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About CollectFair

Helping you to buy, sell and display your antiques and collectables


About us

David Fletcher at antiques fair

CollectFair began in late 2002 when it's founder David Fletcher (pictured left) spotted a way to combine his interest in antiques and collectables with his knowledge of computing and the internet.

In 2004 the CollectFair website was launched, providing a way for people to create their own on-line "stall" to buy and sell antiques and collectables. From the start CollectFair has aimed to bring the feel of an antiques fair or centre to the internet, and to be much more than a simple auction site. Since its launch user suggestions and feedback have helped build the current Online Antiques Centre.


News

See the New Developments forum for the most recent news.

2nd March 2011 - Sellers can offer discounts and promotions

Sellers on CollectFair are now able to promote their sales with new ways to offer buyers discounts and promotional prices. When selling through the CollectFair Shopping Basket buyers can be tempted with a discount of between 5 and 50% off the normal Buy Now prices. This can apply to all sales, or be restricted to multi-item sales.

These new capabilities will allow sellers to run 'sales' and promotions without needing to update all their prices. They are available for Plus, Pro and Ultimate stalls, and are managed through the PayPal page accessible from My CollectFair. All these possibilities also work with the existing capability to offer postage discounts.

19th January 2011 - EU and International postage

A new facility has been added to the CollectFair Shopping Trolley for providing buyers with an EU or international postage rate.

Sellers can now store postage 'multipliers' by which the UK postage values can be scaled up for EU and International buyers. While this isn't as exact as finding the cost for each item for each country it might go to, with careful choice of the multipliers it gives reasonable values with no additional work, and shows a seller is willing to send items abroad. A facility to arrange discounts between a buyer and seller (e.g. for multiple items) is also available. Current postage costs show that EU delivery is typically around double UK costs, and international about 3 times. Find out more by following the PayPal link from My CollectFair.

23rd November 2010 - Improved page layout as items sell

As antiques & collectables displayed on CollectFair stalls sell they can leave annoying gaps in the display of items for sale. To reduce the effort needed to maintain good looking web pages, stallholders can simply remove from the page the photos of items which have sold, and then click the new 'Move Up Pictures' button. The remaining photos, descriptions and prices will move up automatically into the gaps, maintaining a good page appearance for minimum effort.

21st August 2010 - Improvements to stock listing pages: Now with Buy Now buttons!

CollectFair's Stock Listing pages let you quickly get literally hundreds of items listed for sale on the web. Now, you can also include a Buy Now button for each item of stock you list in this way.

To create a stock listing page, simply create an Excel spreadsheet listing your items and then upload it to CollectFair. It is immediately converted into a web page, with links for people to ask for further information about your items. By using special column titles to indicate the price, postage and quantities available the CollectFair system can now generate Buy Now buttons for all the items of stock.

27th May 2010 - Buttons to link with Facebook and Twitter

Many people browsing CollectFair's stalls keep up with their friends using services such as Facebook and Twitter. To help them show their friends all there is to offer on CollectFair we've added buttons to all stalls to enable people browsing to share what they are viewing with their friends using just one click.

The new buttons are available in all stall types, and should help bring more visitors and buyers to the stalls. In addition to these new buttons, some of the existing buttons for buyers to contact sellers, and bookmark pages have also been updated to create a uniform look.

23rd March 2010 - Reaching people who enjoy living with and using their collectables

CollectFair is aiming to boost enquiries for stallholders with a new series of adverts in Collect it! magazine. Starting in the March issue we are advertising in the "Collect it Living" section of the magazine. This section was launched in mid-2009 and is for people who like to live with and use their collectables, so it should be in-tune with most of the items listed on CollectFair.

Collect it! magazine is available in WH Smith and other newsagents. CollectFair is also advertising in the Antique Trade Calendar, published quarterly and available at fairs and antiques centres around the country or by subscription.

9th December 2009 - New computing equipment for CollectFair

This month we've moved CollectFair to a new computing facility with the latest behind the scenes software to support the website. Since CollectFair started in 2004 we've been running the website from the same computers, but after more than 5 years running 24 hours a day they were getting a bit tired!

Importantly the new computers will use much less electricity than the old ones. This will offset the electricity price rises we've seen over the last 2-3 years, and will also help the environment.

28th June 2009 - Shopping Basket for multi-item sales

A new 'Shopping Basket' is now available which lets buyers purchase multiple items at once. This improves on the existing Buy Now buttons, which sell a single type of item at once. The Shopping Basket can handle discounts on postage of multiple items, and also extra charges for posting internationally. Users can find out how sell with the Shopping Basket by clicking the PayPal link on the My CollectFair page.

