less time spent on customer service
• Lower risk of returns and complications

If your aim is maximum profit for minimum labour, slow but high-margin sales can be smarter than fast but low-margin churn.

This Strategy Is Perfect For:

• Antique dealers
• Collectible sellers
• Vintage jewellery sellers
• One-off or long-tail item sellers
• Anyone with a slow but high-margin stock

This Strategy Is NOT Ideal For:

• Fast-moving retail
• Dropshipping
• Amazon arbitrage
• Low-margin mass suppliers

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4. How This Compares to an Antique Shop on eBay

Before running a standalone website, this seller operated an antique shop on eBay.
Here’s what the typical numbers looked like.

Typical eBay Antique Shop Figures

• Inventory: around 2,000 items
• Average sales: 1–2 items per day

Daily Sell-Through Rate on eBay

• Selling 1 item per day from 2,000 listings works out to roughly 0.05% per day
• Selling 2 items per day from the same inventory is about 0.10% per day

So the average daily sell-through rate on eBay was between 0.05% and 0.10%.

Comparison with the Website Model

• Website daily STR: ~0.18%
• eBay antique daily STR: 0.05%–0.10%

This means the website moves stock faster on a percentage basis, while also keeping significantly more of the profit because it avoids eBay’s heavy fees.

Feature	eBay	Your Website
Fees	25–50%	~1%
Control	Low	Full
Visibility	Pay for ads	SEO & image search
Risk	Account can be shut down	You own the platform
Profit margin	Low–medium	High
Long-term asset	No	The account can be shut down

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5. Understanding eBay’s True Fee Structure

Many sellers only look at the headline percentage and forget the rest. In reality, eBay’s total take rate can be far higher than you think.

Here’s a simplified breakdown.

Note: Exact percentages vary by category, country and account type. Always check current rates on eBay, but the structure – and the compounding effect – is the key point.

5.1 Final Value Fees (FVF)

• Charged as a percentage of the total amount of the sale
• This includes:
  • Item price
  • Postage/shipping cost
  • In many regions, even applicable taxes

So if you sell an item for £100 with £10 postage, eBay charges its percentage on £110, not just the item.

5.2 Final Value Fees on Postage

This is the part many sellers deeply dislike:

• You are paying commission on the money you spend to post the item
• In practice, you pay a fee on your shipping cost, even though that money is passed straight to the courier

5.3 Promoted Listings (eBay Ads)

Promoted Listings are eBay’s built-in advertising system, and they have become a major part of how sellers get visibility on the platform.

• eBay lets you choose almost any promotion rate, from as low as 2% all the way up to 100% of the sale price.
• eBay also shows a “suggested” promotion rate, and for many categories this is extremely high — often around 25%, as shown in the screenshot below.
• If a buyer clicks your promoted listing and makes a purchase, that promotion percentage is charged on top of the standard Final Value Fee.

Because of how competitive eBay’s search results are, many sellers feel they must use promoted listings just to be seen — even though these extra fees can quickly eat into already thin margins.

5.4 The Combined Impact

When you add up all the fees a seller pays on eBay, the total cost is far higher than most people realise. Beyond the headline fee you see, there are multiple layers:

• The Final Value Fee (FVF) — a percentage of the total sale (item price + postage + taxes) plus a fixed charge of £0.30 per order. eBay UK+2eBay UK+2
• The Regulatory Operating Fee — in the UK, this is 0.35% of the total sale amount (including item price, postage, taxes, etc.). eBay UK+1
• Promoted Listings — an additional percentage you set yourself (from a few percent to much higher) that you pay if a buyer clicks your ad and then buys.
• Other hidden charges — for example, insertion fees for listings beyond free allocations, possible international selling fees, subscription/store fees. Link My Books+1

Because of all these layers, it is common for the total cost of selling on eBay to reach 25%–50% of your total turnover.

What that means:

• For every £1,000 in gross sales on eBay, you may only keep £500–£750 after all fees.
• On your own niche website, by contrast, you might only pay a small payment-handling fee. You could keep approximately 99% of the sale price (minus mailing/shipping cost).

I have created a pie chart here so you can visualise where the money goes, and below is a full written breakdown. but in basic terms. for your £100 sale you will get £58 pounds back.

