HipStamp APS Interview

Watched a recent APS "Conversations with Philatelists" interview with Mark Rosenberg, CEO of Hip eCommerce. A good interview (not too long) about Hipstamp and what they see as their strengths & future plans.

One stat I found interesting - for 2020, estimated ebay stamp sales of $350M, Hipstamp $25M. Their 5-year plan is apparently to match ebay's numbers, which is ambitious to say the least.

Apparently there was an earlier interview with the Delcampe CEO too, haven't watched that one as yet. All Stamp Talks are easily accessible on the APS site, lots of good stuff there.

~Greg

Edit: Corrected name.

Surprising. $350 million is one percent of gross sales. That is a lot of transactions given the low average sale amount vs something like automobiles. Imagine that all of that cash used to flow through brick and mortar dealers. Siegel had about $30 million in sales last year or ten percent of ebay sales. Philately actually looks far from dead by sales numbers alone.

The videos series is called "Conversations with Philatelists" so not the same as APS "Stamp Talks". The discussion was interesting.

Thanks @angore, edited OP with correct name.

Are the figures total gross sales or just philatelic related?

Just philatelic - figures came from Mark Rosenberg.

Rogdcam,

$350 million is 1% of ebay's gross sales. Slightly less actually. ebay's gross sales in 2020 were 37.5 billion.

Did Mark Rosenberg talk about Hipstamp's plans to deal with sales tax collection? As a marketplace they SHOULD be collecting on behalf of sellers but they are not. Perhaps they haven't reached the threshold yet where it's mandatory.

No, that didn't come up - the format was him responding to questions from the interviewers.

Hipstamp can automatically add sales tax for multiple jurisdictions to the invoice (I do this for Canadian customers, where the tax rate is different per province). The tax comes to me and then I need to report/remit to Revenue Canada on a quarterly basis. I assume US sellers on Hip are doing the same? I saw lots of tax entries for various states in the config.

~Greg

I have yet to find a cover on Hipstamp, registered, that was not also on, or previously listed on, ebay and did not sell. Also, many are damaged, overpriced, and/or have errors in their descriptions.

Much of the material on Hip is cross-listed on ebay. I rarely find something on Hip that is not on ebay or if I do the condition leaves something to be desired. You can catch good to great discounts on Hip for cross-listed items due to promotions. That and the tax issue can give Hip a leg up but that will not last. I root for Hip because I like competition between platforms. That being said if the majority of sellers are the same at some point the lines become blurred. Lang pumped up the US listings but he has now passed on to the great stockbook in the sky.