1st June 2009 - New CollectFair flyers are out for summer 2009.
Click to see the front and back. (Images open in a pop-up window.)

4th February 2009 - "Ultimate" stall type introduced

A new stall type called "Ultimate" has been introduced alongside the existing Starter, Basic, Plus and Pro stalls. The "Ultimate" stall is for sellers with large inventories of items. It can display up to 50 pages, and 5000 Buy Now items, and has been created in response to customer requests.

With the introduction of this new stall type, the OnePage stall has been withdrawn, leaving the 2 page Starter stall as the smallest stall offered.

18th June 2008 - Encrypted Website Payments

To help prevent fraud CollectFair verifies each Buy Now button sale using PayPal Instant Payment Notification, and sends the stallholder an email to confirm the sale. If you sell very high value items or have particular concerns about fraud, CollectFair now supports PayPal Encrypted Website Payments for even higher security.

This helps prevent someone attempting to buy your items at the wrong price, and also conceals information such as the email address which will receive the payment. CollectFair is one of very few services able to offer this automatically for each item you sell. Find out more here.

16th May 2008 - Multi-page galleries, for up to 100 items.
Displaying pictures of each item of stock is a great way to show buyers what's for sale, but can also produce web pages which are too large and slow to download. CollectFair now offers a gallery layout which shows up to 100 items for sale in groups of 10 which browsers can step through. This keeps the pages small and fast to view. Each picture in the new galleries can have a Buy Now button, and a short caption. They also support displaying a SuperSize version of the picture when a browser clicks the magnifier button.

3rd March 2008 - Guide to Selling in the CollectFair Internet Antiques Centre.
CollectFair has prepared a guide to displaying and selling antiques in the CollectFair Internet Antiques Centre. Copies of the guide are free! Simply sign-in (new members register first) to download your free copy using the link on the front page of CollectFair.

3rd October 2007 - Web based stock lists - for tens to hundreds of items. Now live!
A new way to maintain a web based stock list has been developed by CollectFair, using a Microsoft Excel format spreadsheet to hold the information.

The system converts the spreadsheet to a web page, including a 'contact' form for enquires. Automatic formatting of titles, columns and borders makes it easy to keep an up-to-date stock list on the web. Find out more here.

1st July 2007 - Put yourself on the Antiques & Collectables Map
CollectFair has been working with Google Maps to create a map showing the location of antiques centres, shops, fairs, auctions and private sellers. You can zoom-in and print street maps to help you find places you want to visit, and many locations include a link to the website of the shop or seller. Antiques centres, fairs and auctions are already being added to the map, which can be found here.

Find out more about getting your own shop, fair or centre added to the map is easy. Listing is free!

18th February 2007 - "Search By Price" for Buy Now items
Many people looking for gifts don't know what to buy, but do know how much they want to spend. To help people find gifts a new "Find gifts" search has been added to CollectFair, with Buy Now items listed in price bands. This automatically includes all Buy Now items on all CollectFair stalls.

Each Buy Now item is displayed along with a small copy of its picture, sorted by price. See how it works from the grey box on the left side of the CollectFair front page.

16th December 2006 - "Starter" stalls get double the number of pages
The "starter" level of stall is just £24.99 per year, and it now offers double the number of pages to give you more choice in what to display. This makes it possible to show both your current eBay auctions AND pictures of up to 12 items for sale with Buy Now buttons.

All CollectFair's standard features such as unlimited page updates, optimisation of your pages for search engines, and display of SuperSize pictures are included too.

Add-ons:
By registering your own web address (such as www.mystall.co.uk) you can even turn the "starter" stall into your own self-contained website. Adding on a name ending in ".co.uk" costs just £10/year.

31st October 2006 - Run a "stand-alone" website alongside your CollectFair stall
Running an independent website under your own name is now possible through CollectFair, and it's no more difficult than running a standard CollectFair stall! All the features like Buy Now buttons, eBay listings and SuperSize pictures are included.

To ensure browsers on CollectFair will still find you, the pages of independent websites also appear on the main CollectFair site. Just as importantly, search engines will find and index your pages through links with the main CollectFair site. This feature is available for Starter, Basic, Plus and Pro level stalls.

15th August 2006 - Display SuperSize pictures
CollectFair can now show SuperSize pictures in a pop-up window for each picture on a Starter, Basic, Plus or Pro stall. The SuperSize pictures will be created automatically for all newly uploaded pictures - no extra work required! A small magnifying glass next to a picture indicates when a SuperSize picture is available.

15th July 2006 - Learn what people are really searching the web for
From July 2006 CollectFair is storing data on what people are searching for when they reach a CollectFair stall from Google, AOL, MSN or Yahoo web search engines, and also from links in eBay auctions.

