Selling Stamps On Ebay- Please Help

It would be for BIN ads.

What are the most troublesome issues sellers have to tolerate with ebay and with buyers?

For the ad itself, what are the ebay options that are most advisable to pay for?

For the ad itself, what are the ebay options that are least worthy of their fees and best avoided?

In addition to these ebay options, what additional fees does ebay charge?

would someone actually say "avoid ebay" and to sell at another site? Sell where?

What advice would you have as an experienced seller, and is there anything I haven't thought of above?

Thanks all


-IBFS

I would consider a couple of other places from ebay

1. APS Stamp Store or sales Circuits: http://stamps.org/How-to-Sell-Online

2. Stamporama: http://stamporama.com/approvals/approvals_main.php or http://stamporama.com/auction/auction_main.php

3. Even SCF: https://www.stampcommunity.org/auction_active.asp

It depends on where you are located and the stamps being offered. While major changes are expected to occur, bidStart provides a lower pressure alternative to ebay, especially for US stamps. Next year, the Stanley Gibbons (SG) is expected supplant the site. Assuming that auctions are added, it will have more European exposure. The other site for European stamps is Delcampe. That site is also expected to change, but in a more controlled way.

Both sites have very little cost associated with posting listings and charge less than ebay if something sells. The big learning curve is related to making clear scans and providing good descriptions that will be found by the site search engine and Google. While stamps are more likely to sell on ebay, prices for common material continues to drop and costs continue to escalate.

Clark

While there are other options, the truth of the matter is that ebay has the most traffic, giving you a better chance of actually completing a sale.

How well you do on ebay depends on what you sell. Common items are widely available and as a new seller, yours will probably be pushed to the bottom of the queue. Rarer items will be found by buyers no matter what options you choose. If you are merely selling your common duplicate stamps, bidStart is probably a better option. However, if you are selling more desirable items, ebay them.

IBFS

One thing is to strip out cost. That means auction/fixed price instead of BIN, which now carries a charge. Use the free listings - 20 per month, and regular offers of 100 free listings. This limits exposure to listing fees. Avoid a fee for the start-time of the sale by having your items ready to go at a sensible time of day. Of course, if you've got good material of highish value, the penny-pinching matters much less. For my cheaper cards, it's near-essential.

I don't use any ebay paid services - I suspect that they're of use to more professional sellers.

Good luck!

Geoff

Geoffha,

Could you expand on this, or clarify? Is start time important because it determines end time?

Basil

bljcr

Hello. My assumption is that, on a weekday, most people will bid in the evening - say between 7pm and 10pm. So I try to get the material on for that timeframe, which means that people who leave bids to the last minute (as lots of us do) will be bidding at a time when they're likely to be at home. At weekends, I assume a longer timeframe.

If I have my items ready to upload at 8pm, I avoid the additional ebay fee for picking a later time that I'd have paid if I'd uploaded them at, ay, 3pm.

None of this matters much for items that sell at £20. But if you have lots that may well go for £2, it's worth saving every penny.

Regards.

Geoff

I agree with Geoff if your sales are targeted at a local audience. But note it is called the 'world-wide web'. Here in the US, I try to account for all time zones when using auction listings. In other words, find a compromised time that fits for both east coast and west coast. This is less critical for BIN listings.
Don

As one who hasn't started selling yet, but who plans to eventually, these insights are helpful. As an experienced buyer, I see two patterns in the length of time listed for auctions. Some set the auction for a week, and others for what looks like 4 weeks (or a month). Is there any cost implications in this choice? If one is going to renew a listing until it sells, would there be any reason to choose a shorter auction over a longer one?

Basil

In thinking about BIN versus auctions, I can see choosing a shorter auction if one is choosing an auction to avoid higher charges associated with BIN sales. Obviously, BIN sales appeal to the buyers who "want it now," and if you are going to make them wait until the auction closes, the sooner the better.

What about the hybrid that some use, in which a lower auction price is offered along with a higher BIN price? Can that effectively get around the higher cost of a BIN listing? Suppose I have an item that I would sell for $5 but am put off by the higher BIN listing cost. Would it be effective to list it at a starting auction price of $5, and then a somewhat higher BIN price for those who "want it now?"

BLCJR ------Be careful with selling on E-BAY ,you will soon realize there are a lot of hidden land mines out there .I was selling stuff which I knew was listed below replacement value and was getting all kinds of nut jobs . The big thing with any on-line sales is that it takes a lot of your time . Believe me if you leave any room for a doubt ,then your wrong and it will cost you money .
I got two negatives in my first month on E-BAY in 2005 and I was already sold thousands of cigar box lots thru Stamp Newspaper ads with hundreds of repeat customers . The first one was shipping a box of stamps to England and the customer did not want to pay for airmail, so I shipped it Seamail ,that takes four to six weeks ,after two weeks I got a negative . My second negative drove me off E-BAY ,I sold a huge box of stamps and the customer asked in a private email how many stamps where in the box ,I email back about 15,000 because I wasn't going to spent 6 to 8 hours counting cheap worthless stamps . She purchase the box and counted the stamps ,there was 13,800 and I got a second negative before I could make good on the difference . That is when I quit .

I agree with oldguy in that the APS Stamp Store is the only on line venue where I have sold stamps. APS handles all the shipping, which to me is well worth the commission paid to APS. You can also go into the system and reduce prices, for slower selling items, which is then recognized by an icon. I had a few items that did not sell after a set period of time, in 2013. Near the end of that year, APS offered me a potential tax write-off if I donated the unsold lots to the APS, which I did.

I haven't used the Store since, but only because I haven't taken time to work up any more lots. For those wanting to use the Store, be aware that you can get real good sales, even in "slow" countries, if you price very competitively and if you're not looking to set 80% of catalog as your sales price for everything.

There is another site to sell stamps on, but you have to do your own advertising, and that is my-little-auctions.com It can be effective, I have sold a few extras on that site.

http://www.my-little-auctions.com/login.php

I've listed stamps on Bid Start and Delcampe. Total Waste of time. If you're really looking to sell, ebay is the place. Much more traffic.

I like to add items at my leisure and schedule them to start at a later date. I leave them in that state until I'm ready to make them live, Then edit them to start immediately. That typically spaces them out about a minute or two apart. Real handy for buyers if they are looking to combine shipments. Many times I turn them loose when ebay offers free listings. All the work has been done ahead of time. Just need to flip the switch and start them.

When I see discussions about selling stamps, we focus entirely on ebay/bidstart/etc.

I'm curious - is nobody placing any classifieds in Linn's etc? If you are, what kind of ROI are you experiencing.

May I use IBFS's thread to ask a related question? I need to start clearing out duplicated stamps this Autumn, once I've broken the back of duplicated cigarette cards. The material for ebay would be average stuff, nothing rare, but some better items. Any views on which of the following methods others have found most useful?

- job lots (100, 500 etc) of an individual country or area
- similar, but all individual stamps viewable on stockcards
- individual countries or groups on old or Steiner-type album leaves

The advantage of the first is that it requires the least effort. But do the other approaches achieve better results?

Grateful for any views.

Geoff