What Happen To Ebay ?

I wish there was a way to only search for sellers with less than, say, 100 feedbacks. The best deals I've ever gotten on ebay were generally from newer/low feedback sellers. Far fewer buyers see their auctions than the "big boys" and your competition is much more limited. In a few instances I got better material at such low prices that I practically felt guilty.

Floortrader, although I have no interest in forgeries or cinderellas, I've enjoyed reading other write-ups you've done on various countries and sets you've acquired. I hope you will continue to post your observations and learnings frequently.

Artful- your post made me check the advanced search on ebay as I was likewise curious about sorting sellers by rating. Did not find a way, but by pure serendipity I discovered something in the advanced search I never knew about- after almost 19 years on ebay.

One of the reasons many of us give as a frustration with ebay is the great preponderance of BINs. That said, some best offer lots can work out if the seller is flexible enough. And OMG- there is a check box in advanced search to select out OBO offers!! I can't wait to play around with it!

Thanks SHERMAE for your positive comments . I am still sorting thru ,researching and mounting the vast amount of forgeries and Cinderella material from the James Czyl Estate that I purchased.

I don't have a sense of seasonal adjustments across the stamp market. However, US retail sales often peak in December and then soften in the first quarter of the new year due to consumers being tapped out and paying off holiday purchases. Perhaps this trend also impacts stamp purchases?

I've relied primarily on ebay to build my collection.bTwo ebay realities I see over and over certainly impact the activities of serious collectors:

1) ebay's search function does a terrible job by presenting unwanted and unrelated items when you seek a very specific Scott catalouge number. Seems the ebay algorithim is set up to dump massive amounts of product rather than allow searcher to drill down. This is a real pain in the a**! If I am looking for US #312, I don't appreciate being shown hundreds of worldwide items. And if I'm seeking a Minkus binder, I find it annoying to be shown albums by Lighthouse, Scott, Mystic, etc.

2) I agree with the other comments re: the growing percentage of BIN offerings. I'm fairly certain that most buyers prefer auctions for the simple reason that there is always the chance we may win a "bargain". However, as I have sought ever more rare and costly stamps, these items are far more frequently offered as BIN with very few bargains compared to CV pricing. Many better items have BIN prices at 60% to 80% of CV.

I think BIN offers are gaining popularity because auction prices have greatly softened. Having sold off my own dupes and unwanted countries, I can attest to the fact that MANY auctions generate < 10% of CV. I have been disappointed when selling better US classics with CV in the $200+ range only to receive auction win for $12 or so.

DCARAZ --Agree with your points ,posted above . But this whole auction market is a mine field and a lot of ebay sellers are tired of giving away material at 99 cents . Sure ebay and everyone else says start your pricing at 99 cents to attrach buyers and bidding ,the problem I hear from club members is getting no bids until the last minute and all the bidding is by "GOTCHA BUYERS".

I always felt that first quarters usually see good sales in US, people are still indoors and they are getting tax refunds. Sales drop off starting with the second quarter as people move outdoors and start thinking about vacations.
Don

I am always happy to see September arrive and my sales pick up. They get better thru the Fall and peak in the Spring and I struggle through the summer.

As for ebay I think it depends on what you are selling. I have trouble getting decent prices on individual stamps, do a little better with covers and still do very well with collections.

What I don't understand is that public auction prices seem very strong. I just sat thru a 2 day auction and bidding was competitive for almost everything. Where is all the material going? I watch group cover lots sell for more than I can get on ebay if I break them down and sell them individually, I just don't get it.

Many of us who have been discussing the current markets in this and other threads have our conjectures -- but mostly we remain stumped.

Maybe it's lack of trust that drives lower prices on ebay. I have built a very nice US classics collection by buying 95% of my material on ebay. Yet, many buyers I think prefer live auctions and dealer sales because they have greater trust in the stamp quality, validity and returns of more "established" sellers vs. the faceless ebay seller. Why else would so many buyers pay a 20% premium on top of the usually higher buy point at a major auction?

