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a newbie seller who needs some help

michael j parkmmichael j park
in Questions 0 LikesVote Down
Hi,I 'm Mike,I am not new to selling but new on this site & need some help (useful input)
1 The best time to sell & is the time Eastern or Pacific (I live in New Zealand so I have to schedule)
2 What sells best & worst (USA will be best but what else as I have little USA stock but plenty of other)
3 Best to sell singles,sets or small collections (My prices range from 10-25% of cv according to stampworld as I find it the most honest & cheapest) 25% of cv would be very good condition.
I am selling under mjbpark both auction & store.I have very little negative feedback (0.1%) for over 10,000 lots both ebay (which does not allow negative) & my local site trademe.co.nz..My prices range from US$4 upwards as postage is a killer from NZ but do try to give value for money lots for collectors who do not have deep pockets,That was my aim when I started & still is.
PS I am not a dealer just find it keeps me active,though working 8 hours a day can be a turn off at times.

Comments

  • 5 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • Michael GeneraliMichael Generali
    1 LikesVote Down
    HipStamp time is Eastern. Ebay is Pacific.

    With a store, time doesn't matter. People will browse your store at any time. Doing auctions, if you want to give everyone in the USA a chance to see it on the last day, then you'd want to factor in Pacific time. I don't bother with the end time when I do auctions. I just let it run for the maximum number of days allowed.

    You will get sales when you have added enough to the store to make it worth a buyer's time. The more you have, the better sales you will see. You get noticed better, and sales are more consistent when your store inventory gets into the thousands. Mix it up with different things. People have different collecting preferences. Unless you want to be a specialty store, don't worry about it. Just start listing, and keep listing new material as often as you can. You will have to balance your pricing and shipping costs. If the shipping is too high, then your sales will suffer.

    The 8 hours you mentioned, is that your job, or time you spend online with your stamp selling? Remember that there is no such thing as part time selling. The more time you put in to it, the better you'll do, Slack off, and your sales will disappear.
  • Mark RosenbergMark Rosenberg Staff
    edited September 2017 3 LikesVote Down
    While each individual Seller will of course have a different experience on any venue, for a multitude of reasons, it is not true that non North American Sellers (in general) do not perform well here, or that HipStamp only sells low value stamps.

    In the past month alone, we've sold hundreds of items over $100 each, and many items over $1,000 each. We've also sold over $100,000 in stamps from many different Non North American Sellers.

    With regards to specific Sellers trying to list a large volume of stamps or use various levels of pricing in an attempt to close our site - many of the Sellers in question have been with us for over a year, and during that time we've increased sales by 500% - so if that was their intention - I don't think it's working well!

    Michael: To your original questions, I've taken a quick look at the items you do have listed, and you have a nice mixture and competitive pricing. I would however say that as a new Seller on HipStamp, just listing a handful of items probably wouldn't work too well on it's own to start building traction. However, I'll have one of our Account Managers reach out to you and see how we can help get you started.
  • michael j parkmmichael j park
    2 LikesVote Down
    Reply to Mark,hooray,my opinion(& that is what a forum is about) did not go down well lol.Many thanks for your reply.I do not expect to sell straight away,building a clientele takes takes quite a while.I do sell good items at good prices but I do not think a store is the way for me (big sellers,yes) & it is not my main income.I have many items worth $20++ which I will be listing,I usually give 5 relists then improve the items or give up but on my Local site I sell 90% of items mainly $5 to $8 that is why I am looking for a site to sell the better stuff.
    Have a good day (or evening),Thanks Mike
  • Mark RosenbergMark Rosenberg Staff
    edited September 2017 1 LikesVote Down
    I believe Michael Park's initial follow-up comments may have simply appeared a little off kilter as he was being informed that HipStamp doesn't perform well for non North American Sellers, and that as HipStamp only sells cheaper items, it's bringing down sales for other Sellers, etc. None of this is of course true, as I highlighted in detail above, but as this was the initial feedback he was given on his question - his follow-up comments may have reflected this.

    That being said, I believe the erroneous comments made earlier have taken these posts off-topic. The original post which Michael started this thread with are some very reasonable and great questions to ask as a new Seller. I've asked our team here to follow-up with him directly, but I'd also like to see this topic get back on track, and provide some helpful comments to his original questions - which I believe other new Sellers would find helpful as well.
  • Mark RosenbergMark Rosenberg Staff
    0 LikesVote Down
    Note I've split off the posts with regards to Low Value listings on this thread, into the recently created topic on this same subject here: https://www.hipstamp.com/forums/discussion/1323/low-value-listings#latest
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