Whatever Happened To Stamp Prices On Ebay ?

From what I've read on the ebay discussion groups is that GSP might be useful for heavy items over 4 pounds or like cobie said, certain very expensive items. Unfortunately other buyers have found out that they have to pay additional fees that they never paid before, i.e. additional $20 extra in shipping and import duties for a t-shirt and the like. ebay's GSP would be a deal breaker for stamps, postcards, covers etc. Maybe it would be fine for a 20 volume album set, but again once you opt in it's hard to get out. There's no one button to click to turn it off.

Yes, buyer and seller could communicate with other and bypass the GPS and the side trip to Kentucky, BUT if the seller has the GSP turned on and potentiel buyers are looking through a seller's item they may never bid or purchase in the first place as the additional fees are such a turn off on normally low priced and low weight items. Also if the seller and buyer bypasses the GSP I don't know how ebay would react if they don't see the item pass through their system. ebay & Pitney Bowes will want their cut. I'm guessing items won't be marked as paid until the full amount is paid through PayPal. It feels like it would be a mess to get around it once GSP is implemented. Best thing is to avoid it. I simply deleted those emails about the updated user agreement and didn't even open them to read. I saw copies of it in the ebay forums in several threads. Those who did open them saw there was an option to not to agree with the update. That was a link to cancel one's ebay account.

cobie: Oh yes, used book prices can be absolutely nuts! It's even worse for a "out of print" book. Several years age my wife was looking for a book about industrial architecture from a particular author. The book was of a limited print run like most non-mainstream books. Prices rainged from $200 to $600 between ebay and Amazon. Needless to say, we didn't buy it online. Then one day I was looking through the odds and ends at the estate sale store at the corner of my street and picked up the same exact book for $10. I didn't realize I even had the same one until my wife saw it. Buy again, used book prices is the main reason why I've had problems trying to expand my philatelic library. I have had some luck finding some philatelic books through Second Story Books which is on Amazon, but they have a regular store in Maryland as well. I use to shop there well before ebay or Amazon existed and their prices are fair as they research values and discount.

re books...those book dealers are "cachet" dealers. They basically sit around waiting for that lone kook to spend 350$ for some semi-rare book he/she needs in a hurry. Without blathering on, the average used book dealer survives by the average everyday purchase, not the overpriced stuff.

Pretty much like stamps...

PeterC4,

I sort of agree with you. But another side of the book biz that I have seen is that people have been trolling library book sales with their smart phones and sometimes even scanners scanning the code on the side of a book and if it matches some want list they snatch it up for cheep and then sell it to the person wanting at a good profit. This would not necessarily be textbooks but regularly published books.

Now what would be interesting is if there was a stamp site that would sort of have a reverse bidding war where the person wanting a stamp can enter a description and what they are willing to pay for the stamp. Have the listing go for a few days and have sellers bid each other down in price. So if someone supplies the purchaser at the first price the deal is OK because that is what the purchaser wanted to pay. If it goes down even better.