Among the pieces Modern Antiquarian has uploaded through Ronati is this large 20th century French dovecote, 3ft 6in (1.08m) high, which is offered for £8700.
Ronati
Founded: 2017
Run by: Founder and CEO Stacey Tiveron
About: US tech firm Ronati is not a dealer marketplace; instead it provides the tech for dealers to manage their stock across the selling portals. It has a number of services launching, but started with an e-commerce management system for dealers. It allows dealers to upload their entire inventory in one place. Stock can then be updated centrally and used across multiple dealer portals.
Mark Hill, Ronati’s UK managing director, describes it as a “virtual assistant” for dealers. The service is free to join and the pay structure is based on when the dealer uploads the inventory to the specific markeplaces.
All inventory may be uploaded to the dealers’ full range of portal subscriptions, but the descriptions and language can be changed and edited - one marketplace may be more academic and another may benefit from more informal language. When an item sells, the sold information can be updated across the multiple marketplaces automatically
The system also allows dealers to create a template for presentation brochures that can be sent out to decorators and private buyers. Ronati is also working on other technologies for dealers that will be announced later this year.
Ronati provides the tech for dealers to manage their stock across the selling portals.
How many members: It has so far agreed partnerships with 17 dealer marketplaces including LAPADA, Antiques.co.uk, 2Covet, The Bruno Effect, Decorative Collective and The Hoarde.
Views/user stats: The firm currently has around $276m of managed inventory in its system totaling 76,000 pieces with just over 80 dealers using the system, 12 being set up on it and 184 on a waiting list.
Locations: Ronati’s management are across the US and Europe with members of the team in Florida, New York, California and Illinois and in Europe in the UK, Spain and Finland.
Why dealers like it: “I use Ronati daily to manage my site as well as four marketplaces,” says Margaret Schwartz of Modern Antiquarian. “It has saved me countless hours from managing all the various platforms myself. Ronati has also increased my sales because they make it so easy to list across platforms.
“I can upload five products in the time it took me to upload one product across five platforms. And that’s exactly what I do every morning. I make sure all my sales from the previous day have been entered, update any items on hold, and upload new products.”
Among the pieces Mayflower Antiques offers on sites such as 2Covet and LAPADA is a rare 16th century blue tinted glass ewer made in Venice for the Austrian market, which features traces of the original coldpainted gilt and enamel decoration. It is offered for £14,000.
Other companies provide services similar to Ronati, such as The Antique Marketing Company.
Christopher Hamlyn of Mayflower Antiques says: “They manage our website and do any changes to keep our presence on the portals up to date.”
That’s been crucial recently, since Hamlyn says he has seen a recent surge of interest online.
“There have been regular enquiries from all of the portals I’m on. People seem to be turning back on to antiques.”
