Getting Ticked Off About Claims Of Not Received On E-Bay Sales .

I think many hobbies would be laughed out of the big business meeting!

I hope to some degree Don is wrong. He is right about the future challenges for HipStamp, but I do hope they continue to grow to the degree they can given the market and technological limitations Don has described. The more sellers and the more material, the better.

Wait until Managed Payments become mandatory and you have to pay 25¢ per item for each item sold.

If you sell 10 $1 items, it will cost $2.50 in fees, even with a combined order or invoice, plus their percentage.

This will be one way they will get rid of sellers selling cheap items. It will be totally not worthwhile as a seller to continue to list those items individually.

ebay is trying to become another Amazon and price cheap item sellers out of the market place and they will continue to do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Many seller need to start reviewing their complete selling strategy before having it hit them on the head.

What!?! I have never been wrong, but I am humble enough to admit to having the capacity to err!
Don

(LOL, just kidding of course)

In terms of selling strategies, I think most sellers eventually realize there is a serious time=money trade-off. Most sellers would like to move up the food-chain, but its a question of gaining expertise. It makes sense to develop a proven selling strategy for $5 items before trying to shift $50 items -- as the capital outlay to acquire your stock will be many multiples of the unit cost.

"Most sellers would like to move up the food-chain, but its a question of gaining expertise"

and of obtaining the merch at a reasonable price.

'Expertise' is knowing what is a reasonable price. At most auctions I get outbid by dealers who I presume were better informed about the lot, or have a better client base.

it isn't just knowledge that is required, the material has to be found and be available at a reasonable price and if everybody starts trying to buy items that they can sell for $50 instead of some at $5, this will increase the cost of obtaining the higher level material

Once you get stamps over $5.00 a piece ,you lose half of the buyers,then your $50.00 stamps now your talking about 10% of all buyers or even less .

As a long time stamp auction buyer at Rasdale's in Chicago ,we buyers got to know each other and it was a world of maybe 50 buyers year after year . Then in the late 1990's I started going out to Greg Manning's in New Jersey and after a few trips again you meet the same 100 buyers over and over again . The world isn't filled with tens of thousands of buyers ,the way I seen it there are maybe a few thousand buyers of the better stuff {better meaning the $50.00 stuff }.

I think most stamp sellers on ebay realize the market place is made up newer collectors and bottom feeders that is where you have to sell to move a lot of sales ,sure there is better stuff on ebay and sellers can make a profit but the sales are a lot fewer than 10 years ago .

That is why I purchased two monster lots of cheaper stuff so we had something to sell and sell fast . I just can't believe how many issues these new stamp buyers and bottom feeders can create . My favorite so far was the guy last year who had to let us know the stamps were common and had no place in his 60 year expert collection . I wanted let him know what the hell was he buying 100 different stamps for $3.00 and expect to find stuff for his advance collection ,heck really wanted to slap him for stupidity.

Floortrader--

When I talk to dealers at auctions they mostly refuse to do ebay. Most of them tried it but had so many problems with customers that they gave up. I have persevered, but I can really understand where they're coming from -- its a constant headache, and the feedback system ensures that problem buyers remain a real problem. You even have to be careful about blocking them -- if you block them too quick, and they find out, then any transaction they haven't processed yet, they will give -ve feedback, for sure.

It is all what is put into it. I look at Rupp Brothers for instance for higher end US material. They are a respected dealer of quality items with great service. They treat customers well and with respect, their descriptions are factual and hyperbole free, communication is excellent and shipping is very professional. As a result they move a lot of items that cost one hundred dollars and up every month and sell at a high percentage of catalog value. I believe that a key to Rupp protecting themselves from unscrupulous buyers besides tracking shipping is a good ninety percent of their items have certificates which helps negate a good many phony complaints.

They will never be a big volume seller like NYStamps because they sell quality material and bargain hunters pass them by but the material they sell can be liquidated by a buyer easily at a real auction house because it is the real deal. How many people that have built their collections "scoring deals" on ebay actually have what they think that they have? Not many

There are other similar stories for other mainstream dealers but Rupp is the best from my perspective.

ebay is very buyer oriented...it seems there are no consequences for the repeat buyer offender, whereas the seller....
no win situation...if you add $4 for tracking you lose customers

Agree with you TUCKBEN , the repeat buyer offender is destroying the low end market place for the new collectors and ebay doesn't want to figure out a way to stop it .Those problem buyers don't just do it once or twice .

July 1st made this original posting of another loss order that was shipped to a ebay CUSTOMER .


That was a month ago -----Tonight got another call from my partner , another lost order . Let me guess -----without looking.

The UNITED POST OFFICE only loses mail to new and low feedback customers on ebay and they are male {half of our sales are to females but the Post Office never loses their mail }.......how can they only loses NEW and LOW FEEDBACK buyers mail .

Great ----went two months without a lost piece of mail {about 70 orders a month with 10 insured or tracked}. Today another low feedback customer didn't get his $8.00 order .

I can't believe the Post Office can only lose mail to low feedback buyers {under 50 } HOW IS THAT DONE ?????