Buying Stamps On The Internet

Buying from people you do not know is a crap shoot (online or in real life). Buying stamps online from people you do not know and based only on an image is an even bigger crap shoot.

Relying upon the inane ebay seller rating system is a fool's errand. Thinking that you will always be protected by a return policy is another fool's errand.

I only buy from an unknown seller for low cost items; risking only the amount I am willing to lose. I never, ever, buy higher dollar material unless I know the seller.
Don

I must say that my experience of buying online (HipStamp, ebay or Post Road) has been mostly positive...and any stamps that I had any issues with were resolved with a complete refund. With a lot of the sellers I deal with its mostly repeat business based on a history of good value and quality stamps... only wish the Canada to US exchange rate was better,

Oxfam has a relatively high overhead rate of 22%. They're going to price stamps high because they have high administrative and fundraising costs.

Only internet buying I do is from the APS Stamp Store. APS stands behind what members are selling. This works for me in two ways...... 1) I've trolled on ebay a few times looking for specialty stuff in my main collecting areas. What I find is damaged, grossly overpriced, or non-existent. 2) I don't have to spend precious time wading through tons of offerings from tons of would-be entrepreneurs.

I can get a little of what I want at the Stamp Store. I do think that members who price their items on the Store at close to full catalog value are foolish almost to an extreme. Unless it's something unique or something I really need, I won't pay more than half catalog or slightly more. I have far better luck, again in my specialty areas, buying from dealers or auction houses.

I do agree that e-Bay and the like have revolutionized the business. But Don makes a good point about "buyer beware." There are enough shysters on ebay and similar sites taking advantage of newbies; then those people get frustrated and maybe quit the hobby when they find out they've been "had."

I agree. I have mostly given up on ebay for buying stamps. I mostly buy online from ASP Stamp Store and from Stamps2Go, which I have had nothing but positive experience.

I don't think there is any fundamental difference between selling online or in a store anymore. Of course the costs are different, but it is no longer just a small off-to-the-side place to buy stuff. All the big retailers sell online now and obviously they do that with the idea in mind of making money. So saying that online selling is for stuff you find in your attic seems no longer accurate.

That being said, there are clearly different categories of sellers on ebay. There are collectors looking to pick up a few extra dollars from their doubles and there people trying to run profit-making businesses. A generalization will likely be inadequate. I am on the border between a hobbyist and a small business online. I sell a dozen stamps a month. I am not making any money at it yet, but close to breaking even. I try to be steadfastly honest and thorough in my descriptions. But what I sell varies a lot from really nice to space filler. I figure as long as I am honest and clear about what I sell it should be ok. So how do you match that up against the general statement that there is a lot of crap on ebay. I'd actually agree with that. There are tons of bad stamps, poorly described, or not described at all, with hidden faults, modifications, repairs, fakery etc. But there are clearly plenty of legitimate business people there as well.

My bottom line is, ebay presents a very open, very large, but too unregulated marketplace. As a result everything that applies to buying from anywhere applies. Buyer beware, know your owner, know your customer, and if you are careful, and play by the rules, it can a great place to find stuff. If I could change anything it would be to have move oversight over fraud. As is well known in these forums, a few people have been selling fraudulently on ebay for years with no apparent penalty or limitation.

My point: ebay and other online venues, are not fundamentally different from other marketplaces.

For collectors of the stamps of continental Europe and its colonial empires, Delcampe is really great as a site to purchase items. Many items can be found much more cheaply, even factoring exchange rate between US$ and Euro, and shipping cost, and even Paypal surcharges most dealers have, than from American dealers. So for me Delcampe has been my online source for stamps for the last couple years.

I don't really see any great advantages, or disadvantages for using any of the popular auction sites mentioned. They each have their little perks. I have noticed lately however, many sellers cross-listing items on various sites, so it's like looking through the same listings 2 or 3 times. I have recently decided to give DelCampe a try however, after finding many items NOT listed elsewhere. I still keep tabs on ebay, and maintain about 100 items on my watchlist, most of which I never end up buying. The issue I have with the APS stampstore is the relatively small, low-res pictures many of the sellers use. Some sellers don't even have images, and I won't even consider buying without a decent image.

I did manage to pick off a few neat items on stamps2go, but too many sellers have a high minimum buy set, so I have to pass on some items.

One thing I've learned about absolute generalizations: they are almost always wrong.

You can find *anything* philatelic online, from cheap packets and mixtures for beginnners, to 4, 5, and 6-figure stamps for specialists. I've sold stamps at 5% of Scott. I've sold stamps at up to 400 times Scott (the rarity of the cancel). I've paid as high as 1,000 times Scott for a particular cancel and was pleased at that price.