This is an exciting new development which helps CollectFair stallholders find out which antiques & collectables people are really looking for.

7th May 2006 - New "Browse" page
The page for browsing the stalls of antiques & collectables has been completely updated to match the recent Search page update. Browsing for stalls with "Buy Now" and eBay auction items is now much easier. The page layout aims to be more logical and make better use of wider monitor screens.

25th April 2006 - New "Search" page
A new search page for finding items on CollectFair stalls is now available. Click Search on the top menu of any page to try it. Stalls with Buy Now or eBay auction items are indicated with symbols (a shopping trolley for Buy Now, and a gavel for eBay) to help browsers find these items.

8th January 2006 - Sell with "Buy Now" Buttons
"Buy Now" buttons allow CollectFair stall owners to accept payment for items on their stalls, giving browsers the opportunity to buy when they see something they like. Payments are handled securely by PayPal. Emails confirm each sale, and CollectFair keeps the stall up-to-date by automatically removing the buttons from items which have sold. Starter, Basic, Plus and Pro level CollectFair stalls can now take advantage of "Buy Now" buttons.

Click the link for more about Buy Now buttons.

18th October 2005 - Bigger pictures can be uploaded to CollectFair
CollectFair can now accept and re-size larger pictures than ever before, from cameras of up to 5 mega-pixels.

Helpful hint: Although CollectFair can now handle larger pictures, it is much quicker to upload smaller ones. Look for a camera setting designed for emailing or website display of pictures.

2nd August 2005 - Display your eBay items on CollectFair - automatically
CollectFair websites can now include an automatically updated list of all the owner's current eBay items. We are very pleased to offer this new service, which is available now.

Visitors to the stall will see each item's current price and finishing time, with links for buyers to bid by clicking through to eBay. Auction listings are currently available on Starter, Basic, Plus and Pro stalls.

7th July 2005 - The Collectable & Antiques Positioning System (CAPS)
For UK locations, CollectFair can now give people the travelling distance to reach the stalls on CollectFair which are part of a real-world shop, a business, or belong to a home based collector. The system is based on postcodes, and appears at the left of the pages of stalls using the system.

19th May 2005 - Sign-up improvements
New users can now choose their own passwords, avoiding confusion when signing in for the first time. Special features have been included to help AOL users.

14th May 2005 - Bigger photographs can be uploaded
The size of pictures which can be uploaded has been increased to handle those typical of a 3 mega-pixel camera.

20th April 2005 - Create a stall with just a single form.
Creating a new stall has been reduced to submission of just a single form on one page. The options available are designed to keep the form simple, and to make life easier for new members who have just joined. Once a stall is created using this quick method, all the usual picture upload, category choices and page layouts are available.

7th March 2005 - CollectFair now accepts PayPal payments.
CollectFair is now a Verified Member of PayPal, and can accept payments for stall upgrades and other features from over 45 countries, including the UK. This will be of greatest benefit to international users, who were previously unable to pay by credit or debit card.

20th February 2005 - Stalls are now easier to create.
New "Advanced Tasks" buttons have been introduced to the stall set-up pages. More advanced options (font choices, paragraph styles etc.) are hidden unless they are needed. This simplifies the pages, making them easier to use.

31st January 2005 - New CollectFair flyers are out for 2005.
Click to see the front and back. (Images open in a pop-up window.)

3rd November 2004 - Opinion polls launched.
See the question on the front page, and find out what people think.

25th October 2004 - New streamlined registration page introduced.
CollectFair is now even easier to join, with far less information to fill in than before. Click to see the new registration page.

September 2004 - Site public launch!

January 2004 - Private user testing of trial site



Press releases

Click to view Adobe PDF files.

Antiques & Collectables for the Facebook generation
June 10th 2010

Themed place settings & interiors at Potteryjoy
September 7th 2009

Lledo showroom expands to over 4000 models
June 1st 2009

Web based stock lists for small dealers
October 3rd 2007

Put yourself on the map for UK collectors with the UK Collectors' street-map
July 1st 2007

Selling to gift buyers with "Search by Price"
February 18th 2007

Sell with "Buy Now" buttons on CollectFair
January 8th 2006

CollectFair for eBay sellers
August 2th 2005

CollectFair welcomes international members with PayPal
March 7th 2005

CollectFair offers buyers, sellers and collectors a new way to meet on the internet
8th Spetember 2004



Company information

CollectFair is a part of Picopages Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales.

Registration number: 5079386.

Registered office: 64 Edward Street Flats, Sheffield, S3 7GG. For additional ways to contact CollectFair please see the Contact page.