Moving Away From Ebay

I've decided that all the changes coming to ebay on May 1st are too much to deal with and I've begun to move my listings over to BidStart, another stamp selling site which has been around for quite some years. With lower fees and more ease to list, I can offer lower prices too. You can now find my listings at http://www.bidstart.com/stores/TheStampNut where new items will be available BUY it NOW in our store and I'll be adding 1000s more in the coming weeks. Check us out often to see whats new and I'm sure you'll find something you want and at a realistic and fair price. As always, you can still contact me via my website or email if you have a want list or any questions.

Thanks to my many customers!

"Will not ship to Canada".....pity!

I'm actually looking into doing just that. Check back in a few days and I just might be! Thanks for looking!

I prefer, and have preferred buying from bidstart for a couple years now, for the exact reasons you mentioned. Lower fees, and better prices.

... and worse selection. I don't even check Bidstart any more. It's all rehashed material, most of which is listed on ebay by the same sellers anyway. I used to buy on Bidstart/Stampwants regularly, but my last purchase there was over 6 months ago.

I agree there is an abundance of cross selling...but there doesn't seem to be many other choices I'm aware of and have checked quite a few sites. Bidstart seems easy to add listings to and the fees are lower so I can pass that savings onto the buyers. I also will plan on expanding to selling in Canada and just trying to work out the numbers. Perhaps by the end of the day.

I tried selling on Bidstart numerous times, but the results were dismal and not worth the amount of labor involved. Delcampe is right out.

I'm actually having reasonable results submitting items to the APS online StampStore for sale. Not earth-shattering, but $50-100 a month in sales. High commission rate at 20%, but far less labor involved. No imaging or listing, no hassles with payments, packing and shipping, managing customer communication, etc. If what you are selling is nonspecialized Scott-listed material that you can price at $1 or more, it's a viable option.

I don't list any specialized U.S. revenue items like cancels or plate varieties there, as (1) they have arbitrary rules about how high you may price items relative to Scott value, regardless of actual value, and (2) you have zero control over the image quality, much of which is subpar, as they appear to use a camera and copy stand rather than a flatbed scanner, which results in washed out images, and the sizing and cropping is excessively random depending on who actually process the listing.

I have had a Bidstart store for a few years. I have had a pretty good experience in general but the activity over the last few months(corresponding to the transition to the SG marketplace) has been really abysmal. My sales are down 90%. Part of that may be due to the fact that I am listing new material in my stand alone webstore and on ebay. Of course my decision to direct new material elsewhere was made because the new Stanley Gibbons marketplace is so very BETA. Shockingly so.

I am hoping that SG wakes up and smells the coffee soon and either releases a functional new marketplace with the promised bells and whistles or just screams uncle and goes back to the old system. I have no doubt that there is room for a real competitor in the collectibles space given the constant tinkering(ie squeezing out the smaller seller) at ebay. The Bidstart system, before SG, was not super cutting edge but it had lots of powerful features that WORKED. I guess what is really frightening is the recent earnings release from SG which touts the new electronic platform even though those who were/are involved know that it is dead in the water at the moment. Perhaps this will change soon. For me the bottom line is wait and see. No reason to throw good money after bad.

Bob

Thanks for the added info Bob. I did read the release regarding the SG revenue report and agree there needs to be a change. I agree that if SG does it right, there is a huge gap ebay has made and it needs to be filled. Another issue I have with the site is the poor customer service. It takes 24+ hours just to get a reply to emails I've sent. Hopefully SG will get wise soon.

I buy on Bidstart frequently but I just use it to find cheap singles, that's pretty much it. It's pretty unusual I spend over $5 for any given individual stamp or lot on that site. It's not cost effective to sell the very cheapest stuff on ebay, so the selection of common stamps on Bidstart is fairly decent. For better stamps, not so much. Most buyers of better stamps are looking for bargains, which means auctions. And no seller in their right mind is going to try auctioning any stamp on Bidstart without a really high start price, since 1 bid is all they're likely to get. Thus, all the better stamps (as well as 99% of all stamps) on Bidstart are at fixed pricing, which is generally higher than the same stamps will go for at auction. The people looking for quick pickups of cheap items go there, buyers of better items look elsewhere.

