Question - Any Tips To Improve Selling Your Extra Stamps On Platforms Such As Ebay?

eyeonthewall - I did take your advice and lowered the price. However, I used Bardo to show the challenge of finding a price for items. It can be very confusing for people like me with small lots. So don't assume I am hardheaded. Rather I am trying to show the challenges. I have learned from this discussion.

parcelpostguy - excellent analysis regarding free shipping.

A question for you all -- Micahel P Lipsome is a member of the Plate Number Coil club and his price list is given here - it seems more aligned to what some of you think I should price things, except shipping and sales taxes are not included - https://www.angelfire.com/sd2/coiln...ends156a.htm

It may be that I would do better for some of my items to use sites like pnc3.org or do approval pages over at stamporama.

What does frustrates me with everyone and this is for services outside of stamps ( just tell people that if you want quality music lessons without going through a commercial music studio, the cost will be at minimum in NYC $60 for an hour. When I hear some guffaw at that I suggest they simply start off with the free resources at youtiube. Does anyone else have this gripe regarding the fact many people disregard the labor one puts into selling services and items?)

You can not sell on the pnc3 site. They simply have links to member dealer's sites.

You can value your time at whatever rate you like, but tat doesn't mean buyers are willing to pay at that rate and there are sellers on ebay who do not value their time - many of them are retired with nothing better to do.

That is the argument for minimum wage, it avoids someone willingly undercutting others hourly labor rate. It also ignores the reality of repeat business, if your YouTube instructional is good and is known, each consumption (view) of your work costs next to nothing for the viewer, but your "hourly rate" has the sky as the limit if you get large numbers of views.

Now I have written many times that most stamps have no value, this includes all that you, the OP, list. At the lower end of the pricing scale, material is worth, meaning costs, the seller's labor rate.

ebay has become a rabbithole that I will be exiting in the near future. Winding up my BidStart store because I am tired of non-payment idiots who seem to be legion there.

It take alot of time and hard work to get a good clientele built up on ebay as well as listing consistently interesting or unique items. And like anything if you let it go or slip up it can be like starting over. Keep digging if it worth it of find a less taxing way to get what you collect without the extra.

Chris S,

I looked at your store today. You have 19 lots for sale. You have sold two lots in July, none in June, and none in May.

Your prices are way too high. For example, you have a group of U.S. plate blocks for sale at $4.29 plus $1.50 delivery. I had to count up the face value, which annoyed me, and it is about $2 or so. You should tell potential buyers the face value up front for a mint postage lot. You ought to change your price on this lot to $1, or use the stamps as postage.

The ebay market is dominated by bottom feeders. They want bargains, and you are not offering bargains.

Forget about breaking even. You should be blowing your stamps out with low prices.

Your lots are duplicates, you say, so even you do not want them.

Close your store. Why pay for a store? Just list individual lots, the 50 for free each month or whatever it is these days on ebay.

As you are operating now, you are living in fantasy land.

MS

Sheesh many of you sound a little bitter. Why the heck are you even collecting stamps if a few of you seem so burnt by the hobby? I guess some of you were collecting out of some fear.

For those of you who provided constructive critcism, I did lower my prices significantly. I also realize it may be best to join a group specific to some of the specialties of philately I like - plate number coils for example. They offer a chance to sell pncs. The prices are higher but it caters to a niche. Engler stamps is particularly interesting as he focuses on coil stamps with plate number on front and back number behind it. As I wrote in some of my listings that particular area can be tricky to find as the probability of getting is anywhere from 1 in 270 to 1 300 stamps from a roll. For low value denominations the costs aren't too bad (but you are stuck with tons of extras) but when you get to the Forever F;ag stamps for Domestic first class mail, it get expensive. So may migrate some of my items over to niche buyers by joining pnc3.org. Thanks to all those who provided constructive criticism and had me really research the direciton of my selling. ebay may need to just be a place to sell extras at discount and only a few items a little above face value.

