Dealers? We Don't Need No Stinkin Dealers!

totally agree - the balance subtlety here is what makes a winning site. anytime information gets in the way of sales, you need to cut it. anytime information helps a sale, you need to put it in. Read a Siegel catalog or their auction listing descriptions. They can be tantalizing, to the point where I might lose my mind and buy something I couldn't afford. That's selling. Every sale of the c3a has the William T. Robey story, scotch tape, and vacuum story. Not everything has a fairy tale story like this, but there is probably a little vignette about most stamps beyond the description. I even enjoyed the balloon stamp getting eaten by a squirrel. Didn't lead to a stamp buy, but its an extra minute I spent on that site, versus another. Makes me want to read more descriptions looking for philately "easter eggs", which might lead to sale without much heavy lifting.

Think how much information is in Amazon listings, the reviews, question section, associated links. It's a ton. For Amazon that's not on them. It's mostly sellers - but the heavy framework is in place.

I will say one more thing - if you are using Excel to manage your data - you are doing it wrong. The backend infrastructure should potentially include sort of rdbms or similar system.
I would think you would also have a front end that can handle bulk ingestion and manage your stamp fleet across multiple platform APIs (ebay, hipstamp, delcampe, Amazon, etc). In my area, 2/3 of all EFO listings on ebay (roughly 12000/18000) are listed by 2 sellers. You think they are working spreadsheets? To work smarter, not harder and focus on stamps and not tech, you need good tech people addressing the tech things. It's not an accident most mom and pop shops can't adapt. Then comes blame. Then comes folding. Successful businesses of tomorrow will not look like the ones on the neighborhood street or at the mall.

To be honest, I am actually surprised someone wanted to get into the dealer market in the conventional sense. My idea of disruption, is to take on Siegel, ebay, and hipstamp in building a mega stamp exchange backed by dealers and auction houses holding seats and being rewarded on extremely low percentages of very large transactional volume.

An online store should be in SQL and in conjunction with changing the web pages to server-side (ie. PHP) will resolve the issue with people 'stealing' the content (or at least make it so time consuming that it makes it unfeasible).
Don

In my opinion, jumping through hoops to protect content is ultimately a waste of time. If it can be seen on a computer screen, it can be gotten... even using such primitive methods as screen captures or recordings. If it can be seen it can be repurposed.

Early on, back in the 1990s and early 2000s I tried such anti-theft efforts... disabling right-clicks, hiding text in images, using Javascript, etc. and what I found was that all I was doing was creating work for myself, pissing off legitimate site users, and interfering with accessibility.

It screams the message "amateur!"

Don, not to get bogged down in tech talk - but the "cool techies" are doing cool things with AWS Lambda, Stripe and React (as an example) and replacing conventional tech with serverless particular on web apps. https://martinfowler.com/articles/serverless.html. The idea being if you shift from even conventional sql, or cloud rds, into further levels of abstraction, particular in the early business cycles, you can minimize costs by only paying for what you use, and then scale exactly based on usage/consumption. Also your management footprint goes way down, since you do not have to care about infrastructure (a fleet of servers). A lot of efficiency can be had in this model when a business is bootstrapping.

The point here again is, tech is not something for the layman entrepreneur. It's deep, and the business needs to have very good tech direction. It should be the foundation for any successful business that wants to do any sort of online presence or b2b.

Ok, Rismoney, your comments make absolutely no sense to me. What is wrong with a CSV to upload to a website? Can you make a better, intelligible suggestion that I can actually implement? What is rdbms? Most selling platforms make you fill out one screen at a time. That's what E-bay does. Hell, you can't even do a bulk upload there.

To be honest, I want to take your collective advice, but I'm not sure that I can, as it has been given. What I am getting so far is just a lot of criticism and really no practical advice. I hate this type of criticism, because I can't do anything with it. I was very clear about why I chose to become a dealer. I'm not interested in taking on E-bay or Siegel. It just isn't what I want to do. Not only that, but collectors don't need it. Siegel does a good job already. E-bay does a good job for those collectors who prefer to shop there. I want to service the people who are currently neglected and want information and promote the hobby to people who are new to it or who don't currently collect, ie. create the blue ocean. Those people like my site and spend a lot of time there. Sure, lots of people bounce too. But as someone here said, I can't be all things to all people.

So, if you really want to help me please go back and re-read what I wrote about what I am trying to do as a dealer, and actually internalize it. If you are going to tell me that I'm just like every other dealer then please give me a list of other stamp retail websites that are better than mine. Not auction houses that sell rarities, but other businesses that are doing what I am trying to do. If you can't then fine. If you can't picture my business succeeding because it's not the kind of business you would support that's fine too. But please be objective and recognize that not everybody wants or likes what you want or like.

