Premier Platforms

There are plenty of online platforms to resell mass-market bric-a-brac, but what if you’re trying to offload a piece of art, or a designer item? We spotlight three that can help.

- Jamie Nonis

We’ve all bought something we regretted – but some mistakes are more expensive than others. For instance, a piece of art you are no longer in love with, or a designer furniture item that was bought on impulse (“It was 70 per cent off!”).

You can redeem your mistakes by reselling them but, somehow, it doesn’t seem befitting to flog them at flea markets, or list them on mass-market marketplaces such as Carousell and Craigslist. If you want a good price for your pre-loved treasures, positioning is everything – now, owners of high-value items such as art, collectibles and vintage items have dedicated, easy-to-use online platforms to list them for sale. More importantly, the whole process is professionally managed, providing assurance to both buyers and sellers.

Luxglove, for instance, sees itself as a “vetted marketplace” for its six categories of luxury offerings – namely art, design, rare whisky, jewellery, watches and collectibles – says its founder and CEO, Talenia Phua Gajardo. The idea for creating Luxglove stemmed from customer requests that the company received through its other brand, theartling.com, which focuses on primary-market artworks. This gap in the market led to the birth of Luxglove in late 2015.

Talenia adds: “We believe in quality being priority. Apart from our determination to select the best items for our buyers, we want to make the selling process as easy as possible for our sellers.”

Similarly, Fickle Walls was created as a result of conversations between the founder, Yuen Yee Foong, and her art-collector friends – they had outgrown their art pieces and were looking for a platform that makes art easy to sell, and affordable to own.