Bills Bargain And Stukatz

I've purchased a small number of stamps from both of them. They obviously have massive numbers of listings and very high sales (try advanced search to see sales in the last 15 days). Bill has accepted offers from me several times. I haven't attempted a purchase from Katz recently. I've met both in person at stamp shows. Bill much more recently. I have no reason not to do business with them. I do think they have challenges managing the huge inventory. Mistakes are made in descriptions - and it's hard to get that addressed. But, I believe they try to do a fair business.

Stu Katz is a good seller in my view but will only discount 5% or so from ask. He runs auctions from time to time with lowered starting prices but he never gives anything away. I'm sure he uses Bill's posting to make his offering look reasonably price but that is just marketing and price point strategy on his part and likely not nefarious.

I have purchased from Bill in the past and I'm not a big fan based on mix results. He sometimes runs low start auctions on HipStamp that start at 50% of normal ridiculousness. These items offered here are more reasonable and bidding is limited so that is his "sales" channel in my view. What put me off on this source for US classic stamps is when I submitted my best offer via Hip Stamp Management (they said they would help secure the deal as part of a month-end promotion), my offer was 72% of ask and I got nothing back. Next weekend I offered 86% of ask on my own and not a peep. Finally, one week later I executed my "buy it now" as I wanted the item and thought it was fairly scarce. Two days later I get the e-mail saying there is an unexpected delay in shipping. Okay, 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4th week I call and ask Bill what's up this waiting crap sucks. He stated the item is consigned and he having a hard time getting it back and he did not understand why. I got the feeling this was not remotely on his active radar. I also ask what happen to my reasonable 86% offer, why did he not respond. He first said he does not respond to low ball offers. I said this was over 80% of ask. He then claimed no record of receiving it? That was not a good attitude or answer in my view. He offers a slightly more valuable but less desirable (for my goals) substitute which I took so I could pull this band-aid off finally! (it was painful) I also vowed at that time to never again a buy-it-now with this operation again.

Now my question for the save search experts in this community. Getting Bills 80000 items out of my saved searches will save a lot of "false" hits I get when Bill automatically release his rare items. I have only used the ebay app for saved searches as it is very easy. But when I go to filters on the app there are no items I can see that allows on to exclude sellers? Is this feature only on the classic website or I'm I blind? That is my question and thanks for reading thru this post.

it looks like the advanced feature is only on classic. when I try to type `-billsbargainstamps' or as a negative search term, it doesn't actually work on mobile.
seller:billsbargainstamps works.

Would love a solution for this as well.

I believe you can use the saved searches on mobile. I do it by, browsing to category... Click on View All Results... Then in that search window you can use a saved search. If you aren't in that "View All Results" scope, search takes on another meaning...

So here is something I noticed... A listing where the source address for Langs is from the same random NH town of Katz. I doubt this is a consignment arrangement between them. I don't believe in coincidences.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1529-MNH-T...200893407457

Cover blown?

Stuart Katz is or was an employee of Bill Langs. Nothing new. There are many ebay sellers that have multiple selling IDs.

Katz has done some of the ebay sales shipping for Langs for well over a decade. That is the only commercial tie-in between them that I know of. I did not know that Katz had ever been an employee of Langs. Is that true? If so, when was that - I don't think it was in the recent past.

It was years ago. The relationship may well have changed since then.

Got it - I did not know that about their past. I think their only commercial connection today is the joint ebay sales shipping arrangement but there may be others.

What does this statement even mean? Who owns the stamps? If it's Bill, how can they ship from a different location than where the stamp is? Stamps are 1:1 and don't scale like other quantity supply chain items. If it's in Stu's NH location why? Either they're competitive or cooperative. My belief is the latter and it's a ruse of market manipulating prices.

I am not against them, and have bought from them, I just think they've created a sense of diversified markets that is superficial. Given the bulk of listings on hipstamp and ebay they represent, it gives the idea that there is way more material from multiple suppliers than there really is. This is not healthy markets, and represents a large skew when you exclude them.

Then when you read threads that SCV is partially sourced from aggregated dealer info, I further question all the dealers and their bogus shells representing unique companies.

Bill has another really convoluted relationship with someone else where Bill does hge listing and he other person does the shipping.

As for Stu, he also has his own stock beyond whatever he is doing with Bill.

As to the question "What does this statement even mean?", it means exactly what it says:they have an agreement whereby Katz ships ebay sales for Langs. As to the questions "Who owns the stamps? If it's Bill, how can they ship from a different location than where the stamp is?", nothing physically precludes Bill from having Katz warehouse for him and ship for him. Probably a standard shipping/warehousing agreement (e.g. the Amazon model) but I do not know any particulars about their arrangement.

Lots of tangled webs woven. A friend purchased a stamp from ocstamps with item location specified as California. It arrived with a Danbury Connecticut return address that links back to Kelleher or Rogers or Kelleher and Rogers or.......