✅ Breakdown of a £100 Sale + £10 Postage on eBay (25% Promotion Rate)

Total Paid by the Buyer: £110

(£100 for the item + £10 postage)

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1. How much eBay takes

Here are the actual fees deducted from this sale:

Fee Type	Amount Taken	Explanation
Final Value Fee (12% of £110)	£13.20	eBay charges its percentage on the item price and postage.
Order fee (fixed £0.30)	£0.30	Standard per-order charge.
Regulatory Operating Fee (0.35% of £110)	£0.39	A small extra charge is added in many regions.
Payment processing (2.35% of £110 + £0.25)	£2.85	eBay’s payment handling fee.
Promoted Listing Fee (25% of £100)	£25.00	Small extra charge is added in many regions.

Total eBay Fees:

£41.74

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2. What the Seller Actually Receives

Total buyer payment: £110
Minus total eBay fees: £41.74

Net to Seller (before postage costs):

£68.26

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3. What the Seller Really Keeps After Posting the Item

Postage cost (real shipping cost paid to courier): £10
(This money never becomes profit — it goes straight to Royal Mail, Evri, etc.)

Final amount seller keeps as income:

£68.26 − £10 postage = £58.26

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✅ Summary for Your Article

From a £110 total payment:

• eBay takes: £41.74
  (in fees, ads, and payment processing)
• The courier gets: £10
  (Postage money is not profit)
• The seller keeps: £58.26

That means the seller only keeps about 53% of the total amount the buyer paid, even on a simple £100 sale.

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6. Why a 0.18% Daily STR Works When You Keep 99% of the Sale

At first glance, selling just 0.18% of your inventory per day sounds weak – until you compare the net profit.

If you:

• Sell fewer items at higher prices
• Pay almost no platform fees
• Treat inventory as a long-term asset and SEO engine

…you can often earn the same or more net income than a high-volume eBay seller who:

• Sells more quickly
• But gives away 25–50% of every sale to eBay in fees and ads
• Works harder, packing and shipping more items

For antiques and collectibles, where:

• Items are unique
• Buyers can wait
• Prices can be high

…it is rational to optimise for net profit per sale, not the number of sales per day.

Case Study: £10,000 in Monthly Sales — eBay vs Your Website

• On eBay (40% average fee burden):
  You keep £6,000
• On your own site (1% fee burden):
  You keep £9,900

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7. How to Analyse Your Own eBay Performance

If you’re currently selling on eBay, here’s how to compare your results to this kind of high-margin website model.

Step 1: Check your views and conversion

In eBay Seller Hub, look at a typical listing and note:

• Impressions (how often it appears in search/browse, etc.)
• Page views (how many people actually looked at the listing)
• Units sold

From this, you can work out:

a) Sales Conversion Rate (SCR)

Your Sales Conversion Rate shows how many of the people who visit your eBay shop actually end up buying something.

On a big marketplace like eBay, a healthy overall conversion rate is often somewhere around 1% to 5%, depending on what you sell and how it’s priced.

But remember:
If your views are extremely low, a “good” conversion rate doesn’t mean much. You might have a high percentage simply because hardly anyone is seeing your items in the first place.

That’s why it’s useful to calculate two separate numbers:

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1. Your Overall Sales Conversion Rate (SCR)

This tells you how well your shop turns visitors into buyers.

How to calculate your SCR (shop level):

1. Go to your eBay seller performance or traffic reports.
2. Choose a time period (for example, the last 30 days).
3. Note the total number of views your listings have had in that time.
4. Note the total number of items sold in the same period.
5. Then do this:

• Total items sold ÷ total views × 100

Example:

• 300 items sold in the last 30 days
• 10,000 total views across all listings in the last 30 days

SCR = 300 ÷ 10,000 × 100 = 3%

So about 3% of people who viewed your items actually bought something.

Ask yourself:
“Given eBay’s huge global audience, is my shop’s conversion rate as strong as I’d expect?”

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2. Your Daily Sell-Through Rate (STR)

This tells you how well your total inventory is moving, regardless of how many views you get.

