Curious About Webstore Anyone Heard Of Or Tried It?

My ebay fees are getting to high so found an alternative site with a section for stamps and postal history. But I don't know much about it. I have listed a few and the site seems smooth. I think to put a big buy it now store there. But I wondered if anyone here has heard of or tried the site before. No listing fess which was a plus for me. A one time site verification fee of $11 and that's it. One can choose to donate to the site if they want. I wonder what would happen if all stamp sellers and buyers took their business the site. I'm loosing to much profit between ebay & paypal so need a 2nd site. Here is a link to the start of my shop on Webstore, comments welcome. Not much listed yet but I plan to add more.
https://www.webstore.com/store,pgr,...9123,ac,shop

ebay is where the buyers are. Unfortunately you have to pay the price of admission to have your goods seen by the biggest buyer pool on the net. There are other sites to sell stamps, but none have the traffic of ebay.

Seems to be a lot less buyers on ebay since January 1st. Why? Paypal increased fees to 4.4%. The prospect of free listings on Webstore is appealing. If only more sellers and buyers would support the site.

It just goes round and round but stamps sales have crashed world wide it is not going to make any difference saying the grass is greener outside of ebay.
The ebay pay pal combo is still heaps cheaper than the bricks and mortar auction houses hands down. These auction houses are still our benchmark IMO.
Have pulled back selling and am keeping my great stock that is in a large amounts far away from selling it for nothing.
It is just the time to stop selling to get buyer hungry again not to change listing sites.
There are 2 other threads on this forum with the same flavor as this thread but the hate/rant angle is not going to make the grass any greener than ebay than this thread.
Am so over it all.....

Duncan ebay had 167 million active users in the fourth quarter of 2016. If buyers are anywhere, they're on ebay. A few hundred active users on lesser sites are not going to improve your sales. A site with free listings normally only attracts sellers of common material. If the Paypal increase is problematic, increase your prices accordingly.

Thanks all I may just have to put the cheaper stuff in webstore, hope it sells over time and the better stuff on ebay. I don't know how sellers starting at 99 cents do it. If they only get 1 bid they are not making money. Raising prices will equal less buyers. There is a lot of competition on ebay and a lot of people want everything as cheap as they can get it. 99c sale, 50c to ebay and 50c to paypal? But somewhere I have to reduce the fees. Running two sites maybe the key, ebay plus a webstore.

Duncan. I like your thread because you are not ranting about your situation. Selling stamps at present is difficult as many of us have found but I believe it is only a matter of time and things will correct themselves again and collectors will start collecting again.

Have divided up the very large collection I have that I sell from and have put the parts that are not selling well away for now. Have even put my best sellers away because they bring buyers to the stock that has to be seen before a buyer will buy it.

But in all honesty it is my sales outside of ebay that are keeping me afloat very nicely. I can not keep the stock up to these buyers. My buys outside of ebay are basically sold before I receive them at present.

My income is better than it has ever been. Simple as that. My ebay store cost for next month will be $20 down from $500. Now there is a profit already before I get to sales. ebay is getting the message because so many people have stopped selling or have gone for a cheaper stores.

I also see a lot of collectors selling stamps at very low prices at present but that will pass as well.

Thanks KGV I like webstore I put a few up today only have 17 items on there now but will put up all items I think will sell cheaply. Over time the store will build and cost nothing to run. I don't want to pay too high fees to try and sell the cheaper items, there's no money in under a few bucks sale. Webstore listing format seems smooth to use. Even if not a lot of buyers on there I can build the store to a much bigger size than what I have on ebay. KGV I think the difference with us is I list on ebay.com. I was trying 90 auctions a week in two categories which is a lot of work and expense. Too many were going unsold since Jan 1st. Maybe Trump has something to do with the sudden drop in ebay sales? But my main problem is loosing too much $$ in fees. So the QV stamps on covers, pre-stamp and better material will stay on ebay. Everything else to Webstore where I can put hundreds of covers up at no cost. I just wish more stamp sellers and collectors would try to build the webstore site a little. I know ebay is unmatched in customers, fair enough. But some items I just can't raise the price to cover fees and postage. This is what seems to be the message. Raise your prices but with postal history items they have a set selling level. Beyond that they may not sell. I won't say my monthly fee on here but its quiet high so anymore increases are really going to have an impact on smaller sellers. KGV why not put your stamps that are not selling on webstore give it a try? At least they are listed somewhere and might sell. Your lucky if you have good sales outside of ebay, me I rely on ebay which is why I will keep the better stamped covers there. And run the webstore at the same time and hope that picks up over time.

Duncan to be honest I have found my other site in a way being from personal contacts. Work wise I am sorting about 20kg of kiloware per 4 weeks. Just have not got the time for any more complications. My time is being used up in our community as well.

