Is It Just Me, Or Have Stamp Prices On Ebay Gotten High?

Yesterday, from disgust, I went from ebay to shop for the first time on Bidstart. I found some great deals on Bidstart. It seemed like half to a third less than what I was seeing on ebay for basically the same stuff. The stamps I bought on Bidstart were from the same seller and were quite reasonable with combined shipping.

Does anyone else think there has been an overall rise in ebay prices?. Maybe there's a reason for it? Maybe I'm just cheap.


-IBFS

I frequent ebay daily (buyer only) and indeed noticed an upward trend. I also noticed a ton of outright crap that's overly priced and too many listings for singles in the collections and lots area. I may have to check out bidstart to see what it's all about? I like stamps2go also but have to make your item worth the shipping and sometimes that can be a bit tricky.

I agree with ILS, too many listings of single stamps. Even if you were to win a stamp for 50 cents. You still end up paying around a dollar and a half or two including shipping which makes the whole point of bidding pointless.

The only way around this is to check if the same seller has other stuff you might want / need, in order to pick up more stuff and pay only for shipping once.

I've sold on ebay for quite some time. With any auction, all it takes is two determined bidders to drive up the price.

But in general, I'd have to say that prices have been down the last year or so. Items that used to regularly bring $10/$12, now bring $4/$5.

I've noticed more and more sellers getting away from the auctions and far more buy it nows. As mentioned you just need 2 bidders but it seems a seller with 10-20pages of material has maybe 3-5 auctions per page and the rest buy it now. Makes total marketing sense to drive attention to buy it nows with the few auction items but still less and less bargain hunting. Alot of the sellers that start everything at 99c are so well known the average price rises above that of a good deal anyway. Sometimes I watch 2 pages full of items only to see them go for far more than expected and the odd couple that were deals I miss from waiting to long.

I actually prefer the BIN listings. No muss- no fuss and no waiting or trying to keep track of everything.

The prices can get high when its something guys get in a bidding war over...but why do that ? A wise dealer once told me "everything comes around" unless its a really unique item you will get another shot at one !

Hi,
I collect and follow/buy US stamps on ebay. Three weeks ago, the total US stamp auctions were in the 620 thousands. This morning they were in the 710 thousands. What does that mean? To me it means a lot more sell offers. But what really matters is "transactions completed", which I doubt we would ever know.

mobilman44: The jump in numbers is probably due to ebay's free listing week.

I sell on ebay like many others here. I recently opened a second account to sell auction style only and start at 99 cents. I've noticed that BIN listing sometimes reach 90%+ of the the listed items. But auctions can be a little odd in that a lot of times you get one bid. Generally the BIN offers are way to much. If you look at prices on them they are 50-100% of catalog. That's crazy!

Battlestamps,
Good point, I forgot about that. But wow, that is a heck of an increase. Is there a seasonality to the stamp business?

-IBFS

I do have to say that as seller I categorically will accept payments that exceed what I would have been willing to take.

I think the fixed price and all of the free listings have hurt ebay. Taken away some of the "auction" out of the site.

When a seller had to pay a fee to list his stamp, his price was set to sell, not just to exhibit.

Now, way too many items are overpriced and just sit out there for months with no turnover.

I have had the feeling lately that bargains were harder to come by now than about a 12-16 months ago. Though I mainly buy collections and not singles or sets. I had taken a break from buying for about a year and just started looking again. I could be wrong though.

With ebay Australia a 99c auction listing costs 50c and BIN up to $50?is 20c. We list BIN at what are USA ebay auction lots would of sold for but all Australia high denomination stamps from basically 1999 to recent are very hard to find in number of quality stamps and there prices are going to go up to very dizzy heights. Our prices in this area have gone up 50% to 100% + this year and sales are not slowing.

Your will not see us selling 1999 to recent Australia high denominations on bidStart because we do not have the stamps to go around.

A large number of Australia high denomination we now buy in mint sheets and CTO them as it is the only way to get the stock. So to buy these stamps goes up and so does our price to sell them. There is simply not enough stamps to go around.

One of our suppliers in hard to get Australia will not sell to everyone as they do not have the stamps to go around. This tells me something! I bid $2,100 on a recent lot of 3,000 high values and did not win the lot. Good Luck with high value Australia.