wondering about the source

Antique News (about the only vehicle this trade has for disseminating information about the antiques and collectibles on a large scale) issued a press release Jan. 1 quoting TIAS.com as having a "19%" increase in sales volume in December 2007 compared to December 2006. The press release appeared to have been completely written by TIAS, a Mr. Phillip Davies more specifically.

Man, it didn't take them long to pull together the figures...one day? And since Antique News didn't appear to do any verifying on the claim, then we must assume they did all the math in one day. Pretty good, considering TIAS says it sells for 530 merchants.

The press release went on to say that "many Internet based antique & collectibles merchants have reported significant decreases in online sales volume over the past 3 years." The press release didn't identify who those other online merchants were.

The press release also made a point of expressing that because of (I assume) their sales increases and that "many merchants have just pulled out of the market entirely because they could not get the returns they need to stay in business," the market may be turning around.

We could all rejoice to the market "turning around." Still, I have to say the press release seemed somewhat self-serving for TIAS.com. Sort of, they did good, everybody else didn't.

To their credit, they invited "accredited media" to give them a call to discuss the press release and other issues related to online sales. Hopefully, someone at Antique News takes them up on it.