Last week I wrote about brown furniture and how the fact that it is so competitively priced these days creates an ideal opportunity for getting young people looking to furnish their first home into the saleroom.
Of course, that presumes that just because they are young they have no idea about the auction process – wrong!
As I have discovered in recent years, while Generation Z have moved on from the millennial obsession with Facebook and tend to favour Snapchat, a huge number of them are also very much at home trading clothing and other possessions via apps like Depop.
The online trade in collectable trainers – especially limited edition versions issued by celebrity musicians and sports stars in the US – is now worth billions of dollars a year. What we are seeing here is the evolution of auctions and dealing platforms where teenagers are becoming as adept at negotiating, assessing value and spotting flaws as well-seasoned art and antiques dealers and collectors.
This tells me that chasing a bargain is a strong part of the human psyche and the auction process is one of the best means of meeting that need. Whatever the age and the technology, then, the essentials remain the same. And that’s rather reassuring for industry professionals, like me, who have been around for a bit.
