Delcampe Vs Ebay, Am I Missing Something?

From a buyer's viewpoint, ebay is simple, but buying on Delcampe becomes more complicated. When I buy on Delcampe, I never know what the seller will charge me for shipping until after the sale. Then, I request an invoice and after a day or two, it may show up. After the invoice arrives, it's a simple task to make payment, usually through PayPal, though I have used other payment methods. Finally, as previously pointed out, ebay has the material I want. Delcampe does have one area of my collecting interests where the material is usually found in Europe and typically shows up on Delcampe and nnot on ebay.

Feedback from a Canadian seller on Delcampe & Hipstamp may be of interest. Hipstamp is clear majority of sales (with mostly US buyers), but items in some areas - e.g. Italy, Spain, some colonies, European postcards - sell much better on Delcampe. Invoicing is a little bit more cumbersome, since you need to issue it after the sale, whereas Hipstamp does it automatically. Haven't had anyone complain about shipping costs from Canada to Europe, although I would imagine it's prevented some European sales. Sales on Delcampe are not just to Europe, a considerable number have been to folks in many countries in Asia, Latin America, etc. Delcampe's categorization is superior, and so long as you put the year of issue customers seem to have had little problem finding my items. I will sometimes list another catalogues #s in addition to Scott, but not always. Buyers (on both platforms) expect shipping to take longer than North Americans do, and are on the whole extremely polite and good at giving feedback.

Many sellers will have their S&H costs listed under the 'Sales Conditions' button near the bottom of the listing. Admittedly, some of these can be pretty confusing...

I've picked up some howling bargains on Delcampe over the years, but they don't have the reach of ebay.

That said, ebay, for me anyway, is as good as dead. The site is broken, countless script issues, same junk relisted every few days.

My purchasing from both of these venues has dropped off dramatically in the last 2 to 3 years, compared to ten years ago.

I guess it depends on what one collects. I just found something the other day for about 1/50th of what it is worth.

I do fully agree with Bobby De La Rue, although Delcampe was ( and still is ) stronger in European material

Peter

I buy fairly regularly on ebay and Hipstamp. I tried Delcampe out, but almost my first purchase was paid for and after a couple of messages the seller went silent, and the stamps never appeared. I wrote to the seller and got no response, then to Delcampe. I was advised to contact the seller

I have not repeated the experiment!

I think it depends very much on what you're after. Remember also that Delcampe started life as a postcard mart, I think, and its in Belgium.

Its some years since I used Delcampe, but I used to sell a lot of covers on there. Much better sell rates than ebay, especially for European covers.

I have since changed my selling focus, so for the past few years have been selling exclusively on ebay, but I think I might go back to Delcampe at some time.

because of the smaller volumes, Delcampe is in general a bad place to auction items -- if you start at 99 cents, thats what you may well get, no matter how good the item. Just not enough views.

But if you have material with a more European focus, better suited to fixed price format, then Delcampe can be a great place. Just don't expect it to be the same as ebay!

Despite the frustration, I have to remind myself of this as I see the "Rare" and overpriced items listed on ebay, day after day. My stamp budget is limited, but the inexperienced have afforded me the opportunity to add some remarkable items to my collection over the last 20 years. A needle in the haystack is worth the wait.

Thank You

I have to agree that Delcampe just doesn't seem to have the same number of views that either ebay or Hipstamp have. I tried for a few months but could not make a single sale.

Buying can also be trying, especially when it comes to S&H charges. Even though a Seller lists what the anticipated charges would be under the separate tab, they seem to be able to adjust those to whatever they want when the invoice is issued. I am currently experiencing this for an item that had a listed maximum S&H Euro 9.40 and then get an invoice for a ridiculous Euro 39.40 S&H. Delcampe's response is to check out Q&A and contact the Seller. The Seller's response is that you can no longer send letter mail out of Germany to non-EU countries, only registered parcels, which is totally false since I have just received similar items from German ebay at an acceptable Euro 10 S&H. So my days on Delcampe may be numbered.

I've found Delcampe useful for getting particular variant types of French stamps which were either not available on ebay or Hipstamp or were not reliably identified on same upon inquiry. These are for modern perforation and die type varieties that are not what I would consider esoteric at all, but which are not on Hip or ebay reliably.

So I have stomached the higher shipping and handling costs for Delcampe transactions in order to get certain items not found on ebay (or Hipstamp). In those circumstances I usually then add a batch of regular material to the order since the shipping is already a sunk cost. I had some shipments significantly delayed in the February - July timeframe, but just last week got a shipment within 7 business days. I have tried to know what the s&h will be in advance and this far avoided gouging. But the s&h is more, no doubt.

So I try to go to ebay and Hip first cause s&h will be lower, or close to negligible, on average (assuming a US buyer location and an average seller). But I often go to Delcampe for particular items.

If one is building a thematic or topical exhibit, Delcampe seems to have more options for different elements such as pictorial postmarks and as such, is a handy resource.