I say again, I want to listen and I value input, even though this wasn't the topic of this thread. But when it becomes apparent to me that the people giving me advice haven't been listening to what I've been saying, then it becomes difficult for me to believe that it is being offered to help me, and not simply because you like giving advice, whether or not relevant.

I would remind you all too, that the original discussion of this thread was about stamp dealers and their role in the hobby and how they can better serve collectors. So far, the only useful comments have come from other dealers. Saying that we have to add value is not a useful comment because it then begs the next question "how?" "what do you consider a value add?". One of you did offer some comments about price indices etc, but not much more.

If you think I'm being ungracious, well, I'm sorry. Put yourself in my shoes and think about how you'd feel after reading all this.

This is an interesting thread--can't believe I read the whole thing. I wish the original poster good luck with his efforts. But, a lot of angst is also present in the thread. Next month (April) marks my 59th anniversary as a stamp collector; started at age 10 1/2 by my late father after we got home from church on Palm Sunday, 1960. Since then, I've bought and sold collections and individual items. I've dealt with dealers and auction houses--I would do business again with almost all of them, assuming they're still in business. I'm a 45 year member of APS and belong to several other specialist societies & libraries. I've never been to a stamp club meeting. I won't say that I have a solid philatelic philosophy as said philosophy will continue to evolve until the day I pass on to the next plane of existence.

But, I have developed a few points that work for me and can elaborate. What's good for me isn't necessarily good for somebody else. That's OK; see Point #1. Maybe this helps the O/P, showing a perspective from the collector viewpoint.

1) collect what you want and how you want. There is no right way to collect, or wrong way, as long as you take good care of your material. After all, you're just a temporary custodian of your collections.

2) only three things matter when you're buying stamps: 1) price and condition 2) price and condition 3) price and condition.

3) do adequate estate planning for your collections. But, once done, don't obsess as you won't be around to worry about it.

4) don't use ebay; too many hassles and not enough fun. Instead, consider the APS Stamp Store. FUN is a big thing for me. I would not do this hobby if it was not enjoyable.

5) work hard to develop some good dealer relationships for your philatelic desires. I don't think anyone mentioned, unless I missed it, use of dealers affiliated with a specialist society. Example: I patronize two dealers who advertise in Portu-Info, the quarterly journal of the International Society for Portuguese Philately. One is in the US, the other in Lisbon. I've also found another US based dealer for this material. All three have good stuff and are reasonably priced.

Don't take this as an insult. You need an IT person. Maybe stick to the stamps or accounting and hire someone.

RDBMS - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relat...ement_system - the fundamental component of any n-tier computer infrastructure.
I am not speaking a foreign language, but rather one that is extremely common in tech circles. It's not any different than MNH in stamps. You can't be doing IT, the same way you can't be buy stamps without knowing basics.




wrong. Everything should be api driven. You should not be spreadsheeting anything. You should never have to open a browser to ebay.

https://developer.ebay.com/products/ebay-apis
https://support.hipecommerce.com/po...s/api-basics
https://www.delcampe.net/en_GB/api




service those neglected is charity.
promoting the hobby is a marketing endeavor.
you missed the mark of any good businessman.

what you really want is to sell a lot of nigerian and candian stamps. otherwise you don't have a business.

edit - I think a lot of people have given you great advice. The thread was an open invitation to comment on dealers. I avoided my negativity and instead tried to be as transparent, honest and helpful. I have no interest in your field of stamps. I see what you are trying to accomplish. The vision you have of a good dealer, is good and idealistic, but to compete in a marketplace implies understanding how all your competition is functioning. Otherwise you just have blinders on. That is probably the best advice I could give. Know how all the businesses around you work and function. Take their good, and dispose their bad.


I wasn't able to find your most expensive wares, without picking a category FIRST. One of my absolute favorite things to do on stamp web sites is sort high to low, and look at the dreams. It's why I go to Siegel's site. So I picked the most expensive flower stamp you got in Canada since I found the browsing a little annoying to be honest and clicked the first thing. I don't know anything about anything. It's pretty. Your stamp is XF-85 used as detailed $359. ebay's most expensive SG2 UNUSED is $334 - margins suck. Now explain to me what the value add is, from buying from you, and how you make me a customer with all the blog information and details. Seems like I can read your blog for free and go buy the stamp I want in better condition cheaper elsewhere. You may be a nice guy, but my sample size of 1 shows me you charge more than the 9 other listings (yes your sample is nicer than nearly all). Canada has under 40 million people. So I think most collectors of Canada material are outside Canada. If they are buying used stamps to work on WW collections, I question how discriminating they are, that they will come to a private dealers website to buy this stamp at a higher price than everywhere else to get a used copy XF-85. If it was an 100, I can see the differentiation. But grading used mid tier stamps that are not hard to find seems like a reach. Especially when you start at unitrade (guessing thats a CAN catalog) and substract for thin. Sounds like there's no discount here.

