Online Buying & Selling

Hi! lithograving
I am a dinosaur without any teeth even though I have an idea about these issues after reading so much on this part of the forum.
It has been surprisingly hard to understand but I have persisted and have an informed approach to what I would like to do with on-line trading now.
Being a protected dinosaur in my own home makes me look a lot more computer savy than I am.
Without the computer knowledge of my wife and 2 daughters I would not of found SCF or been able to communicate with others on-line. That is the simple truth of it all.
I am still heavily involved in bricks and morter auctions with buying and selling. I have not yet seen anything on-line that would compete with my traditional auction houses. I like bulk lots and I still have not looked properly at an on-line auction but it is the next step for me. A very strange journey. KGV

I certainly think the Internet is a significant factor. It's all about supply and demand and access. The online auction sites have increased the supply and easy availability of stamps, thus the price has gone down.

It seems that the high value, high quality items still move mostly through the established auction houses and dealers though.

Thanks for all your comments perhaps I'm going give ebay a try
afterall but first I guess I have to sign up for Paypal.




I agree with you there laswabbie and the reason for so much supply
is the dying off of so many old dinosaurs.

Guys, don't forget..most of the stuff on the internet is in the 99 cent to a couple of hundred bucks for a collection..theres still a reason for the professional dealers and auction houses when a " must have " item is needed...but hey..i have a lot of fun on the internet sights for a few bucks a week !

philb I think I have not had that part.
Sounds like a good attitude for a beginner. Thanks KGV

lithograving,

I've only been an online buyer since September of this year but, after having a less-than-satisfactory online buying experience on my first purchase, I decided to adopt a low-value item approach as a means to evaluate an online seller in terms of service and accuracy of lot descriptions--essentially a crawl, walk, run approach.

I made my first ebay purchase about a week ago and it consisted of a single, low-value item. Within hours of paying for the item, the seller sent an email thanking me for my purchase and telling me it would be mailed the next day -- I received the item in the condition it had been described two days after my purchase. Based upon that experience, I will use that seller again.

Conversely, I made a similar small purchase from a seller on another site last month and paid for the item immediately after the lot closed. Eight days later I received notice that the lot had been mailed and, 30 days after that I still hadn't received the item. When I advised the seller that the item hadn't been received (even though 7 different transactions with multiple sellers had been completed in the intervening period), he informed me that mine was the first of over 10,000 shipments he had processed that was ever lost in the mail. He is now on my "blocked sellers" list.

Overall, my positive online experiences clearly outweigh the negatives. My only advice to you is don't make a major purchase from a seller until you've established him or her to be above board. Good luck and be cautious!

Steve

If you are going to buy online, then you have to have a means of paying. Paypal is one of the methods. In the case of ebay it is my understanding it is the only way.

Even if you get a seller to accept a credit or debit card, you are still at the mercy dishonest people. One thing you can do is never open any email that you don't know the origin of. Recently, I got what appeared to be a legitimate email from paypal. In honesty, I did open it. but when I saw what information they wanted, the answer was no way. Then I noteced that it wasn't paypal, but paypay. So far no ill effects. (Whew)

Bottom line is you are going to have to take a chance somewhere to use the internet.

I'm still debating whether to give it a try since some of the stuff
out there looks tempting.

But I'm old school, I want to see and hold what I'm paying for.

This is the best encouragement for me as a peddler, I feel proud. You really inspired me to just keep moving, many thanks my friend.

ZhangCheng

Received your stamps Zhang Cheng,
thank you.
Excellent and reliable service.

Many thanks Rod for the arrival notice, and the overpraise.

ZhangCheng

ebay and Paypal don´t let that cuban users can be their costumers, because, you know embargo laws USA vs Cuba. We have in Cuba more than 3000 philatelist and some people may use some other friends for buy on ebay or sell anything using paypal. It is a great problem for us.

For this reasons, I prefer to use Delcampe, a belgium auction website that it let cuban user will be members. For me is the best philatelic auction on the net. Of course, it doesn´t have a popularity as ebay, but it is very funny to deal with it.

It is my opinion about ebay and paypal websites.

Regards.

Glad to see this thread revived. I've been using ebay and paypal for almost a year and have had no problems at all. There are no dealers near where I live, so it's been great (along with SCF) for buying and selling stamps.
ebay's rule changes in the last couple of months have got me considering selling alternatives (Delcampe or bidstart?) but I have to admit I haven't been investigating it too hard. Kind of lazy I suppose.

Alejandro, does ebay.com (Canada's site) block Cuban customers? We have no embargo here.


edit- this is strange. I keep typing ebay.c a (space inserted by me to avoid the change) above, but the site automatically converts it to ebay.com. Am I being censored by anti Castro/pro ebay elements?

How many of you would be actively collecting stamps if it WERE NOT FOR THE INTERNET ? I am a dinosaur so I do not count !!

Phil.

I doubt that I would. One of the reasons I returned to the hobby was because of ebay. In those early days, ebay was a hotbed of stamp activity, and back then all the fees were reasonable for sellers. I also used Yahoo Auctions, before they shut it down.

There is no local stamp club/activity in my area. If not for the online auctions, I would not have learned about the hobby, would not have known about Linn's APS, BNAPS, or SCF.

Kirk