How to calculate your STR:

1. Count how many items you currently have listed (your active inventory).
2. Work out your average number of sales per day (for example, over the last 30 days).
3. Then do this:

• Average daily sales ÷ total inventory × 100

Example:

• 2,000 items in stock
• 2 sales per day on average

STR = 2 ÷ 2,000 × 100 = 0.10% per day

Your STR shows what percentage of your stock sells each day, which is often a much clearer indicator of how your business is really performing than conversion rate alone.

Compare your STR to:

• Your own niche goals
• The 0.05–0.10% daily STR many antique sellers see on eBay
• The 0.18% daily STR from the website example above

Why These Metrics Matter

These two measurements are important because they show very different sides of your business. Your conversion rate may look impressive, but if each listing is only getting a handful of views, that percentage can be hugely inflated and give you a false sense of success. eBay’s massive global audience should generate meaningful traffic, so extremely low views can indicate poor visibility, heavy competition, or that promoted listings are becoming a requirement just to be seen. This is why your daily sell-through rate (STR) is so valuable: it tells you how efficiently your entire inventory is moving, not just how a single well-performing listing appears on paper. Together, SCR and STR give you a realistic picture of whether your shop is performing as strongly as it should on a marketplace as large as eBay.

Step 3: Calculate how much you actually lose to eBay

Over a typical month, add up every fee eBay charges, including the ones many sellers forget about:

• Final Value Fee on the item price
• Final Value Fee on the postage cost
• The fixed £0.30 order fee
• The 0.35% regulatory operating fee
• Promoted Listings advertising fees
• Payment processing fees
• Any additional charges such as insertion fees, store/subscription fees, or international selling fees

These combined charges give you your true fee burden, which is often far higher than the headline percentages suggest.

Compare:

• Total gross sales (what buyers paid)
• Total net received (what you actually kept, or what was paid into your bank).

How to Work Out Your Fee Burden

1. Add up all the fees eBay charged you for the month.
2. Look at your total sales for the same month.
3. Then work out your percentage like this:

Total fees ÷ total sales × 100

Example:

• £1,000 in total sales
• £300 in total fees

Your fee burden = 300 ÷ 1,000 × 100 = 30%

So in this example, 30% of everything earned went straight to eBay.

If your fee burden is 25% or more, ask yourself:

“How many of these sales would I actually need if I kept 99% of the revenue instead?”

You may find that half the number of sales on your own website could give you the same net income as a higher volume on eBay – with much less work.

You may be ready to leave eBay if:

• You’re losing more than 25% to fees
• Your items are unique, not mass-produced
• You rely heavily on promoted listings
• You have strong product photos
• You’re tired of eBay rule changes
• You want predictable income and ownership

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8. Pros and Cons: eBay vs. Your Own Niche Website

Selling on eBay (Volume Strategy)

Pros

• Massive built-in audience
• Easy to start selling quickly
• Buyers already trust the platform

Cons

• High and layered fees (FVF on items and postage, Promoted Listings, processing)
• Constant price pressure and competition
• You are building eBay’s asset, not yours (their site, their traffic, their brand)
• For niche antiques, overall site sell-through is low due to long-tail nature and competition

Running Your Own Antique Website (Value Strategy)

Pros

• The Advantages of Running Your Own Niche Website
• When you sell through your own website rather than a marketplace like eBay, you gain a level of control and stability that big platforms simply cannot offer. Here are the key benefits:
• You keep almost all of the profit
• You retain around 99% of each sale, with only a small payment-handling fee to pay.
• No Final Value Fees, no charges on postage, no promoted listing fees, no unexpected deductions.
• You decide your own prices and policies
• You set your pricing exactly how you want it.
• You control your returns policy, shipping rules, communication style, and the overall customer experience.
• No forced discounts, no penalty systems, no marketplace rules changing overnight.
• Your shop can’t be shut down without warning
• Marketplaces can suspend or close stores instantly and without notice.
• When you run your own site, no one can switch your shop off.
• You have full ownership, stability, and long-term safety.
• Every listing boosts your long-term visibility
• Each product page becomes a permanently searchable page on Google.
• Long-tail keywords and good images attract collectors for years, not days.
• Over time, your website becomes a large, indexed catalogue that grows your traffic organically.
• Your inventory becomes a real business asset
• Thousands of items listed on your own domain add value to the business itself.
• If you ever choose to sell the business, your stock + website structure + SEO ranking all contribute to its sale price.
• You can monetise in multiple ways
• Unlike eBay, you can earn extra income from:
  • Ad placements
  • Sponsorships
  • Affiliate links
  • Partnerships
• These run alongside your sales and don’t take a cut from each item sold.
• You choose your own balance
• Want slower, high-margin sales? You can.
• Want to speed up or slow down depending on workload? You decide.
• You aren’t forced into a race to the bottom with cheap competitors.
• Running your own website allows you to build a profitable, stable and growing long-term business, rather than relying on a marketplace that takes a large percentage of your revenue and controls your visibility.