One of the hardest issues I had to mentally get past in attempting to put together a quality collection was focusing on percentage of catalog value and insisting upon buying cheap. When I first got started collecting revenues, I was morally outraged that so many items sold for at or above Scott. It wasn't until I had spent some time in the field that I learned that in many areas actual scarcity and market value are completely unrelated to the catalog value of the stamp in question. As long as you set artificial barriers on your acquisitions due to perceived "book values", you are limiting yourself and the quality of your collection (note: I'm not talking about being limited by budget; I fully get that and deal with it every day... I'm talking about mindset barriers).

This is even more true for exhibitors striving for awards and collectors of extremely specialized material. The more esoteric the material, the less relationship with any catalog (if one even exists).

Anyway, back to the original premise: buying online, while presenting dangers for the novice or the careless, is an absolute gold mine for the savvy. ebay especially has provided me both amazing material and insane bargains regularly over the last 19 years. Also, when it first started, the APS Stamp Store could be the source of great finds. My R84a and R87a both came from the APS stamps store at very inexpensive prices. Pickings haven't been great in the last 5 years or so, but I still find the occasional good cancel at a cheap price. The biggest problem with the APS store are the unforgivably tiny images and horrendous quality.

The notion that "if it's being sold online it should be at yardsale prices" (paraphrasing) IMO is not accurate at all. Yes, bargains at those percentages are out there, but that approach hardly applies universally.

You said it much better than I. Many of these sites, such as ebay, are a pickers paradise, if you know what to look for.

The trouble is ego.
I agree that someone like Dan, who has invested thousands of man hours learning his area of expertise, can pick up bargains. Like anything in life, a person can profit when they work hard and are highly dedicated.

The real issue is that this hard work and dedication does not translate to another person through osmosis. When we post that ebay has all these great deals many others think that they too can pick them out (thinking they have the same knowledge and experience). But the truth is that folks who have worked that hard and are that dedicated are the 'rare' things at work here. The rest of us are just mere mortals and should not let our egos lead us to believe that we can pick out bargains.

I wonder...what percentage of all ebay listings are bargains?
Don

I use to frequent Delcampe...then they changed their site interface...if ain't broke...don't break it I always say...navigating through the site requires too many mouse clicks or in my case finger taps...and don't get me started on their 'filter' options.
I am certain that the web designers for Delcampe don't even collect stamps!
My two cents!

IMO a very small percentage. The vast majority of ebay listings are priced either at going rates or are overpriced. One of the biggest problems is sellers either ignorant of what they are selling, or professional sellers listing material outisde of their core area, items where they may not have the knowledge that they think they do.

One of the biggest factors in value, and the one most frequently ignored by sellers, is condition or grade. Just because Lower Punjabistan #B24a lists for $1,000 in Scott, that does not mean your tattered example with pulled perfs, two creases, and a thin is worth anywhere even remotely approaching that dollar amount.

Additionally, a large part of being able to glean bargains from ebay are your skills outside of your core collecting area:

1. Ability to search ebay effectively, e.g., having saved searches that utilize extended boolean logic to explicitly include or exclude certain types of listings. Finding related categories and subcategories that may have the material you're looking for when a lay person (nonphilatelist) decides to list material. Identifying keywords that are likely to produce material you want, not just specialized terms used by experts, but what a lay person might use to describe material.

2. Learning to recognize red flags in both images and written descriptions; indicators not just of potential problems but also possible hidden positives.

3. Utilizing off-eBay tools to enlarge and/or filter images used in listings.

4. Don't be afraid to contact sellers for more information, but there's a skill to this. Being able to communicate courteously and professionally, recognizing that your questions or requests are taking up the seller's time. At the same time you don't want to give away what it is you are seeking; there's nothing worse than asking a question that leads the seller to believe the item is more valuable than they thought, leading them to reprice or pull the listing.

As with anything else, maximizing your returns from ebay AS A BUYER takes experience and a concerted effort. It takes a lot of time, but can pay great dividends.

ebay is a market in a capitalistic world. That means if you get it for low price you will probably sell it for around the low price. That doesn't mean you can't make a very good catch. You may have to spend a lot of time on ebay trying to evaluate collection etc. with pics available to make many good catch every month.
For classical stamps it's all about the condition. My experiences tells me that the real VF condition are not in auctions but at fixed price. Fair price there at the market price. No deals there for a real VF stamp, No deals for quality. Daniel

Agree completely with Revenuecollector. Most of ebay today is like a bourse- items for sale retail. Only about 15-20% of lots are auctions but I focus on the auctions where start bids aren't crazy. I do review BIN items periodically looking for very difficult items, but unless the seller offers "or best offer" 95%+ of BIN items are overpriced.

I guess I am a glutton for punishment as so many items bought online arrive misdescribed. This includes ebay, HipStamp, Delcampe, and Stamps2Go. Hinged stamps described as MNH, gum faults not shown or described, etc. But I'm so addicted to building my definitives collection that I cannot write off buying online as it would take me 3 lifetimes to get close to my goals.