HipStamp Service And Prices

Can I get some opinions on Hipstamp service and prices? Also are there any other good online stamp stores? Thanks Jim

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

Yes, the APS's "Stamp Store".

My recent experience with hipstamp was good. I just tried it this past week. My belief is that dealers overprice wares irrespective of the site they are hawking on, whether it's ebay or hipstamp, or any other marketplace versus direct. They need to factor in _their_ costs. Whether those prices are good, is all comparable. Definitely higher than auction prices you will find on SAN, but that is a competitive landscape.

As far as services, I don't really know beyond searchability is pretty good.

On ebay you can take advantage of giftcards, bucks, rebates from other sites, and other discounting. On hipstamp, you can wait for the sales, where apparently hipstamp incentivizes sales by paying sellers, and passing that on to consumers as a marketing tool.

Per rismoney, in an overall sense, Hipstamp is as good as any. I suppose it depends on yourself to choose which seller to deal with, just like with any other group of stores. When you say service, I assume you mean customer service, and that is always going to depend on individual sellers. They have been really good in my experience on Hipstamp. Prices run the full range of overpriced to cheap so that depends on the seller, just like ebay.

There is far less damaged outright garbage offered on Hipstamp and so there's a higher level of seller knowledge/sensibility. Hipstamp sellers tend not to show stamp backs, but you could always ask for a scan. What I'm surprised to find there are so many 25c/cheap stamps sold individually, something I don't see in ebay stores.

hipstamps or ebay services and prices are entirely up to the particular sellers you choose on those sites.

I briefly had a store on HipStamp, and for buy-it-now stamps on ebay, HS can automatically post it on their site for their sellers. So a lot of items will be on both. HS does allow the seller to have the price adjusted automatically when it is posted. Since HipStamps charges less for selling, often you will see the same stamp a bit cheaper on HS.

In the same vein you may do better with offers on HS because of the lower overhead.

When a seller is on both ebay and HS offering the same item, at the same price, I choose to transact on HS. Why? One, ebay does not care about our hobby evidenced by their lack of a "duty of care" (check out Anthony's LLC on this site) as ebay hides behind the excuse we are "just a platform" (Facebook vs. Congress = $1 billion in new caring, I hope ebay feels this wind in their face!). Two, HS is a superior platform for the stamp collector. Purchase history is easy to see by Invoice by Seller and you can check off what is received and what remains open which can be very helpful for an active collector. Also, feedback can be left "in mass" for a seller (i.e., one comment can be posted to all items on the invoice with one click) which is way more efficient vs ebay. Third, HS does not play games with shipping charges, as shipping fees are AUTOMATICALLY combined on their site. No asking for invoices after commitment to buy multiple items or winning multiple auctions with Mark on Thursday or Sunday nite ;-).

On the negative side, HS has stated to me they see no value in investing in a phone app for their site, which is hurting them from attracting potential buyers that don't own a PC anymore or have a large screen iPad. In this way, they are never going to be seen as a true leader in the hobby, just one more venue to consider for buyer and sellers.

Support the little guys and go HS when you can is my vote.

That's unfortunate.
In today's mobile world, that's almost a requirement.

Do I understand correctly that shipping charges are are included in the final price of the stamp?

It would seem that there is much to be said for an auction site that is devoted solely to philately since that is their bread and butter. ebay is not invested in policing the stamp categories with any vigor since it is a negligible part of their revenue.

It makes very little sense to have a business plan which is built around processing millions of low cost transactions over the life of the company.

But as I have stated before in another thread...it is very common for an online company to have a business plan which has as its first priority to build high volumes of traffic. This is often done as a loss-leader, understanding that they are giving away/losing money the service initially. Then after traffic and market-share rise, they will then begin to glean profit. This has been done thousands of times.

What would happen if we could magically wave a wand and move all stamp listings to another venue; would it be a panacea? Not likely, the new venue would simply change its terms and conditions so it is more profitable.

Sometimes it feels like some folks want a non-profit company that will invest millions in building a world-wide selling venue supporting our hobby's desire to list stamps that sell for under a dollar. Why not throw in a trade section where hobbyists can freely trade with each other at no cost? Who here is willing to invest their time or money in this kind of venture?
Don

Do we know whether or not Hipstamp is profitable?

Don, as a systems architect and technologist, I would say that the platform modeling is not correct in these etailing models. I see it over and over again. If the goal is to just be another venue for small collections of sellers to hawk wares, then they have achieved that.

There are more than a few ways these sites can break out and really be something special.

Information: understand the value of it, related to the merchandise. How much info in a stamp can you provide? Past sales (currently a premium), historic info, cert data, message forums per stamp...

That leads me to community. These sites do nothing to build community, like this site does. If stamps (not the sellers) had reviews like Amzn, imagine the long lived threads. It doesn't undermine sales, it shifts them, sometimes in ways that force current sellers to reinvent... Like the fellows mentioned on many threads ..

Resources - ties into clubs, exhibits, etc.

Advertising: it's not just stamps. There is an ecosystem waiting to be born.

I want a mount for a unique stamp. Why is it so darn hard to get the one I need? I would totally overpay for a 1 off mount need per purchase. It shouldn't take 30 minutes to reconcile.

Mandatory front and back images. Everyone should be educated the 2 dimension minimum standard. How is this not a thing yet?

Regex searching including filtering out sellers. Sites have to realize, when you go to a mall, you don't always want to go into Circuit City and Best Buy, even if that means one will die. It means CC has to adapt.

Attracting big money. Provide and integrate real use services. Auto expertization processes, expediting expertization for even more money. Provide professional services and curating services...

If you are going to put a middle man in the transaction there has to be value add for the buyer. I see minimal sustainable here...

I just think innovation is orthogonal to the sites as they're currently portrayed.

Agreed, there are plenty of other ways to generate income like selling user's data. My post was a not-so-veiled attempt to get folks to not be upset if some of these other stamp selling venues pull a 'Photobucket'.
Don

I would disagree with that one. Google and Facebook effectively control all online advertising, with no change in that control likely in any foreseeable timeframe. Non-stamp brands will not route dollars to a niche site like HS because the conversion rate will be actually zero, or effectively zero. Anyone who thinks they can generate revenue from advertising to cover the costs Don identified has had no recent exposure to the ad tech ecosystem.

"Mandatory front and back images. Everyone should be educated the 2 dimension minimum standard. How is this not a thing yet? "

It takes time to do both sides, so if you force that it will cause sellers to either stop listing things under a certain value or to charge more. Besides do you really need to see the back of some modern stamp before you buy it if the seller says NH?