HipStamp And The American Philatelic Society Announce Strategic Partnership

Don's comments regarding spam are to be taken seriously when it comes to Hip. I have been and am spammed to death by Hipstamp and no amount of complaining and emails has ever stopped it. They always blame their sellers though. It is relentless. The spam along with some other things put Hip on my permanent no-go list although it is apparently impossible to disengage yourself from Hip once you are counted as a member. Kind of like La Cosa Nostra.

I understand the desire to address the StampStore issues cited, I just hope the cure isn't worse than the disease.

Lots of negativity about this agreement, a demand for voting by members on all decisions made by APS, complaints about spam, and other knee-jerk reactions. If new developments in stamp collecting quickly get slammed like this one, maybe that's not the best approach to "grow" the hobby.

I'm a 50+ year member of the APS, and I've bought on HipStamp for a few years. I don't see anything particularly wrong with this agreement which benefits both groups. I guess we'll see how it works. Then I'll have a better opinion. I like the APS but when I first joined in 1970, it had over 50,000 members; today it's 60% of that. Hipstamp I like very much and I've never had a single problem in 100s of purchases. I guess I don't get the negativity over this agreement.

I don't know of any large organization that holds referenda on important decisions. That's why they have officers -- who are elected. I can't even imagine how the APS would conduct such a referendum on an ordinary business issue such as who runs its sales section.

I do receive many emailed offers from HipStamp sellers I've dealt with, but I also receive many emailed offers from Linn's Stamp News and other stamp collecting groups as well as from dozens of other companies, political candidates, medical agencies, and others I've communicated with. In other words, "spam". These unwanted emails mostly go into my "junk" folder. That's how modern online business practices work. I'm not particularly upset by it. And it hardly shapes my opinion about this agreement or about the hobby I enjoy.

There are vague allegations here from time to time about sellers or stamp groups the complainer doesn't seem to have time to explain. What's the issue with Hipstamp that makes it so awful? I've heard a lot here about how awful Ebay is, but I also buy lots of stamps there, too. Being hostile without explaining is completely unhelpful.

You've got to give new ideas and changes in this hobby some time to work. The hobby is now populated mostly by old white men. Go to most stamp shows if you don't believe that. I might add "cranky" to that description.

As an APS member, I support the decision.

Maintaining a commerce website is not one of APS's core competencies they need to maintain. They were challenged enough with a traditional web site. I am sure with work the site could look custom for APS if that was the goal.

What if they had partnered with stamporama but then the sales section is maintained by one person so when he decides to retire there may be no one to fill his place.

Sounds like the APS stamp store will become a seller on Hip - it will become the 2nd largest store in Hip then with around 250K items currently listed. The agreement makes sense for both parties and current sellers on APS - the current APS stamp store interface is horrible, so their traffic & sales will likely increase significantly, and it brings additional transactional revenue and legitimacy to Hipstamp.

Being an active seller on Hipstamp who doesn't sell US, it is likely neutral or even positive in impact. The increased traffic from buyers currently using the APS store will be offset by increased competition in certain areas. For sellers specializing in US, it may be more neutral or perhaps even negative. Note I'm making an assumption that the large majority of current listings on the APS store are US stamps. Have to see how the badge system for APS members (I am one) works for existing sellers.

As to value for buyers currently buying through the APS store, at least the user interface won't be so awful.

Will be interesting to keep an eye on to be sure.

~Greg

HIPstamp and the APS store both list material as a last resort place to move stale inventory that doesn't sell at the show bourse or on eBAY. May be a marriage of necessity made in .... ?

Edited to remove the word "all".

This is no small move on the part of the APS given that internet sales account for 8% of income and circuit sales account for 11%. (Will circuit sales continue under the new plan?) It is not a decision like authorizing new window treatments. It matters. A lot. Would you not like to have had some input? If no, why not?

My POV is that Hipstamp is what it is and the APS is a revered philatelic organization established in 1886 with an incredible history and the greatest names in philately associated with it. The APS is akin to Bentley and Hip to perhaps Kia and such a relationship is one way in nature with one party basking in the aura and the other perhaps a bit tarnished.

I hope that it works out because as an APS member I want to see the APS thrive. I would have liked to have had a say in it which would have meant being informed of some details by the APS and being able to ask questions.

The Directors can still make decisions but this was a big one.

Would it be OK if the Directors decided to close the APRL on their own or move operations to Guam and inform you of it later?

PS: Spam is spam and sending it incessantly is never a good look.

For historical context, the purchase of the Oakwood property in State College in 1980 and the Match Factory in Bellefonte did not go to a vote of the membership. Those were multimillion real estate deals.

StampStore was also not created by a vote of the membership. I outlined the agreement in my previous post, which explicitly states the APS will use the Hip platform to sell stamps on behalf of APS members. Circuit Sales are completely unrelated to internet sales, and nothing changes.

Scott

I think all you guys are barking up the wrong tree .

The key here is to bring in new clients and increase business ,so yes this is a attemp at both . . will it work ? we all hope so .

The plan has to be to combine advertsing dollars and find those new buyers .

You could have shorten your pejorative, ageist and racially insensitive comment to just, "Ok, white Boomer."

Postage stamps, especially the first one, the Penny Black was created by a white guy, Sir Rowland Hill, KCB, FRS. If one wishes to acknowledge the disputed "inventor title," both Lovrenc Košir and James Chalmers were both white men as well.

So DrewM, what was the purpose of dragging age and race into a stamp discussion?

With all due respect the examples cited, and the Hip collaboration are two completely different things. The real estate deals and StampStore creation were internal to the APS and this partnership of the APS brand with Hip is not.

As I have already said, I hope that all goes well, both parties prosper and in hindsight it turns out to be a boon to the APS.

get a life................it's a hobby for most of us..........life is too short and stressed as it is.......
lets loose the animosity racism sexism and anti philatelic drivel that sets us apart. this hobby has a long rich history of sharing and discussion abet not always smoothly.
as a fifty year APS member I do not always agree with the board or other members. that said the board is there to make decisions in the best interests of the organisation. if you do not agree vote them out or run yourself.
i applaud the moderators of this forum for the job they do so well.
i also applaud the current and former APS boards for what they have accomplished.

What does that even mean?

I hope it works well, but I'm not optimistic, given Hipstamp's abysmal record of customer service and their complete lack of communication, let alone proactive communication.

I hope for APS's sake that this venture doesn't fail catastrophically. Outsourcing functionality may seem lucrative, but it isn't always the best solution, especially when you don't choose a capable provider.

Drew - He captured all the content of another stamp chat board and posted it on his web site without any poster's permission. He also harvested our email addresses and spammed us.