Very, very bad for sellers. Super low realized prices. Lots of mistakes on age/origin assessment by the "experts" who review the lots. One "expert" will declare an object as Japanese in origin while a later "expert" will state it is Chinese. Meanwhile, many weeks/months have passed. Same goes for determining genuine antique from new modern articles which are sometimes confused at Catawiki by the "experts". It seems the experts rush through your listing without carefully considering it might have greater merit than they understand. Catawiki tries to force all listings to start with no reserve, if you don't agree they won't allow your listing. Their prices realized results are very poor compared with other auction houses for comparable items. Sellers have to pay out of pocket for many costs which Catawiki makes no mention of such as taxes, bank fees, exchange rates, transfer fees and more. They also try to force you into very tight shipping costs parameters and pressure you to fall within these which often results in the seller losing money on shipping. There is no compensation for your time in wrapping the item, filling in the paperwork, travel to the post office, purchased on wrapping, packing material, tape, scissors, pens, etc., and follow up correspondence with the buyer/Catawiki/ the postal authorities in case of inquiries on the package which can be considerable. Very often, buyers will wait a long time before they pay - it could be weeks or months - you as the seller have to idea when this will happen - if ever. You can't be sure if the buyer will follow through which leaves you hanging on when/whether to prepare the package - a big issue when you have other work to tend to - also bad since Catawiki rates on your shipping performance when such issues are not your fault - their Customer service also takes weeks/moths before they respond and sometimes they ignore you all together. Then, with the non payer,after many weeks, Catawiki will announce they have cancelled the sale, leaving you out of pocket time, money, effort, and reputation which they in no way try to help alleviate even though this is a crime according to European law and they have been informed many times over via email of this - they don't care at all. And finally, the submission forms a seller has to fill out are complex and time consuming which adds to your time investment as a seller which you will never get back if the sale is cancelled – and again Catawiki offers no recourse or actions to alleviate this situation for future sales. Despite Catawiki stating they will relist you items again at the same starting price in these cases, they don't usually. They wait again a couple of weeks and then come back to you asking you to remove the requested reserve price before listing. If you don't conform, your listing allowed. And finally, sometimes buyers refuse packages, and the package gets sent back to you at your cost, creating further nightmares in communication with the buyer, the post office, and Catawiki of which again are not compensated. Having tried selling and buying on Catawiki since 2017, overall it has been a net loss when all considered and I can't recommend it to others as a result.
seller antiques