Selling On The Internet , Has Changed

Spend yesterday afternoon over at a friends house who actively sells on ebay ,he sells stamp lots for me . His business is both stamps and coins .

We got talking about the changes in the market place since the big stamp show in New York . He brought up two important points about the market place ,first is the large increase of items for sale under the heading -STAMPS . The second thing he mentioned was the big decrease in viewership ,he says usually the numbers on his listing were higher in the past and the viewership has dropped .

We discussed N.Y.Stamps , Noble Sprit and C.K.Stamps all which have a strong following but his thinking was not even they are getting prices like the past and even a 10 or 20 percent reduction in prices realized is killing their bottom line.

They are killing themselves by offering so much junk that they depress their own price levels and in turn other sellers. Offering loads of defective and dodgy stamps does not the bottom line help in the long run.

Personally, I don't view the 3 sellers mentioned as a big problem. I.M.O., the biggest problem on ebay is sellers who list huge numbers of lots of one or several minimum value stamps at $1-$10 each and then add-on that much more shipping. It makes looking at some stamp topics such as "worldwide collections" an absolute waste of time, and it has driven off most of the legitimate/rational sellers.

What about down trend in stamp collecting in general?

Bookbinrdbob - IMO - One of the three that you mention has got to be losing customers due to the excessive shipping charges. I for one do not buy from them anymore. It doesn't cost $3.00 to package and mail a single stamp.

It certainly does if you want to be considered a "top seller" by ebay, because you have to provide a valid tracking number for virtually all of your shipments. This in turn means minimum postage of $3.50 at retail prices, though some discounts are possible if you are willing to use printed labels instead of stamps.

I've elected to stick with first class shipping for inexpensive material and skip out on a "top seller" rating. The rating isn't worth it for me, but the pressure on big sellers is considerable.

It's definitely a buyer's market out there and I love it. ebay has been great for me as a buyer. Pay with a credit card or Paypal and I feel much safer than forking over cash to someone with a table at a stamp show.

By "buyers market" I assume that you mean low prices. That is not necessarily a good thing for the hobby. There are also a lot of perceived bargains that are not a bargain once you look beneath the hood. Real deal quality items do not go cheap. There is a lot of subpar material now that depresses prices but it will not have any decent resale demand. It can be a vicous cycle.

If anything is bad for the hobby it is the focus on top condition stamps which prohibit the novice from buying. For myself. I like a good quality stamp, can be hinged or used. I have no intention of selling or trading. If I want the best investment possible, I'll look for art.

It depends on what you collect... it's not necessarily the case.

LeDandy - My point is that a great many of those ebay bargains are actually quite expensive once the condition issues, misidentifications, misstated catalog values (big one) and so on are taken into account. It is a false economy. Once you get into better stamps that are not rare such as US Scott 1 you will pay as much or more on ebay than you would from a reputable dealer or auction house. If you do buy one at "buyers market" prices you are getting a dud. There is no free lunch. Even the more common stamps on ebay are oftentimes on ebay because of issues that preclude their sale in a traditional retail setting. Stamps are not an investment but there is no reason to not buy in such a way so as to do the best you possibly can when you want to liquidate, trade up, sell and start a new area etc.. Why not be smart about it and not restrict oneself to the preponderance of ebay schlock. There are a tiny fraction of listings on ebay from good people like RevenueCollector but they are the exception.

GO RED SOX

I think it is indeed a "buyer's market" for much routine hole-filling material. I collect Liechtenstein. I can pretty readily fill in the sets that catalog $50 and up; the stuff is not rare, just high priced because it's popular. I can pay 60 or 70 % of catalog from a retailer dealer. Or I can buy equivalent material at 20-25% on ebay if I am a bit patient and wait or something to come around.

there are, of course, times when it is preferable to be able to look over stock directly, and it doesn't work for inexpensive material where the postage fees chew up any savings.

This said, I think the more important purpose ebay serves for me is simply the ability to find things. As a postal historian, the search ability allows me to turn up things that I'd probably never be able to find buried in a dealer stock, whether or not the pricing is better.

I've bought wonderful material from dealers like leadpsd, Mikam37 and cmjce on ebay. I don't appreciate my collection being called shlock. No wonder people are turned off from this hobby by people who insist on everything being rare and in the best possible condition.

Can't someone just appreciate nice material for the historical significance and intrinsic beauty.

Back to original post, it could be that many have purchased what they have and not seeing a lot of new material. For what I buy, I am seeing basically similar material. Some sellers will bundle lots but you first have the win them so I will avoid $2+ shipping costs for single items if not bidding on their other lots. I found hipstamp to be a better deal for low priced individual stamps.

LeDandy_54,
This community has a lot of folks who have worked with inexperienced collectors who have falsely believed that they have built a quality collection on ebay. While there are certainly some great sellers on ebay, there is also a large amount of mis-identified, altered, and fake stamps being offered. It is sad to have to tell people that the 'high value' collection is not high value and/or that they have gotten ripped off. Sometimes the inexperienced hobbyists get angry and insist that they have a high quality collection. Stamps and covers are very 'condition' dependent in the marketplace. (Much like old cars, the same model car might be valued at $500 or $15,000 and the value delta is totally dependent upon condition.) After many years of delivering bad news to folks, we try our best to educate those who are seeking to build a quality collection.


And please lkeep in mind that many people never find out if what they have purchased is correct or not. They just mount the stamps and then walk around for years telling their family they have a high value collection. The easiest thing to do is post the 3 highest value stamps that have been purchased and let the community offer opinion of the material. If folks have worked with quality sellers and made informed buying decisions, this will be obvious.

For myself I enjoy both ends of the spectrum; I have both quality albums and 'fun' albums. Buying for my 'fun' albums is much easier since I follow a simple formula. I simply calculate how many hours of enjoyment I might get out the lot being offered and then do the math. For example, it the listing is $100 and I think that I will spend 10 hours assimilating it into my albums, my cost is will be $10 per hour. For my budget and time the $10 per hour is great, I do not care much if there is some lower quality material. But when I buy for my good quality albums properly identified and good condition matters a lot to me.

But we welcome collectors whatever their collecting interests and experience level might be.


Don

ebay can be a wonderful place for getting great deals, but I would be a great deal more circumspect about buying any high cat. single items, due to quality issues. A simple scan of the back will not necessarily reveal all defects, but lots of sellers dont even offer this.

I'm a world collector, and like to buy large world lots -- typically albums or boxes of kiloware -- and ebay can be great for these. But there's also a ton of dross and overpriced stuff out there to wade through. I add less than 1% of what I scroll through to my watch list, and buy only a fraction of that. But thats still more stamps than I can keep up with.