RADAR, 1st dibs, deconet, iwantvintage and so on  

Simon - In my experience...
Simon - In my experience having a decent website with GOOD visibility on Google etc is the way to go. I have spent (and wasted) money advertising with some of the sites you mention with little if any return. I must say though DA is the only site I will continue to support, the radar is very good and the forum is a great tool for which I am happy to pay to help keep the site running!

traffic and website
Hi Nick
I fully agree and smirk at times when figures are quoted of trafic.
I spent many a months in webforums discussing the design features and how search engines work before building danish-homestore.com.
This has resulted in 750.000+ visitors every month and a website that is ranked with google yahoo msn and all the others. this is why I remain sceptic to third party referrals.
Isnt it just like the old style links exchange albeit a little more advanced?
Is there anyone here who has to date bought something just because it was listed in the RADAR?

Well, the Radar is the best...
Well, the Radar is the best of course! 😉
Simon, the stats that you are giving for your site can't be correct. You must be confusing the number of hits and the number of visitors. Of course, the number of monthly visitors on DA is very, very largely superior to the frequentation of individual sites of dealers. A small comparative element among others: according to Yahoo Site Explorer, the number of links on the web that point to DA is of 100 842 and the number of links that point to your site is of 88. You can contact us by email if you want more details.
Concerning the role of the websites that you mention here, it is normal to see the appearance of content agregators because it is becoming impossible for buyers to visit the sites of all the dealers as they have become so numerous. On the other side, for shops and galleries, the result of this profusion of competitors is that it is becoming more and more difficult for them to have a place under the sun on the web and to attract new customers on their website.
Therefore, platforms that gather the offer of sellers and give the possibility to do centralized search are useful for sellers as for buyers.
Before creating the Radar, we have consulted many professionals like you and we have taken into account their needs. As ex-colllectors, it was easy for us to understand what buyers expects from this kind of service.
Without wanting to criticize competition, what surprises me mostly is the price that is asked by most of these other marketplaces. These are, however, websites that are, in some cases, very new and that don't have neither the reputation nor the audience that Design Addict has built in 10 years of activity.
The fees asked to the dealers on the websites that you quote are of 10 times to 60 times higher (deconet) than ours. I deduce that some shops or galleries owners are masochists or need to pay an expensive service to believe it is effective.
If our prices are so largely lower it is because we took into account the regular complaints on the forum concerning the unrealistic prices posted by many dealers on 1stdibs. If the dealers must pay several thousands of euros or dollars per year to be present on these places, one shouldn't be surprised that they increase their prices to integrate these costs. It's to avoid this irrational inflation of prices that we wanted to remain very affordable and that we don't take any commissions on the sales.
In two months, we have already more than 70 partners on the Radar. We thinks that we have found the formula that offers the most cost effective service. Reports of users are very encouraging as well on behalf of dealers as of buyers.
To finish, I would like to recall that the modest sums asked to the dealers for the use of the radar are mainly used to enable you to continue to enjoy the forum, the index, the blog, the links directory,... for free!
PS. Thanks Nick, we are grateful to you for your support .