How Does He (Billsbargainstamps) Ever Sell Anything?

This example could have been placed in the US Back of Book section, but I see it replicated with other kinds of listings repeatedly:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BKC20-U-S-A...200586202095

He wants $52.00 for a booklet of US airmail stamps (C72b, BKC20), that I just BIN'd at bidstart for $6.42, including shipping. In looking at alternative sellers on both ebay and bidstart, others were wanting $7-$10. So $52 just seems incredible. More typically, I see his prices at 3-4X what others want for the same item. How does he stay in business with prices so out of line with the marketplace. Are there really buyers who will pay such out of touch prices?

FWIW, I think I've bought from him once, maybe twice, simply because he had something I wanted that I could not find elsewhere. But I certainly would not buy anything from him without carefully shopping around, knowing how outrageous his prices can be.

Basil

Not all buyers are as careful as you. He needs only one or two of those sales a day / week to make posting lots worth his while.

At any given moment that seller has more United States Stamp catagory listings on ebay then any other seller, usually around 70,000 items between his two seller names. My guess is that his model is based on "few sales but huge profits". On the other hand, in fairness, I do know for a fact that some portion of his listings are consigned, and he may not have control over the prices.

As we've discussed here before, there is no law that says a seller can't charge any price he wants, no matter how outrageous it may be, but the final word is up to the buyer, to reject that price by not buying. Unfortunately, inexperienced buyers might not even realize the prices are way out of line. Sellers like him are (presumably) banking on it!

To the buyer who takes the time to look around while shopping for something, the internet can offer some great deals on items that others are selling for more. For others, they just buy the first item that they find online for the price asked for without ever bothering to look around for any of the same items for less. There are some auctions online where the price of the item has gone up a lot compared to the same item being sold by someone else on the same website. I have seen some philatelic items go for many times more in an auction that can be instantly bought for less from someone else on the same site.

Sometimes it takes me years to find what I want, mainly because I am cheap. I sold my E7 on cover that I had paid $35.00 for. I didn't really want to sell it but someone gave me $275.00 for it. I of course wanted another one, but I wasn't willing to pay more than $35.00 for it because I am a cheap . It took a few years and during that time the catalog value sky rocketed. I was beginning to believe I may have to raise my budget and then I found one. It's been a couple years and I now have seven of them on cover. Good things do come to those who wait.

I have bought from billsbargainstamps on ebay a few times. I never do a BUY NOW IT if there is a chance to submit a OR BEST OFFER. I have bought a few very specialized items from the seller and have been pleased. But, I have also passed on a few items that I considered way over priced or faulty.

Glenn Estus

There is a seller on ebay who always has wonderful lots of used pre-1960 worldwide stamps. He always lists them as BIN close to full catalog, but also has "Best Offer". I have had many offers accepted, and some refused. Sometimes he even does a counter offer. I don't mind this at all.

Every once in awhile that Rijo posts some neat stuff but I admittedly haven't checked his "store" in quite awhile as I haven't a stamp for a good long time due to large hospital bills...lol Now I kind of got the urge to splurge! :)

I know one of my purchases from him was a "make offer" purchase that he accepted. I've tried several times this route and they went ignored (or were rejected?).

I guess I didn't realize the sheer volume of what he has on ebay. As an economist, it still doesn't make much sense to me to overprice and think you can do better selling fewer items than if you lower your price. I guess it boils down to the fact that he's exploiting low information buyers with inelastic demands. He may "profit" that way, but he's not maximizing his profit doing that.

Basil

I have had one of his items in my ebay watch list for years. The price has not changed at all. At times I consider making an offer along with a note that I have been watching it for years. Not sure that would help lower the price or not.

As I write this under his bargainstamps id he has almost 68,000 total listings. I used to have him on my list of good sellers but dropped him a few years back. I don't understand how one person could manage all that, so I imagine that he must have some assistants. I did look at his completed listings and on the first page at least, most of them had sold, all being offer accepted.

regards, Theron.

I've bought from him using Offers under his other id. A few years back. But the stamps were rather nice ones and while some were good, several of them revealed faults when they were appraised, so I gave up on him. If I am going to pay $500 (or more) the stamp should be as advertised or preferably better!

As an ebay seller I'm glad that Bill and his thousands of items are on ebay. His better items validate ebay as a stamp market place and most probably draw eyes to ebay that would never otherwise consider it.

Several times I've come across an unusual item and because Bill had a similar item for sale at a big price I was able to sell my item. For example a couple years ago I found 5 corner covers all franked with pairs of Sc #300b the 1c Franklin Booklet stamps. The used booklet pane has a catalog value of $12,000, so it seems that a pair from the booklet stamps on cover should be of some value, but I've never found a catalog value. Luckily for me Bill had 2 of them, one listed at $900, and the other $950. In my opinion mine were actually a little better because they were corner covers. To make a long story short I sold all 5 at an average price of $110, I was happy to get 12% of his price, especially since I'd bought them for 50c each. I should add that Bill's 2 covers are still available, if someone wants one.

I did send one of my covers to Bill Weiss for a cert. I asked him about value and he said I'd never get $900 but if I was lucky I might get $100, so he was right on.

As a buyer, I can attest to this. Sometimes I'll see one of his listings that interests me, and so I shop around to see if I can find it elsewhere for a better price, and if I can find it elsewhere, it will be at a better price.

His listings come up fairly often on Stamp Smarter (62 times) but as others have noted compared to the volume of his listing this is a small percentage. The most common problem found in his listings are misidentification, undisclosed faults, and incorrect catalog values. It should be noted that he does seem to try to improve his listing when we notified him and has done so about 50% of the time. Just my personal opinion but I believe his missteps/mistakes are in part due to the volume of material that he handles. A more cynical perspective might question why the errors always seem to err of the side of being profitable (I think I can only recall one mistake where the stamp in the listing was worth more than was indicated ) but I give him the benefit of the doubt. So bottom line from me is that he gets credit for trying but his listings do have some issues at times.
His pricing can be all over the board and I believe that consignment has something to do with this.

Good luck in trying to return anything to him...

I bought a block of 10 stamps from him last March
he mis-advertised as 267, which turned out to be
279B... I've sent him more messages on this to either
return it or exchange for something else... no response...

A few people have suggested that I contact APS to see
if they can get him to do something about this... I'm
pretty close to doing it, finally, since he won't respond...