KRELYEA --- I think those high prices are because buyers are collectors also . I recently out bid a lot of ebay sellers for Cinderella material at four different auctions in 2015 not because of prices that could be realized on ebay but because all the material was there in one place at one time . Those ebay sellers have to understand ,I make my money elsewhere and don't have time to make 300 or 500 transactions to get the material ,my attitude is pay up and get it all at once .

area66, Nice graphic, buy why so negative?

Not the whole hobby is in trouble. Seems better material still brings out those willing to pay prices more in line with CV. I'll be finding out myself this year as I consider best way to sell part or all of my US Classics. Last year I completed a number of sets with the purchase of some higher denomination items. I'll be looking to sell my better US stamps to fund a nice vacation with my wife, and then I'll focus on my British Commonwealth.

I plan to get a number of estimates from dealers and also consider using an established auction house. Should be very interesting compared to my experiences selling singles and small lots on ebay.

ebay has created an easy opportunity to publicly list for sale tens of millions of second-class duplicates ...

... the sort of material that would never have been listed onesy-twosy at a public auction in decades past.

This is nice for the folks merely unloading duplicates, and nice for the people merely filling album spaces.

The stuff that is moving at public auction houses is either levels above that, or in (very) bulk lots.

Some of those buyers got to see the lots before they bid, which drives up confidence, and bids.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

dcaraz1949 -

Better, sound US stamps should be offered at fixed price using the US Specialized Scott valuing guide by grade as a starting point. Check the ebay sold results of an auction-only seller like bel-kirkstamps.

You may notice that better stamps sell for a lower fraction of value than more problematic stamps or groups.

Clark

Floortrader; Occasionally a pesky collector such as yourself outbids a dealer because you don't have to worry about a profit margin, but in my case I think it was more structural. For 1 or 2 years my ebay business consisted of auctioning 40 postal history items per week. I obtained all of my covers by purchasing group lots in public auctions. I dealt mostly in 19th C covers that weren't quite expensive enough to be sold as individual items by the auction houses. My average sale price was around $40. I dealt with 6 auction houses and had to buy quite a few lots to maintain my sales. I was doing pretty well but then I began to notice I needed to pay more for the lots than I was comfortable with. At first I thought the market must be improving but my ebay prices didn't go up and over the course of 6 months I was pushed out of the market and decided to move on to a different sales strategy.

A couple months ago one of the auction houses had a nice cover lot for sale that had enough pictures that I could estimate how much I could sell it for on ebay. I decided to give postal history another try and I made an aggressive bid but I lost by a few increments. A couple days later a very distinctive cover from this lot popped up on ebay. I had never heard of this seller but when I investigated I found that they has over 14,000 covers available at BIN. Clearly if someone has the resources to maintain a large inventory set high BIN and wait for sales to occur they can always outbid someone who depends on auctions and turn over.

My 2 cents as a novice stamp collector in regards to ebay and auction houses.

ebay is becoming full of flea market bottom feeders who want everything for nothing, and sellers who want the world for garbage.

Many big sellers as you call them inflate their prices and use shill bidders (you can argue all you want)

They use fixed price to get rid of the bottom feeders who want stuff at 5% to 10% of catalog or less.

Auction houses also price a lot of stock at very high percentages of catalog as much of it is their own merchandise. They don't start stuff at the bottom either for good reason, it will attract all the bottom feeders.

I buy very little on ebay any more as I got tired of having to return stuff and getting a lot of the garbage sellers are selling that is totally not what was listed.

I used to buy around $10,000 per year and now down to a few supplies. If I can get it for about the same price from other than ebay, I prefer to do that.

Everyone talks about a % of CV but what is the actual CV value today. As stated, no 2 dealers can agree and none of the catalogs can agree.

What I call lower end will always be lower end and will never change. Once everyone has those items that collect, there will be very little market for them. That is a lot of what is being sold on ebay.

Many older collectors or their Executors in the estate are dumping on the market and very few new collectors are coming into the buying market.

Stamps that are better value and clean VF with no faults will always sell for 50% of book or more and many times way over book as there is a demand from serious collectors.

Stuff that is low grade and/or has faults will very seldom bring over 10% book unless is is scarce.

OK, done for now, lets get the whips out and have some feedback and further discussion