HipStamp And The American Philatelic Society Announce Strategic Partnership

APS is not providing any addresses to HipStamp - or any buyers or purchasers of material that goes through the APS system .. as had been noted many, many times - StampStore will continue to operate as it does now.

HS is providing buyer names and addresses to APS unless APS is somehow using all of HS code on their own servers. And I highly doubt that HS would freely give their code and database architecture to anyone. I am assuming that APS is NOT running HS code on HS servers, why would HS give away their most valuable IP to APS? Makes no sense.

For example, when you add something from the APS Stamp Store test page to your cart, note the browser address
https://www.hipstamp.com/cart/?page=1&item_id=17495425

The test Stamp Store pages/checkout are NOT coming from the APS website, it is currently using the HS server.
Don

Now how do those two quote mesh???? Also the question remains what does Hip get from this arrangement and who provides it?

Of course the APS "isn't" giving Hip our email addresses, the APS is REQUIRING us to provide those addresses to HIP ourselves due to the partnership.

This same line of logic is used for firing squads where one member is given a blank such that when the firing squad is finished and the subject eliminated, then all shooters have a small window of reasonable denial that it was not them who fired a fatal bullet. Yet when all members claim that exemption, the subject is still dead, right?

All --

We will be providing a blanket update to the APS membership. There were issues with the initial testing that we believed would be easily resolvable but require a little more backend work on our site. The projected completion will be no later than the Thanksgiving holiday, though we believe it can be sooner than that. I apologize for the inconvenience. In the meantime, StampStore is still operational and quite active.

Scott

StampStore is a service to APS members to scan, post, manage, and fulfill stamps for sale to both APS and non-APS members, with APS members receiving a discount.

No seller information is provided to HipStamp, and no personal data is provided to HipStamp from the APS. This decision allows APS members to freely elect to create a HipStamp account and provide whatever information they wish. I realize this arrangement is not perfect for everyone, but none of the options were.

Scott

After of course providing the information in the required fields of the Hip Stamp registration process.





Agreed.

Correct, the APS member makes the decision.

About 7.5 percent of the total APS membership buy from StampStore today. The total number of buyers has not really increased by numbers over the past decade.

The partnership was the best available option, and I outlined those in my October column in The American Philatelist. This approach opens the buyers to a larger audience of buyers and adds greater exposure for the APS.

Allowing APS members to use the APS badge and search for fellow members selling on HipStamp independently adds value to the relationship.

We've received a good bit of enthusiasm from StampStore sellers and many APS members already selling on HipStamp. I'm sorry this approach doesn't appeal to you. I hope your overall experience with the APS is a positive one.

Scott

Scott,

Teaming up with HS may well be in the least of the available evils the APS has available to it today trying to catch up and be relevant in today's collecting world. However, this is a prime example of where the interests of the APS is NOT the same as the interests of many of its members (only 7% use the store?). Do you really know what the majority of your members want?

At its peak, the service helped about 1,400 members sell stamps online. It is a non-subsidized service, meaning membership dues do not support the program. Instead, it contributes to the bottom line of the organization. Non-profits utilize enterprise services to help expand services that meet the organization's core mission. Circuit sales, internet sales, and expertizing fall into this category. So we avoid the diffused cost and concentrated benefit challenge within organizations. Our members expect us to manage it accordingly; this decision allows us to accomplish it.

Member expectations fall into four categories (and utilization and investment align):
- The American Philatelist: 95 percent of members report reading the journal regularly.
- APS website/newsletter: 75 percent of members visit the website less than every 30 days or read the newsletter at least twice monthly. Our web traffic is 50 percent non-members, more diverse, and younger than our membership. Our email distribution list is considerably more extensive and is a crucial prospecting target. We've invested in upgrading the website and diversifying channels by year's end to increase engagement.
- Library: Nearly 60 percent of APS members access the library or its services at least once every six months. In the past three years, the growth in digital library utilization has grown exponentially in requests and users - we project nearly 20 percent this year and see future growth getting us to almost half in the next three years.
- Education: Online and on-demand education has grown from zero to 14 percent this year. This service ranks highest in every survey as the most crucial growth area as a membership service.

