Welcome to our Help and Frequently Asked Questions. As a growing company we value your feedback, questions and requests. These FAQs will be updated periodically as we add new features and address common concerns. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
General Questions about Collectivator
Who are you and why did you make this site?
Is my Collectivator gallery part of a selling community, or is it my own personal web site?
Are the items for sale on Collectivator also found and listed through search engines like Google?
What do the categories mean? What are the definitions for each category?
Technical Questions
Why is my business header not displayed when I check my items through www.collectivator.com?
Where can I find detailed, step by step instructions on how to post a Gallery Item?
Are there any restrictions to the size of picture I can upload? Under what conditions does Collectivator resize a picture?
What can I do if my pictures are too large to upload?
How can I edit the information in my user profile?
Good question! Collectivator is the result of one ambitious computer nerd (Anson Y. Chan, P.Eng.), one copy and design wiz (Cassandra Ross), and one well-established antiques dealer (Phillip Ross), collaborating to create a site that promotes the collecting, buying and selling of antiques and collectibles. It all started when Phil wanted to sell stock from his antiques shop on the internet without a website designer, expensive software, or lots of technical knowledge. Enter Anson Chan who had spent over seven years working with some of the largest retailers in North America as a web commerce expert at IBM. They started by designing a simple system that allowed Phil to easily post and edit items for sale, and honed the system through several iterations over the period of several years, before deciding to share this system with others. Together the Collectivator team has worked through a lot to get to this point, and the journey is just beginning! As we grow we look forward to collaborating with all our users and patrons to make Collectivator the major online destination for quality antiques and collectibles.
Is my Collectivator gallery part of a selling community, or is it my own personal web site?
It's both.
As part of the Collectivator selling community, you get the benefits of being part of the growing main site (www.collectivator.com). We promote and advertise www.collectivator.com as a destination for high quality antiques and collectibles, driving increasing traffic and higher visibility for all of our members. Buyers coming to our main site can see your gallery listed, they can check for the latest items updated by members of our community, and they can search for specific items from the entire pool.
Collectivator is also a system for you to sell your items on your own individual Collectivator site. When you join, your new website (e.g. yourname.collectivator.com) is a clean, professional looking site for your stock, and your stock only. There are no ads or suggested links to other people's items for sale, and no irrelevant menu items from our community. In fact, the only indication that you're part of Collectivator is at the very bottom of your page and in your site name. This allows you to take an individual approach to marketing and promoting your site, as well as growing and cultivating your own clientele. Your personal site has many of the traditional benefits of having your own web site, but with far more ability for you to update and edit your own content in real time, from any computer. The success of your personal site is firmly within your own control, and you don't need to rely on anybody else's efforts.
Many of the other antique listing sites give you the former (community), but do a poor job of the latter (individuality). With other systems, you can list your items, but they will be displayed with a hodgepodge of extra links, ads, and logos for the community and other dealers. Our design is clean and ad free and this is where we believe Collectivator stands out. You have your own personal, professional site for your business or collection, but you are also part of a growing community where everyone mutually benefits. You can have your cake and eat it too.
Why is my custom header not displayed when I check my items through www.collectivator.com?
When anyone looks at your items or your gallery pages from the main site (by using our Search box to find a specific item, for example), they will see the standard Collectivator header. The header is the only thing that is different - all other aspects of your listing, including your contact information, is unchanged. When people come to your items directly through your personal site (e.g. yourname.collectivator.com) , they will always see your personal customized header section. This behavior is intentional. It is one of the ways we differentiate and satisfy the promotion of both the larger community and your individual site.
Where can I find detailed, step by step instructions on how to post a Gallery Item?
You can find instructions, with illustrative images, on this page.
Are there any restrictions to the size of picture I can upload? Under what conditions does Collectivator resize a picture?
The restriction is on the file size of your picture. 2 megabytes (2 MB) is the largest picture that Collectivator will allow you to upload. When you attempt to upload a larger file, Collectivator will show you a message telling you this. You can check the size of your picture on your computer, in Windows, by right-clicking on it and selecting "Properties". 2 megabytes allows for pictures generously large enough to be two or three times larger than most people's ENTIRE computer screen. If we allowed sizes any larger than this, it would take you a long time to upload a picture, and your audience would take a long time downloading your picture.
Please note that if the main image you post is greater than 800 pixels in either dimension, Collectivator generates a medium sized preview image and a small thumbnail. If the image is smaller than 800 pixels, we generate only a thumbnail. A pixel is a unit of length. Collectivator does not generate these smaller images for File Attachments (extra images on a Gallery Item).
What can I do if my pictures are too large to upload?
The quality of pictures that a digital camera can take is measured in Megapixels (MP). The higher the quality, the bigger the file size of the pictures it produces. Most older cameras and camera phones (1 MP - 4 MP) will already generate picture files small enough to be uploaded to Collectivator without ANY adjustments. But what if you have a newer camera (5 MP to 12 MP) that takes much larger pictures?
Well, there are a couple ways to deal with this.