For those who bordered onb being insulting - rethink your motivations for collecting stamps or anything - I wrote a well-appreciated post over at the coin forum - https://www.coincommunity.com/forum...&whichpage=6

Chris S, please allow me to point out a few things.

First, the earlier comparison to Mystic is largely irrelevant. Mystic advertises heavily and has its own website; people who end up there are likely not comparison shopping on ebay for a item to cross off their want list. Mystic has a 'captive audience'; ebay sellers listing common material do not. The number of people who buy from ebay and pay full retail + markup from Mystic is bound to be quite small; you either fall into one camp or the other. Thanks to their marketing, Mystic enjoys a certain willingness to pay advantage. You, me, and the vast majority of collectors putting their duplicates/unwanted material up to make a few bucks do not.

Second, outfits like Bardo and the larger ebay sellers with a brand reputation get to the point they're at by offering massive inventories, so the odds that someone stumbles across their site/eBay page are higher. Then they'll bookmark it and come back for other stuff. You have a relatively small handful of items (not a critique - I myself rarely have more than 1 thing up at a time), but it means that most of your stuff will just sit there until someone comes across it.

Folks here aren't necessarily bitter, they're just realistic and hard-nosed about the realities of selling low-end material on ebay. You asked why your stuff wasn't selling and they told you why.

My response is not an answer for but a reaction to this:





The cost to obtain an item from the original seller (Read USPS Philatelic Agency) carries stamp costs separate from the actual item collected. This refers to the Minimum order requirement. However ,when the item enters the market place those costs are not considered by the buyer, nor should they be. Back when the Scott value for a new issue was twice face value (or more on low denominations) that doubling was built in to cover the costs to the dealer for obtaining the item as presented. New issue catalog value no longer covers the dealer's cost and as a result the new issue dealers have generally vanished. Given the fact new issues can be gotten well below face does not help the matter nor market (see below).

Of course back then dealers would do much business by mail, using the extra stamps you mention you needed to buy, as postage or to service FDCs. Heck some dealers even accepted US full gum postage at a credit of face value for store purchase. My US Zepp set was purchased that way as well as a four figure Finnish stamp.

But today there is little use for the extra stamps you must buy to get the positional pieces. What dealers still produce mail order price lists and and do mail order? Those extra stamps currently trade at 20-25% face as scrap or 30% as full panes--Yes, this includes forever stamps. Your extra coil material is scrap. If you want 100% of face, use them mailing out your sold material to recoup some of your costs.

Now as a buyer, where your cost don't matter, only the price of the item I am buying matters, all things equal I will buy from the lost cost seller. I also know that my true cost of a purchase will include the item price, sales taxes any other costs associated with finding the item (gas, parking, entrance fee) and delivery of same to my home, be it postage, gasoline, Uber or bus fare. Sometimes the costs can include airfare, hotel, food and other routine travel expenses. As the seller, none of my costs are of a concern to you.

This now leads me to your question, "Any Tips To Improve Selling Your Extra Stamps On Platforms Such As ebay?" Pay people more money to buy your items. You already pay folks for your time by giving it away for free. Now reduce the price of the item to be below
any other seller and don't charge postage on purchases. That way you are paying the buyer for your time, paying for some of the face value and all of the postage. That will still not make it certain your item will sell. While a specialist may stumble upon your material and buy it. Some folks may find and buy your material to use as postage if the discount from face is low enough.

I don't think you understand that specialty material can take a long time to sell on ebay, no matter the current fair market price. I have been watching one specialty item cycle from a large retail dealer and ebay seller for over 5 years at a price of $3000 which is under catalog but alas over market. During all of that time no other single example has hit the market, a large set (five figures) which included an example of the single item but you needed to buy the set. In the same vein, you have mentioned the selling price of some other dealers. But frankly that is useless information to you. The real question is, "when was the last time they sold an item at that price?"

I get the every 270 (it is every 270 stamps or every10 plate strips), but where did the 1 in 1300 come from?

I think the correct read is: 1 in 270 AND 1 in 300; not 1 in 270 to 1300.