The Future Of Stamp Selling On Ebay

Seriously? Did someone at ebay have an affair with your wife or something? You've been on a holy anti-eBay vendetta since time began.

I firmly believe that ebay has not been good for the hobby, quite the opposite. It has harmed a great many beginner and intermediate collectors with endless scamming and marketing of faulty and misdescribed stamps. It attracts bad actors like the light attracts the moths all the while instilling a sense of confidence in purchasing with the worthless feedback system. The collectors that were burned and left the hobby are only a part of the story. There are also the ones that believe that there collections are full of beautiful scarce stamps that in reality are not worth a fraction at best of what they think they are. On the other side of the coin though there is a lot of unusual stuff to be scooped up by the knowledgable as well as opportunities to take advantage of uneducated sellers. On balance it is not a pretty place. But there is one stop shopping for a Z grill and a 12 pack of Chinese tube socks.

I think you guys got your underwear on too tight . Relax

ebay has done wonders for the stamp community , all the negative stuff was happening well before ebay came around .High cost of advertising in stamp publications , bounced checks , people claiming not receiving their orders , Customers writting nasty note to the editors about my ads. Customers removing better stamps then sending it back for a refund . We had lots of problems before ebay showed up.

ebay has helped me and thousands of other collectors to clean out all their unwanted stamps and given us the confidence to spend that money for better stuff . The whole hobby has been advanced ,yes there will always be con-artist who work the system and screw people .

I agree that ebay is a great place to clean out unwanted "stuff". As far as it advancing the hobby I just don't see it. There are a lot of ebay fans. I get serious pushback everytime I speak of it in a negative light. It would be easier to drink the kool-aid and just agree that it has been a boon to the hobby yada yada yada. Nobody ever addresses specifics though such as all of the misidentified, faulty and fake material sold by anonymous sellers from around the World and the damage that they do. Why is the cartel allowed to keep going year after year after year. Why is NYStamps still in business with a 99.7 % feedback rating. Yes, the good old days had there problems but ebay brought the dark side of the hobby to a whole new level.

As far as my underwear being too tight, I am not wearing any!

then you are stretched too thin

this isn't going to happen by magic

Nothing happens by magic. Except perhaps some stamps on ebay that were used becoming mint.

I doubt any online auction place like ebay will ever be acceptable to some unless everything is posted by some board of experts. These shenanigans have always been with us and not just stamp collecting. The beauty of the Internet is we actually get more visibility to them and have more information to make decisions. Who is going to build the perfect ebay?

I see more positive than negative. And this "bad" can be educational.

Morning all,

The pros and cons of any market place revolve around the ethics or lack there of those using it not the market place unless it is run by a solo crock or cartel member. The profitability of using any particular market place comes down to your cost of merchandise, cost of operations, and needed profit [yep, dirty old word] margin. The demand for any item drives its salability.


No one market place perfectly meets all of these objectives all of the time.

If venues competing with ebay gain ground in the stamp marketplace, technical issues may be the catalyst:

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/bl...0#1532611115

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/bl...2393010.html

or a new spin on not displaying sold items https://goscf.com/t/62276

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/bl...2353801.html

Back to the main topic: How does ebay differ from any other philatelic venue? As one poster pointed out previously, ebay and other Internet platforms can be more transparent with seller malfeasance visible to anyone who cares to notice.

The poster who keeps insisting that ebay is worse than other venues is wrong. The stamp marketplace has always had its share of fakers and rip-off artists. Moving to on-line venues has made the process more efficient, possibly upsetting the balance between seller malfeasance and buyer ignorance and greed, at least for now. Careful buyers willing to put time into research are likely to win in the long run.

There is one particular ebay characteristic that is very problematic in my opinion. The anonymity and distance it affords the shysters. As Don frequently says, know with whom you are dealing with and develop a relationship.

When buying collections, it is sometimes possible to determine which dealers supplied the stamps. If certain mail order or store names were prominent, I would offer less anticipating the inevitable discovery of misdescribed, defective or altered stamps. Store dealers could develop relationships with customers and get to know what each would buy or not buy. After pointing out defects in some stamps offered at a store, the owner said that he would only show me "good stamps" in the future. Show or store dealers may be able to pick and choose what to show, making it possible to unload less desirable stamps on unsuspecting buyers. Sellers on ebay must use the same standard for all buyers, which may explain the perception of fraud. The truth is that most ebay sellers are honest and are trying to do the right thing, but many lack resources or time to spot bad stamps. Unfortunately, a few high-volume dealers, who know exactly what they are selling or choose not to know, have become prominent in the marketplace because they can undercut honest dealers and make up for it by selling damaged stamps as sound and altered stamps as real. Badmouthing ebay does not help promote honest dealing on the site.

The trend on this forum is that people who do not sell on ebay often have harsher opinions about it than those who do sell on ebay (and have obvious reasons to defend it).
Don

I will add my 2¢.

I have been on ebay as a buyer since 1999 and a seller since 2003 and here are my observations from just the last few years and I will keep it short.

ebay has a lot of bad sellers and bad buyers.

Feedback means nothing today and why, buyers can only get positive feedback and sellers can easily have negs removed.

High feedback sellers are also selling a lot of misdescribed junk and trying to justify it. If you leave negs, they get them removed.

Examples, selling lightly hinged stamps with hinge remnants and brown stains; selling like new collections in albums but they are stuck to the pages and can only be removed with soaking.

And it is not because they don't know, it is because they don't care. As a buyer, I will buy very little on ebay any more because of all the games and the problems to return stuff from Canada. The US shipping charges to Canada have been increased to ridiculous amounts as they don't want to ship to Canada. Maybe I should just pay it and then file a return as not described but that is also a pain. The last lable I got from ebay wa by UPS and I had to drive it from Canada to the US just to return it.

I can go on and n, but as I said, I have almost stopped buying on ebay.