The simplest way is to limit the size of the picture directly on your camera. Most modern cameras can be set to save pictures to a lower resolution, directly on the camera. Just access the menu function of your camera to set the resolution to "3M" or "2M" (1600 x 1200). For example:
Olympus - Press the central "Ok / Func" button and navigate down
Canon - Press the central "Func / Set" button and navigate down to select "L M1 M2 M3"
Sony - Usually there is dedicated button on the lower right hand corner
FujiFilm - Press the "F" button and adjust the "Quality"
Another way to do this is to take your photos at their full quality and adjust them on your computer. All cameras come with photo editing software to install on your computer, and if you look in the menus or right-click on the pictures within this software, usually there is an option to "Resize" the picture. This allows you to save the image again in a smaller size. If there is also the option to "Save for email" or "Send as email", try using that instead to convert your images to a more sensible size.
If you don't have your own photo editing software, you might want to try downloading free software to resize your photos. We like a free program called IrfanView. You can follow the link to download then install this program. Then, when you open a photo in IrfanView, you can use the "Image" menu's "Resize/Resample" function to change the size of your file, keeping the "Preserve Aspect Ratio" option checked. Choose the "File" menu's "Save", or "Save As" a new file, before uploading to Collectivator.
How can I edit the information in my user profile?
Feel free to edit your user profile to provide more information about yourself! You can add details like store address and hours, phone number, and even a bit of autobiographical information. This information will show up when someone clicks on your name on the main site, for example when they’re looking at one of your items. Many members have also chosen to link this information from their personal site header as an "About Us" link.
To edit this data (1) Log in using your userid and password, (2) Choose My Account on the left hand menu, (3) Click Edit, and (4) Choose the “Personal Information” tab. Submit when you're done and come back to Edit it any time.
Are the items for sale on Collectivator also found and listed through search engines like Google?
Yes. Items that are posted on Collectivator (priced or unpriced) will be found, indexed, and listed in search engine results. As a dealer you do not have to do anything special to make your items available to Google or other search engines. Items are not immediately listed due to the nature of how search engines work. With good descriptions and up to 10 days time you should find your items listed in Google or other search engine results. Now I'm going to give the slightly longer answer:
Search engines are their own entities and they will not guarantee any placements for any website. If a company claims they can always get top placement in a search engine result they are wrong. Search engines have "spiders" that continuously search the web for new pages. When a spider finds a page on Collectivator (an item for sale in this case) it is added to their search results. On our end we help these spiders find us by giving them a site map and automatically submitting all our pages to the search engines as they are posted. We also pay for links in the Google "Adwords" campaign, and other paid link advertising that helps drive new buyers to our site and increases our overall Google ranking. While the submission of all our pages to the search engines is immediate, the links to your items in the search engine results are not. Typically it takes a week or two for our items to be "found" by search engines and listed in their results. As Collectivator grows these result times may very well decrease, but we can never guarantee exactly when an item will be ranked by the search engines.
Dealers can increase their search engine ranking by using exact descriptions in their item listing and in their item heading. Dates, origins, finishes, styles etc. create a better ranking than brief, generic descriptions. How common an item is will also be a factor. Obviously, if you are selling something that is fairly widely found you will be competing with more people for the same search result links. Be patient because how long an item has been posted increases not only the chance of the search engines finding your item, but also how high your item ranks in the results. Search engines favour older pages because they interpret them to be a higher quality result. If you try to find an item that you just posted five minutes ago on Collectivator by searching for it in Google, it will not show up. If you pick an item that has been listed for a week or so you should find it in the search engine results - maybe even in the top spot!
What do the categories mean? What are the definitions for each category?
All the items listed on Collectivator fit into one of six categories: Antique Furniture, Antique Smalls, Art, Folk Art, Vintage and Collectibles and Miscellaneous. We created these categories to help organize our growing stock and improve the site experience. All sellers must choose a category for each item before it can be posted to the site. These categories are for display on the Collectivator main page - they are separate from the categories a seller may have set up on their premium Collectivator subscription. The full definitions for each category are as follows:
Antique Furniture - Furnishings that you might find in a North American home that are the approximate size of, or larger than, a blanket box. All items date earlier than 1920.
Antique Smalls - Utilitarian or decorative items, excluding art, that you might find in a North American home which are approximately smaller than a blanket box. All items date earlier than 1920.
Art - Original visual artwork in various mediums, as well as artist produced prints of merit. All artwork must be produced before 1970.
Folk Art - Naive, self taught, or "outsider" art produced by untrained artists. Contemporary folk art is acceptable, but no mass produced or "craft" items allowed.
Vintage and Collectibles - Quality furnishings, utilitarian and / or decorative items produced between 1920 and 1970. Items must have aesthetic merit or interest as a collectible item.
Miscellaneous - Quality items of interest produced before 1970 and do not fit into any of the other categories. These items may include architectural details, hardware, signage, books etc. New reference books on antiques, collectibles, folk art or art subjects are acceptable.
Hopefully these categories will help buyers and sellers know exactly where to find an item. Please note that these category definitions are guidelines. Collectivator does not guarantee that all the items are correctly categorized. Always practice common sense and ask a seller directly if you have a question about an item. See our Terms of Use for more information on our policies.