Cons

• The Disadvantages of Running Your Own Website
• Running your own ecommerce website comes with many benefits, but it also has challenges that sellers should understand before making the switch. Here are the key drawbacks:
• You have to create your own traffic
• Marketplaces provide instant visibility.
• With your own site, you need to bring visitors in yourself through SEO, social media, content creation, advertising, or email marketing.
• This takes planning and consistency, especially in the early months.
• It takes time to build momentum
• A new website doesn’t rank on Google overnight.
• Building trust, backlinks, and search visibility can take months.
• Sales usually start slow and increase as your catalogue grows and Google indexes more pages.
• It costs money to get started
• You will need to invest in a domain name, hosting, a shop platform, and possibly some design help.
• While the long-term cost is far lower than eBay fees, the initial investment can make some sellers hesitate.
• Full control also means full responsibility
• You’re in charge of customer service, order processing, returns policies, and the overall running of the store.
• On marketplaces, many of these systems are already built for you.
• You need some level of technical confidence
• You don’t need to be a developer — most modern platforms are very user-friendly.
• But you do need to be comfortable learning basic tasks like:
  • Uploading products
  • Managing categories
  • Adjusting settings
  • Installing plugins or apps
• The good news is: you can run a large, successful website with very minimal tech skills. If you can use eBay, you can learn this too.
• You are responsible for site maintenance and security
• You’ll need to make sure your website is up to date, backed up, and protected from issues.
• Most web hosts offer tools or automatic systems for this, but it still requires occasional attention.

Selling Method	Daily STR	Fees	Net Profit Kept	Workload	Long-Term Asset?
eBay	0.05–0.10%	25–50%	50–75%	High	No
Your Website	0.18%	~1%	99%	Low/Medium	Yes

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9. What Are the Key Takeaways for Antique and Niche Sellers?

A low daily sell-through rate — such as 0.18% — does not automatically mean your business is struggling. In antiques and collectibles, where items are unique and buyers take time to find, a slower but higher-margin approach can outperform the fast-paced, high-fee environment of marketplaces like eBay.

A 0.18% daily sell-through rate can be completely healthy if:

• Your prices are set for maximum profit, not quick turnover
• You avoid marketplace fees that eat into your margins
• You treat your inventory as a long-term business asset rather than a liability

eBay Example

A typical antique shop on eBay with:

• Around 2,000 items
• 1–2 sales per day

…usually achieves a daily STR of roughly 0.05%–0.10%.
On top of that, sellers can lose 25–50% of their turnover to eBay’s combined fees and advertising costs.

Your Own Website Example

With:

• 5,500 items
• 10 sales per day
• A 0.18% daily STR
• And almost no selling fees

…you can often earn an equal or higher net profit with far less work, while keeping control of your pricing, your policies, your visibility, and your long-term business growth.

If you’re an antique or collectible seller, don’t just ask:

“How many items am I selling per day?”

Instead ask:

“How much net profit do I keep per sale, and how much of my hard work am I giving away in fees?”

For many niche sellers, the answer leads away from high-fee marketplaces and towards owning their own website, stock, and long-term business asset.

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FAQ: Selling Antiques Online, Sell-Through Rates & eBay Fees

1. What is a good sell-through rate for antique sellers?

For antiques and unique collectibles, a daily sell-through rate of 0.1% to 0.2% is perfectly normal.
These items naturally move slower because they require the right buyer at the right price.
A rate around 0.18% can be considered healthy when you’re prioritising profit over volume.

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2. Why does my eBay shop get so few views?

Low views are common on eBay due to heavy competition, saturated categories, and eBay prioritising promoted listings in search results.
If your items don’t appear high in search, you may need to pay more for promoted listings — which reduces your profit.
Low views can also make your conversion rate look artificially high, even if your actual sales are low.

