search enhancement

Carlos Aristy

I remember, back on the days of Bidstart, that we can search for almost anything in the site. For example, I could search by using my filing code: N375, or by just typing the stamp number, and all stamps with that number will be listed. So, if anything got lost or misplaced we could search the inventory without even typing the country. Today I received a very large check with a list of stamps, no country just the number and the price! Suffix to say this is not from a previous buyer and no phone# was supplied. No way for me to search for this individual on the site, and no way to match his request with my inventory. I search for any stamps with the # 1595b, got zippo.
Why is it that we can not do intelligent searches now? Before I could find the item dead or alive! My internet search for this person tells me that he is 80 years old, lives in California and most probably is not too savvy about using computers, ergo his order with attached check! Can we get smarter?

Mark Rosenberg

You can already search through closed / sold listings from the Members Area.

Go to Members Area > Selling > Closed/Sold:
https://www.hipstamp.com/members/selling/browse/closed

The search bar here works the same way our main search bar does, so you can either search by country and catalog number, or just catalog number. If you're using Private IDs, there's also a separate field to search by Private ID. You can also search by date sold and price.

That being said, I took a quick look at your Sold items, and do not see any 1595b's sold. You could however set the closing date range to the past month, and set the price range to the exact price of the item you're looking for.

Carlos Aristy

Hey Mark, thanks for answering quickly. I do no think this gentleman actually purchase anything in my store online. He just jutted numbers and prices and wrote me a check. The thing is that I retired from doing magic longtime ago!
1595b price 1.99, o90 used 9.99 and so goes the list! in the old site I could just do search by cat number, let's say, and
all the available stamps with that number will pop up. now that is not the case, let's pretend that I only got the filing code that I always place en the title, Z2331, in the old site I searched for that and it used to show me all listings with that code, sold or available. A very useful tool. Happy Four!

Mark Rosenberg

In any search bar, you can enter just the Catalog Number, and you should see the relevant results. This would be within your store, or from the Members Area. If you enter 1595b, you should see all 1595b's. However it doesn't look like you have any currently in your Store. Perhaps the buyer you're referring to didn't realize there are multiple Sellers on HipStamp, and it's another Seller's items?

If you were to enter 599 for example, you would see all #599's:
https://www.hipstamp.com/store/robledar-stamps?show=store&keywords=599

With regards to Private IDs, those should be place in the Private ID field (instead of the title). This would allow you to easily search by Private ID as well. That being said, there is a way you can currently do this (specifically Private IDs should not be entered in the titles of listings, but if you do include them, and they happen to look like Catalog Numbers, there is a way you can force the system to ignore this, just add "xQz" in front of the code. For example: xQz N375. This of course is not an official feature, and subject to change at any time).

Ted Tyszka

It has been stated many times on this board that private IDs/Inventory codes do not belong in the title. There is a specific box for them, and the number gets printed on the invoice along with the stamp ID. If people choose to ignore this simple and useful feature, there's nothing Mark or anyone else should do for them. Wise up, people. Man, it gets tiresome hearing people bitch about things they can easily control.

(How'd I do, Dave Bennett? LOL)

Dave Bennett

Dave Bennett

Mark let us know: " there is a way you can force the system to ignore this, just add "xQz" in front of the code. For example: xQz N375. "

"EXCUUUUUZE" my faux pas!

Very clever!

Mark Rosenberg

It is true that Private IDs should not be placed within the Listing Title (on HipStamp at least), as this is actually one of our Listing Policies. However, we understand that not everyone has created every listing from scratch on HipStamp. Many Sellers import listing from their own websites, imported listings from bidStart, sync with ebay, etc.

With that in mind, we develop tools and features which try to make said listings automatically work with all of the extra features we've built from the ground up for stamp collectors. For example, one of the key features I've highlighted several times is Country and Catalog Number searching. On ebay, if you search for "US #1" 99% of the results will be wrong, where as on HipStamp 99% of the results will be correct. However, those Sellers could import those very same listings, and they would just work on HipStamp. That's how we built the site.

The alternative would be that the site only worked when Sellers entered in the information on HipStamp, and followed our guidelines, etc. This however would result in the majority of our listings not working correctly with any of our features (which is exactly what happens on many other sites - even ebay, with regards to most item specific fields).

The reason I mention this is that because we developed the site to automatically incorporate non HipStamp created listings with all of our advanced features, it's not unreasonable for Sellers to have questions on how to handle issues related to such listings... More specifically, in this specific case, I don't have any issue with the question being asked, and I am happy I could provide a solution that should work for the Seller.

Ted Tyszka

You da man, Mark.