My small humble horticulture ebay store is earning more than my stamp store.eBay has given me a heap of free listing for every month because of my sales. Never got it with stamps but ebay has rewarded me for my plant sales. The stock I am growing on is large. Trying to get no losses in the weather up here over summer has taken a lot of time. Am constantly breaking down larger plants that I have grown into smaller size, as to multiply the stock base. My growing season here is the full 12 months a year. The plant just do not stop growing.Can grow the harder to get and grow plants as my stock base......

Yesterday I scored a very good deal with an anti mozzie company. Things are happening in an area I am over qualified to do. It is good for me to do this. Stamps really smashed me. Another area is I purchased 50 staghorns they can only be grown from spore. You can not divide them. They have doubled in size this Spring, Summer. A very hard to get plant to buy in any of its larger sizes and sells for very prices. And it goes on.

Just having the time of my life. After doing 1500 listing for years has hurt me. Need some space from the stress of trying to find stamps (or my stamp tongs) even though they are as organised as possible.

KGV well done indeed if your horticulture ebay store is a better earner, maybe better to stick with that. Plants and the heat with a string of heatwaves here somedays hit 40 degrees my garden has not been happy. Several plants have gone brown, not just in my property but in the whole block here. The heat is really too much some days. 1500 listing is a tall order, it takes time to do even 20. That is the problem sometimes not enough hours in a day to handle more listings. One has to stop and smell the roses.

KGV makes a great point. ebay is just like Google when it comes to analyzing their search numbers. The worse thing that can happen is a buyer searches for an item and it returns very few listings/choices. If you search ebay for stag horn plant you might get 50-75 returns; obviously they have a keen interest in promoting more plant sellers. This is opposed to them having no need promote more stamp sellers.

I am the world's worse stamp dealer. In fact, I might be called an 'un-stamp dealer'. I am really just a hobbyist who seeks to offset some of my costs. I rarely get more than 15-20% of what I paid for stuff but this is no surprise considering that I pick through my buys and only offer the left overs and remainders.

But I am online competing with real stamp dealers. I am willing to discount my material to the point of actually giving some of it away. I have the luxury of not having to invest and stock a substantial amount of inventory. I do not have be worried about profit/losses. I have no employees or other fixed overhead costs. I do not have to be concerned about covering what I have invested at all. Now multiple me thousands of times over.

This is why I think that KGV post's is right on, he has found a market sector that is not over saturated (particularly with 'part time dealers/hobbyists'.)
Don

Thank You Don.

That means a lot to me. Your kind words are very welcome and timely.:)


Duncan we have all got this far and the journey is still going to work. We just have to change a bit for a while. It is very healthy when circumstances make us think about what we are doing.

It makes a lot of sense to sell your cheaper items on another site that is not going to take all your profit.

We do need to think outside the square in a positive way instead of loosing it and ranting all over the place....On wards we go...

Don is in a different position as a hobbyist. He can afford to discount his material and let some of it go for nothing. I however rely on sales as I do ebay full time. So I have to worry about losses. I cringe every time there is a fee increase with ebay, paypal and also the post office. Between the three the cost keep rising each year. As KGV said it makes sense for me to sell my cheaper items on another site. I get frustrated when a third of the days taking goes to pay fees. Its a real struggle when sales are down 20% to. The good thing about webstore is you don't have to pay for the site. You would have to pay to maintain your own website, so webstore is a good solution. It just needs more stampers on there. I think in another five years its going to be even harder on ebay unless your a big premium store with everything set at high prices and goods at GTC. So medium sellers like me will need an alternative in the future, its different for hobbyists who don't rely on ebay for income. This is the saddest selling levels I have seen in recent years.

Duncan it looks to me that a lot of countries have just stopped buying stamps but there is a few that have not and one area is selected European countries.

What I am seeing coming out of the USA is very sad and can understand that many people are living in real fear but it just should not be there. The amount of ranting that I am in contact with from the US is not good at all.

Yours is a very unique situation as a .com ebay store because you do not live there something gets lost in the translation. We did real well with our .com ebay store but they stopped us and called aliens & inter-boarder traders which stopped any of our listing from being seen even when I did a direct search.This forced us to sell for the 1st time in OZ.

Sell to a really nice lady in OZ who client base is so large that she has experienced zero lack of sales. I just can not keep the stamps in her area up to her sale needs.

Hi KGV, yes the news out of USA is sad lately we see demonstrations there nearly weekly on our news. The new Pres could intro any kinds of policies I guess that scares a lot of folk. So they are holding onto pennies. But hopefully it gets back to normal business over there fairly soon as there are many fantastic buyers in USA. Please point the really nice lady in OZ you sell to at my ebay shop. I hope my listings are still being seen worldwide I do pay for that feature. Sometimes I wonder when no bids in a 48 hour time span.

As an example on how bad sales are for me on my ebay Au Store I have listed a number of the same BIN lots being 150 mixed Aus KGV stamps that include a 1s4d blue for $40 free mailing in OZ. The lot came from a buy of bundles and some watermarks noted on the bundle wrappers were impressive. Have not taken a single stamp out of it accept for damaged stuff. It has been up for sale close to a week. Got my 1st sale today. How sad is that.