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3. Why are eBay fees so high?

eBay charges multiple fees on each sale, including:

• Final Value Fee on the item price
• Final Value Fee on postage
• A fixed £0.30 per order fee
• A 0.35% regulatory operating fee
• Promoted Listing advertising fees
• Payment processing fees
• Possible insertion, subscription, or international selling charges

When combined, these can easily take 25%–50% of your turnover.

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4. How do I calculate my eBay sell-through rate?

Your daily sell-through rate is simple:

• Take your average number of sales per day
• Divide it by your total number of active listings
• Multiply by 100

Example:
2 sales a day from 2,000 listings = 0.10% STR

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5. Is selling on my own website better than selling on eBay?

If you sell antiques, niche items, or one-off products, then yes — often by a large margin.
Your own website allows you to:

• Keep around 99% of each sale
• Set your own prices and policies
• Avoid sudden account restrictions
• Build long-term traffic from Google search
• Turn your inventory and website into a growing business asset
• Monetise with ads, sponsors, and partnerships

The trade-off is that you must build your own traffic and maintain your site — but the long-term gains can easily outweigh the challenges.

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6. Why do antiques sell slowly?

Antiques sell slowly because:

• They are unique, one-off items
• Buyers are highly specific and selective
• People often wait for the exact piece they want
• Pricing varies dramatically depending on the end buyer
• Many collectors search by image, which requires good photography and SEO

This slow pace is normal. It’s not a sign of failure — it’s part of the niche.

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7. Can I run a successful antique website without strong tech skills?

Absolutely.
Modern website platforms are user-friendly, and if you can upload items to eBay, you can learn to run your own site.
Most tasks are simple: adding products, uploading images, organising categories, and updating pages.
Even large sites can be run with only basic skills.

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8. How long does it take for a new website to start getting sales?

Most websites take 3–12 months to build search visibility and start generating regular sales.
The more products you add, the faster Google indexes you.
Quality photos, clear descriptions, and consistent additions all speed up the process.

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9. Should I lower prices to increase my sell-through rate?

Lower prices will increase sales, but often at the cost of your profit.
Many antique sellers choose to keep prices high and wait for the right collector.
A smaller number of high-profit sales is usually better than a higher number of low-margin sales — especially when selling from your own website.

10. Who Should I Host My Website With?

If you’re building your own antique or niche ecommerce website, choosing the right hosting provider is extremely important. A good host keeps your site fast, secure, and online — and offers support when you need it.

Personally, I highly recommend WPX as a hosting provider. I’ve used them for years, and their service has consistently been outstanding.

Here’s why WPX stands out:

• Multiple hosting plans that grow with your business
• Very fast, expert 24/7 support with no extra charges
• Ultra-fast servers for better performance and SEO
• Built-in email hosting, so your shop and email stay together
• Free high-quality support for site fixes and optimisations

If you’d like to support this website at no cost to you, please consider signing up through my referral link. We receive a small commission, which helps keep the educational content and guides coming: ( I would like to add, WPX is who we use for a reason)

👉 https://wpx.net/?affid=9610

11. Is it cheaper to sell on my own website than on eBay?

Yes — in most cases, selling on your own website is dramatically cheaper than selling on eBay.
On eBay, sellers often lose 25%–50% of their turnover to Final Value Fees, postage fees, promoted listings, and processing charges.
On your own website, you typically pay only a small payment-handling fee, meaning you keep around 99% of every sale.
For antique and collectible sellers, where margins matter, your own site is almost always the more profitable option.

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12. How do I build website traffic without paying for ads?

You can build strong, long-term traffic without spending money by focusing on organic growth strategies such as:

• Adding high-quality product listings with great photos
• Using long-tail keywords in your titles and descriptions
• Writing helpful blog posts or guides related to your niche
• Sharing items and articles on Pinterest, Facebook, or Instagram
• Building an email list of past customers and collectors

Google rewards websites that consistently add useful content, so your traffic grows naturally over time.

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13. How long before a new antique website starts making money?

