Why Not Use A Free Site

I have been reading all these themes about ebay, bidStart and delcampe and wonder why so many of you choose to pay to advertise on the internet, when there is a site which lets you buy and sell totally free?
What is the 'advantage' of paying someone else to sell your own stuff?
Why not simply use a free bidding site?
Feel free to rip into me if I've missed the point here......

A free bidding site? Like what?


I think the main reason people use ebay, Bidstart, Delcampe, etc. is because it gets traffic- you will get more money and move your stamps faster if 30 people see it on a big stamp site than if 2 people see it on a free site.

Which site is this?

I think we use ebay and the others because it has the largest amounts of philatelic material as well as buyers. The internet is a vast boundless place. You really do need to advertise in order for folks to find your material for sale. I know people who created their own web site to sell material and it's been a challenge to get buyers. The sites like ebay do the advertising for you and have has a huge built in audience.

It's like this and I'll use a real physical example - large scale flea markets. Even if you are buying or selling, your odds of success are better at the flea market due to the size of the operation even with the fees of renting a table or entrance fees. It would be better than trying to have your own yard sale off on some remote backroad that's not heavily traveled.

The free site is wensy.com and used to be stampoffers.com

I used to sell on stampoffers and it really was a bunch of collectors mainly selling dupes. Pretty much anything but gave a great place to sell low cost or nickle stamps that the fees on the other sites would not make it practical. Like the others stated you just would not get the exposure like ebay or bidstart but it is a free listing site.

I think this screenshot helps explain how important the broad exposure provided by the pay-for-service sites is to sellers. Of the 28,799 active listings on Wensy.com for U.S. items, 9 currently have bids.

In Some ways - Wentsy might be good. Both for buyers and sellers for small dollar stamps.

I just checked it for some Albania I am looking for, and I see quite a few actually, and the prices are great. These are items that wouldn't go for much more on ebay, and, after the fees, you might actually do better on Wentsy


I think I may add Wentsy to my list of places to check for individual items and small sets.

I was on Stampoffers before it was sold to Wensy...you will see people who have purchased over 30,000 low value stamps at 5 and 10 cents apiece the only cost is to purchase enough stamps from one dealer to make the postage charge worthwhile..you do not want to buy a 10 cent stamp and pay 1.25 shipping !!

i just noticed I rolled over the 9 thousand posts..no problem..i will never catch Rod !!

Hey Phil, don't forget many of us had more posts than Rod, then well he took off. Now how did that happen?

When I was selling on Wensy I would sell mnh stamps for a nickle, great deal for buyers. Biggest problem was it is a pain to list a stamp for that cheap and have to do it hundreds of times just to make a couple of bucks. But it is fun to a point.

I have been with Stampoffers/wensy for quite a few years with good success .
with over 6700 positive feedbacks and I am not even in the top 25.


one of the keys is the following
Most of the items sell for about 25% of the Catalogue Value.
Free shipping on all orders above $10.00.
Plus an extra 10% off the final invoice .

http://www.wensy.com/detail.asp?id=8920500


David-DJD

I would endorse Davis and have bought from him before a couple of times. No problem there.

Hello DJD !! Yes, I know a couple of fellows on Wensy that must spend 12 hours a day listing stamps for pennies...they must enjoy it because if you figured out the pay per hour ..it would like to be when I was in the service "12 cents an hour 24 hours a day" !

I guess it all depends on what your time's worth. If you want to work for 25c per hour, Wensy sounds great. SCF is a good compromise (or I wouldn't be here). It takes me 15 minutes to put together a sale; finding the material, scanning, describing, and loading, and at the other end, packaging, addressing, and (unfortunately) occasional trips to the understaffed uncooperative Post Office (5 miles away).

The flat rate is 15 cents a day, and a deal's profit might be $1 to $3. What's the bottom line? Maybe $5 per hour, and a feeling of satisfaction from moving out duplicates and excess stock. But the current sell-through rate is less than 50%, so it's not ideal, and more than two bids per item is unusual. I've already learned I can't sell discount postage at ANY price, so you won't see any more. I've had the best luck with U.S. before 1940, Russia, and China. Plus I do not have to worry about getting cheated or blind-sided here, and we have a lot of fun. If I had my "druthers," I would put forth a great effort to attract more MEMBERS, converting them from Guests, as that means more buyers, more commentary, and more possible purchases of my own interests, and from the sheer weight of numbers, a reduction of the $45 fee.

Folks are certainly welcome to use Wensy, but I personally think it's a monumental waste of time, and the numbers prove it. The jury's still out on Gibbons-BidStart, but despite its warts, ebay provides massive exposure, and that's what it's all about; in time, you will realize that the way to play ebay is to strive to convert the one-time buyer into a regular private customer outside the system, and I have a few buyers in that category. But ebay goes out of its way to infuriate Sellers; their management and their attitude suck, big-time, and they don't give two whoops in hell about the collectibles market -- that's not where the bucks are.

I might add that my first forum-based selling was on StampBoards, a great place to do business, again with the most highly-principled buyers, and no-nonsense oversight by Glen. But I don't have very much of the Australasian material that the most active buyers want, and the postage is a killer. I still offer items there, and I have a solid reputation for fair dealing, having done several thousand dollars in the past seven years.

The free site I had in mind was 'my little auctions'.

I would post a link but it might be against the policy of this forum.

There is also
2made
totalbids
121bid
free-auctions
lotsnipe
avabid
and more

I have tried most bid sites. I am most satisfied with wensy. I have over 30,000 positive feedback this includes buying and selling.

I have sold stamps from the mimium cataloge to high values stamps.

If you are a seller it will take time to get buyers, but if you offer a good selection of stamps at reasonable prices, you will be successful.

As a buyer there are many great stamps for sale in all price ranges.

I think wensy is better than all the other sites.

I see that there was comments about not many bids on stamps. A lot of listing for stamps are not auction, but are listed as buy it now.

If you have not tried wensy give it a try wether you are a seller or buyer.