I tried a couple of auctions on Bidstart, early in my tenure there, but gave up when I realized that the traffic for auctions is just not there. That said, the ability to offer a wide range of fixed price material, from starter lots to higher value/more esoteric product with a reasonable store fee, solid sales management tools and reasonable, if not overwhelming traffic, was a good value proposition. Plus a BS store owner avoided all of the meddlesome ebay seller updates. Now SG is in the house and it remains unclear to me what the SG vision is other than they want to be the Amazon of collectibles. A lofty goal perhaps, but what remains obvious is that they do not have a functional marketplace at this point and have also dried up traffic on Bidstart. Not exactly a win/win type proposition.

Bob

It seems to me that since it appears ebay is pushing out Stamp Sellers in general and with that in mind it's likely going to effect the smaller sellers who generally offer the same or better material at much lower prices then Sellers like NY Stamps who will likely not be affected,..that there is a need for another place to find decent material. I'm not sure where that will ultimately lead, but I guess I'm going to give Bidstart a chance and see where it goes. I'm still looking into offering my material to Canadian buyers but have to look further into tracking from the US to Canada and how that works. Hopefully SG will see the opportunity and seize it and collectors will end up with a better source to make purchases. Only time will tell!

I must have missed something in the Spring Sellers Update, as I didn't see anything that would affect me any more than previous changes ebay has made. What specific ebay change are you referring to?

The biggest changes in May are the number of allotted free auction listings. The free auction listings for all sellers dropped from 100 to 40.

Also store seller's monthly allotment of listings are now exclusively to be used for fixed priced listings and not auctions, except store owners will receive and additional 100 free auction listings.

However, if an auction item sells then the listing fee is to be reimbursed. ebay is driving sellers to list things that will sell the first time around unless the seller is willing to fork over listing fees repeatedly. I would hesitate to ever relist previously unsold items. It might weed out some of the more common material and cause others to lower prices. If you have a store you can lower one's liability via lower listing fees and I'm sure ebay had that in mind too.

In a sense this is better than Delcampe which penalizes a seller for actually selling something. Delcampe slaps the seller with an additional small fee for each item sold - a retroactive listing fee.

I've been holding back on listing anything recently just to see how things fall into place with the new changes. Will ebay still offer free listings days or not? Should I get a store? Modify stamp/cover lots that will sell the first time around? Ever relist unsold items?

Thank you Battlestamps for providing those changes. Some may view them as good, while myself and others do not. I have seen items with specific cancels and common material which did not sell the 1st. 2nd or even third time or more to then be purchased. Like anything being offered on ebay....it will depend on price, value and services provided. Sometimes it just takes time...and the right buyer. The new rules will keep many items off the site simply because the Seller can't afford to pay listing fees for those lower priced common items. Collectors have to start somewhere...and if they can only find expensive or overpriced material, they won't make those purchases. I think it might cause some to stop collecting or make fewer additions to their collections if it becomes harder to find lower priced common material. IMO I think ebay IS looking to thin out the smaller sellers and I think that many stores will also close down because the price is too much and they get less bang for their buck. Only time will tell.

It depends on your selling model as to whether or not the changes affect you, hence my questioning the general statement "It seems to me that since it appears ebay is pushing out Stamp Sellers in general..."

If you primarily list items as auctions and have been relying on ebay's free listings (which is a comparatively recent addition anyway... prior to a few years ago there were no such things as free listings), then yes, the changes impact you. Conversely, if you have an ebay Store and the bulk of your listings are fixed price, the change has almost no impact.

These changes will declutter listings though, as sellers now have to consider what they list and how, rather than posting a lot of low-priced common items just because the listings are free.

It wasn't so long ago that sellers had to pay listing fees for ALL auction and fixed price listings and had to be descriminating in what and how they listed, so I don't view this as a radical change. If anything it's a minor adjustment in the direction of the way things used to be.