Most antique websites begin seeing regular sales within 3 to 12 months, depending on how often products are added and how well the site is optimised.
Google needs time to index your pages, rank your images, and understand your niche — but once the momentum builds, your traffic and sales grow steadily.
The more items you add, the faster you typically see results, because every listing becomes a searchable entry point for collectors.

5 Simple Steps to Start Your Own Antique Website

1. Choose fast hosting (WPX recommended).
2. Install WordPress + WooCommerce.
3. Add your first 20–50 items with great images.
4. Post 1–2 articles or guides to start SEO.
5. Add new products consistently.

Recommended Reading to Help You Grow Your Online Antique Business

If you found this guide helpful, the following in-depth articles on my website will take your knowledge even further. Each one breaks down a different part of building a profitable, sustainable online business outside of high-fee marketplaces.

1. How to Build a Profitable Ecommerce Website (Using WPX Hosting)

A step-by-step guide to creating a fast, reliable online shop, including hosting, setup, structure, and optimisation.
👉 https://antiquesarena.com/how-to-build-profitable-ecommerce-website-wpx-hosting/

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2. Where Do Your Sales Really Come From? The Truth About Website Traffic & SEO

Learn how buyers actually find your items online and how search engines, long-tail keywords, and image search work behind the scenes.
👉 https://antiquesarena.com/where-do-your-sales-really-come-from-the-truth-about-website-traffic-seo-success/

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3. How and Why I Am So Successful

A detailed look at the strategies, business model, and mindset behind building a long-term antiques business with strong profits and low fees. ( In this article, you will see all the evidence to back up my claims, from analytics to Google screenshots)
👉 https://antiquesarena.com/how-and-why-i-am-so-successful/

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4. Sell Online Without eBay Fees

A must-read if you’re looking to escape high marketplace fees and build a more profitable selling system you fully control.
👉 https://antiquesarena.com/sell-online-without-ebay-fees/

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Conclusion: Why Slow, Steady and High-Margin Can Beat Fast and High-Fee

If there is one lesson to take from this entire breakdown, it’s this:

Your daily sales number is not the most important metric — your net profit is.

Many antique and niche sellers get discouraged when they compare their sell-through rate to people selling clothing, electronics or mass-market products. But antiques aren’t fast-moving retail items. They are unique, long-tail products that often require the right buyer at the right moment, not a race to the bottom in price.

What this case study shows is simple:

• A business selling 10 items a day at full retail
• With a daily STR of 0.18%
• Keeping around 99% of every sale
• Building thousands of searchable product pages
• And growing long-term, organic visibility

…can outperform a higher-volume eBay shop that sells 1–2 items a day but loses 25%–50% of its turnover to eBay’s layered fees, ads and competition.

On eBay, you are renting space on someone else’s platform.
On your own website, you are building an asset you own.

That difference is huge.

A slow-moving antique is not a weakness — it’s an SEO opportunity. Every listing becomes a permanent gateway for search traffic. Every item adds value to your business. And every sale keeps its profit instead of being sliced up by a marketplace.

If you sell antiques, collectibles, art, jewellery or any one-off items, ask yourself:

“Do I want to be fast… or do I want to be profitable?”

Because in this niche, the two are rarely the same.

For most antique sellers, the smarter long-term strategy isn’t selling more — it’s keeping more.

When you own your website, control your policies, build your traffic, and keep your margins, you’re no longer fighting for visibility in a crowded marketplace. Instead, you’re building a stable, profitable business that grows in value year after year.

Slow and profitable beats fast and expensive — every single time.

Ready to Stop Losing Profit to eBay and Start Keeping 99% of Your Sales?

If you’re tired of watching eBay take 25–50% of your hard-earned money — and you want full control over your prices, policies, traffic, and long-term business — now is the perfect time to build your own website.

You don’t need advanced tech skills.
You don’t need a massive budget.
You just need the right hosting and a clear system.

With fast hosting, a clean design, and consistent product uploads, you can build a profitable antique website that:

• Keeps almost all of your profit
• Attracts buyers directly through Google and image search
• Grows automatically as your inventory grows
• Builds into a real, valuable business asset

👉 Start your own website with WPX (my recommended host):
https://wpx.net/?affid=9610

Using this link costs you nothing extra, and it helps support the content I create.

Take control of your business.
Stop giving half your profit away.
Start owning your platform — and your future.