My negativity towards dealers from auto, drugs, to stamps remains. :)

I wish you the best in your endeavors.

"what you really want is to sell a lot of nigerian and candian stamps. otherwise you don't have a business."

And all Mr Chewy wants to sell is pet stuff......

What on earth is wrong with having a focus.

My advice ---Skip all the educational stuff and research material . Start with mixture lots and small collections material . Build up your feedback and a few thousand customer names. Then slowly sell indivual items and over time sell higher price material .

You need to build a base and get a idea of what sells and how it sells .....what works for you is not always something that works for me .

Start with smaller transactions and build your client base .

I do not believe that we are talking ebay here.

.......and .....Where do these customers come from ......if not ebay with a positive transaction with you already .

I think I'm going to step away for a while, if not permanently. I clearly don't know anything or have anything valuable to contribute to this community. But I'm sure Rismoney will get up off his tush one day and create that mega-marketplace that he is so fond of, seeing as he knows everything there is to know about building and running businesses. I'm not even going to address what he said about my Nova Scotia #2, because he knows squat about how scarce those stamps are in XF condition.

For your information, this was not an open invitation to criticize my business, it really wasn't. I started this thread because I wanted to offer my perspective as a dealer on why I believe we have an important role to play in the hobby, and open THAT topic up for discussion. Only one of you, Classicphilatelist actually addressed my topic. The rest of you are mostly walking opinions looking for a place to express yourselves, whether or not it has been asked for or has any relevance to the topic at hand. You are more interested in expressing yourselves than you are in reading, listening, processing and having an actual discussion. At numerous points for the past three days I have tried to engage you all in discussion by responding politely (at first) to the points that YOU raised. But like the immature people that you are, you refused to have any discussion and would just ignore my attempts to engage you and start spouting off something else.

The presumptuousness and condescension on here WILL absolutely drive people away from this hobby, and for that reason alone, I'm not sure I want to be part of this community now. This represents the ugly side to the hobby that I spent most of my life trying to avoid, and I really don't need to expose myself to it now. It is unbelieveble that Rismoney thinks his overall tone was helpful. He managed to reign in his usual jerkiness for a split second and thinks he deserves a medal for that.

I apologize to those of you who these comments are not directed at. I'm sure you know who you are, but you must clearly see that the validity of what I am saying - that this is not a friendly discussion group.

My basic feeling now is "enough already". I'm done.

I apologize. I just don't know your intentions in starting a topic with a title like this. I tend to think this is somewhat of a stunt. Where you get a whole bunch of people to come to your site to check things out.

I expect the same thing to happen on product reviews or restaurants on GrubHub or TripAdvisor. Pick any topic where human subjectivity enters and you are going to get a wide assortment of takes. Good, bad or in between.

I am not knocking your NS #2 or stating it isn't scarce. I'm just stating it didn't look like I would be getting a deal. Which is my whole premise on why outside of specific situations, a dealer is typically the most expensive route to take on the buy side. It's why I run far away from dealers until they have or may have something I need.

When they have the material you want it's unavoidable, and such is life.

I don't know you. You seem like a good hardworking person. I have nothing against you.

rismoney: "a dealer is typically the most expensive route to take on the buy side. it's why I run away from dealers until they have or may have something I need......."

I suppose it depends on what one is collecting and how one defines "getting a deal." Not everyone collects classic US or US 1st Day covers. I'm at the point that I no longer will buy bulk lots, or even country lots, due to getting so many duplicates. I'm not interested in "going into the stamp business." Did that in the pre ebay past and broke even.

That leaves only dealers from whom to buy, or the APS Stamp Store. Some specialty societies, like Mexico Elmhurst (MEPSI), have circuits for members. I've bought from MEPSI circuits. Given what I've seen offered by ebay dealers in my specialty areas, and the continual complaints about dealing with ebay dealers, ebay for me is not a viable option. As I noted above, one needs to research non-eBay dealers and carefully vett them to find the good ones. I've done that.

Again, I wish Brixtonchrome good luck. Regretfully, I'm not actively collecting Nigeria and already have a near complete; missing about 8 early rarities; collection of Canada through 1973. So, I won't be giving you business.

Yes being a dealer can be a thankless task.