In November, we will launch our 2022 survey asking for feedback from members on current and desired services. We'd love to hear your thoughts, and anyone else's to help us serve the membership.

Our annual retention rate is 90 percent, and death is the most significant reason for the loss of members. This is attributable to the life member program ending in 1973 but impacts our membership today.

We work hard to provide services to the APS members and the hobby. We're grateful for the support and loyalty of the members, but we don't rest on that.

Scott

Unfortunately, it's often easier and cheaper to just go to eBay or Hipstamp or Delcampe for stamps than it is to bother with the Stampstore site. Even with the supposed discount that members get, I can almost always get it cheaper elsewhere, often with free shipping. Fantastic idea, just badly implemented. That's completely understandable, it's a very out-of-date site and that's pretty common among stamp sites these days. I was looking at a dealer who is advertising right now in the China Stamp Society's magazine. He's always been at SESCAL in the past, but it's not listed on the SESCAL site, which is horrible BTW, it looks like it came out of the 90s, and I was hoping that his website would say if he's going to be there. I found that his website hasn't been updated in 3 years, the last show he's got listed was SESCAL 2019. I guess I'll see if he's there when I arrive.

This is really the biggest problem across all of modern philately, the lack of a coherent web presence. When I was going through the latest issue of American Philately, there are still people advertising that have no websites, no e-mail, they expect you to send them a letter through the mail. What is this, 1985?

No argument that the HipStamp platform will be able to handle APS online sales efficiently.

However, and it's a big "however", HipStamp allows sales of today's bogus stamps, identified as locals or somesuch at best. Naavland? pffft. And HipStamp also allows stamps to be sold that have been declared to be illegal by both the UPU and the country whose name is plastered on the stamp.

Further, specific sellers, often using the same seller names they used when they were banned from other platforms, are able to game the system and put their offerings first. This includes the general view when you go to country listings and also the view in catalog number order. In many cases, you might have to wade through up to 10-20 pages before you reach any genuine stamps. And this is not just in specific (genuine) countries, but many dozens of countries.

So without using an APS filter, a HipStamp user will encounter bogus stamps first. Mr. English, does APS feel good about promoting bogus stamps that way? And just how many visitors overall will use the APS filter rather than asking for all pertinent listings to compare quality and price?

We're not promoting bogus stamps. The partnership was appealing to create an alternative to that problem, including identifying if an APS member is intentionally misidentifying or selling counterfeit or altered stamps.




I don't know the immediate answer to that. It's part of educating our membership and others who care.

From an email just received, it appears HipStamp may try to somewhat mimic the APS model for themselves:

Hi George,

Quick question for you.

We're currently considering restarting our consignment service, but I first wanted to reach out to a few select sellers, including yourself, to see if there may be any potential interest in this service.

The way that our consignment service works is that we can accept stamps in bulk from you, which we then scan, list, advertise, and ship ourselves. All items are sold through no reserve auctions, and we typically charge 30% with a $1 minimum per lot. With this in mind, do you have unlisted stamps that you might be interested in moving through this service, and most importantly, what type of volume/quantity?

Any information or insights would be helpful here as we consider this further. So even if you're not interested, please let me know if it's because you don't have any bulk unlisted stamps or if it's because of another reason - that would be helpful to know too.

Thanks in advance,

Logo
Mark Rosenberg
CEO & Founder
mark@hipstamp.com
HipStamp.com

There are other "consignment" services, not just HipStamp. Several services also provide the service on eBay - most of them charging 30 percent for auction services. It's instant gratification versus realizing a preferred sale price.

Honestly, if the practice were a little more common, it would be easier to promote our value proposition.

Still no APS listings on Hip. What gives?