Stamp Auction Network Will No Longer Be Free For Bidding- Subscription Based Only

I have placed more than 50 bids per year and never used unattended live bidding. So Tom, simply asked - , does a free 1 year subscription allow me to bid at any of the auctions using SAN platform?
Yes or No. And subsequent years? Thanks.

Yes.

Tom - thank you for interacting w this thread and responding to my email of earlier today. The language in your announcement was less than clear re free bidding if that's all you do. That sounds like status quo, but your announcement totally buried that point.

If you were going to echo the model of a Costco whereby membership fee could be earned back through auction purchases, the membership fee idea would be more agreeable to me. However, you would probably need a change to your auction house fee model related to volumes sold. Not too late for that.

I suspect that you over value the data SAN holds. Yes, I would like the provenance feature you advertise, but because I.have access to other databases and the ability to search them, it is not worth my buying your service. Has the majority of your potential market reached the same conclusion?

Tom, thank you for responding to that question earlier. I read the whole announcement several times and that point was definetly not clear. When I watched the video there is a static display with green check marks and red x's. It still did not clarify that point.especially that second column of video as it only showed paid subscription. When I logged in and went to page for paying/subscribing and saw it showing comparisons, that is when things began to come into focus. For clarity, that second column should have been titled "free membership includes". It was only when I read the last comparison chart with checks and x's did I see "Membership $19.95/year and free membership" title which cleared everything up.

Tom, I would like to thank you for clarifying, as well. Yes, there are changes on SAN, but less than what it appeared at first glance. We were pretty hard on you here (that's what we do) and you pushed back admirably.

I am beyond confused at this point.

https://stampauctionnetwork.com/PaywithPaypal.cfm

Where is the "free" bidding?

Rog - if you look at the comparison chart, 'free membership' is combined with the '$19.95' membership and there is a green 'X' under bidding.

What I find frustrating is if one clicks on the 'free membership' button, you're simply returned to the SAN main page...

Edited to add: right after typing the frustrating part above, this appeared in my email in box:

"Welcome george dekornfeld, dds (docgfd) to StampAuctionNetwork Membership!
Your registration for StampAuctionNetwork Membership (Free for 1 Year) has been received. Thank you. You should now be able to access the Membership Services by logging in.

Please let us know how we can help you use the new features, and of course any feedback is welcome.

- Tom Droege"

Yes I do and it is interesting to bring up. I am using Netscape right now in its free (begs for money) up-to-date version called Mozilla Firefox.

What SAN needs to remember is MySpace not Netscape/Firefox.




MySpace generated (grew) many good things beyond the basic frame work which took on lives of their own.




Well ebay handles exponentially more than 200 auction companies, small and large. The top two sellers of philatelic material each move an average of 7000+ lots per month. which SAN firm touches that volume? However, unlike SAN, ebay has the clout to get all users to use the same data source.

I too am still confused.

Am I right in now thinking that with 'free membership' absolutely nothing has changed and I will have exactly the same benefits and functionality that I've had previously?

If that's the case then are these new fees voluntary?

Unattended bidding does have its charm. I recently bid on 5 lots with a certain SAN firm. Remarkably, all 5 opened at exactly my maximum bid. Anomalous or intentional? Now I only won 2 of the 5 so there was somebody else out there who was "dumber" or "more informed" than me. So not so much spilt milk. The moral of the story is that the electronic agent idea is a good one and probably the rhetorical angle that I would have take here to enhance revenue rather than a muddled subscription message.

I don't want to tell Mr Droege his business, but it seems to me that the E model is pretty established;
with the buyer driving the bus and the seller paying the freight... not the other way around. Trying to change that after the fact is a tough hill to climb as illustrated by many of the comments here.

Bob

Could someone kindly explain to me how the red "X" in the bidding features box means that you can bid for free?

It is not Free Perpetual Membership or Free Renewable One-Year Membership, it is "Free 1-Year Membership." The only reasonable conclusion is that by clicking the Free Membership button below all the PayPal subscribe buttons, you are marking their database to start a one year clock running after which you will have to pay up for one of the other levels. Presumably they are capturing your IP and email addresses to enforce this.

As best I understand all the options, ultimately users who are paying nothing to bid via SAN now eventually will lose that capability. There may be other features, relating to search for example, that also are lost to free members after April 1, but as with others, parsing the various communications is extremely difficult and for a hobby activity I am not going to take an hour to study them, I will just switch to other buying means. It is a "C" to "D" effort by whomever leads their Marcom.

Rog … look under the gray bar that says Membership Includes, not the red green chart. Why these two tables are not integrated is a total fumble in communications and/or transparency. Something funny is going on, not all their intentions are apparent.

That red/green chart certainly confused me.

I greatly appreciate Tom taking time in this thread to try and clarify what is "really" going to happen, but from a usability standpoint, that table is awful.

Tom, are you actually saying that someone who has
1) made more than 50 bids during the last running 12 months
2) has over $2,000 in lots won both by unattended bidding and also live bidding.
can continue to do unattended live bidding, and also live bidding, without a charge, simply by clicking the free membership?

Hi Chris - I look under the gray bars and see several columns.

The "Free To All" column lists the following features (there is no PP button below column)::

Auction Catalogs... Calendars, and Auction Profiles.
Newsletter... Notices of upcoming auctions when published.
"My Collection"... Add items you did not purchase on SAN to your on-line collection and match them up against our database and find matches.
"My Purchase History"... Access your individual purchase history for major sales from 2001-2017. Plus starting in 2018 we will keep all purchase history where the auction firm records you as the winner.
"My Archived Bids"...Access your individual bidding history for major sales back to 2014. From 2018 all your bidding history is kept for you to review.
"Post your own Prices Realized"...Join the movement to build the prices realized for the auction firms that won't.
Zoom Meetings, Join the StampAuctionNetwork community for regular Zoom meetings on a number of helpful topics.

The next column entitled "Membership Includes" shows the following features included (PP button below for payment):

Bidding... Live Bidding, Absentee Bidding and Watchbids.
Unattended Live Bidding... Prepare bids ahead of time that are executed at the opening of the lot in a live bid auction without revealing the maximum amount. Free if you win less than $2000 in winning bids.
Search Current Auctions... Saved Searches and search notifications by email.
Email and Telephone Support... Contact us directly by phone or email with questions or for assistance.
BASIC Extended Features... Membership Promotion at $49.95 / year upgrades you to BASIC Extended Features (at right) forever.
Remember... Free One Year Memberships are always available. See below.

This is as clear as mud and IMO when something this simple has been made so unintelligible it is a deliberate effort to obfuscate.

If indeed nothing has really changed in what you are able to do than what is all of the hoopla about memberships after 1 April and so on.

This has left a really bad taste in my mouth.