I didn't get that email either. Thanks for the post. My store is due to renew any time now, but I think I might have to let it go. Looks to me like they are trying to force people to upgrade into higher cost products that it appears they don't necessarily want or need. That or hoping we'll take the upgrade and smile about what is being shoved up our butts. I don't know, got some serious thinking to do, fast. Let's see $3 more a more on an annual subscription for 1/10 the listings. I'm currently not close to 1000 listings, but I will be shortly. I was planning a big update soon, but not too sure now. Then Dennis says, Where to go? Good question. It's beginning to feel like someone announced last call and the last person out gets stuck with the check. I'll stop thinking with my fingers now. G'nite y'all.
Guess I'm lucky that I renewed at the Featured Store rate at the end of May and increased my listings to over 19,000. I'm now grandfathered in for the next 10 months. This gives me some time to reduce my inventory and find a new selling platform. I feel the pain of those of you who have only a few days to find a solution.
I agree that this is a piss poor business decision on the part of Hipstamp. Especially in a downturn economy. Sounds like they are trying to find a way to recover their development cost for the Gold HipValues Subscription program which nobody wanted --- It certainly has little value for sellers who must now pay the burden of the $25 a month "value".
If my math is correct, I will have to pay an extra $60 per month to maintain my current listing level of 19K items. I average less than 4 invoices per day. Assuming I can generate an average of 120 invoices per month, I must charge each customer an additional 50c per invoice to cover the additional cost of doing business on the site --- Makes no friggin sense to me. Buyers will go to that place we used to call "FeeBay" in search of better deals
And by the way, I am not one of those sellers who lists dozens of copies of the same low value stamp. I typically limit my listings for a particular Scott number to no more than 3 items (3 mnh, 3 used, etc.). (I may have listed as many as 4 on fewer than a dozen occasions). If the site has become too large for economies of scale, then Hipstamp should have taken action to limit the number duplicate listings a seller can make rather than force all sellers to reduce what may be better quality listings.
This action STINKS and may kill the site. As stated by someome above "there are no buyers without sellers" I'm taking this personally because I have a lot invested in the site. I'm VERY DISSAPOINTED
Been with Mark... since he started StampWants / HipStamp +_ 18 years.
I will not take it... and close my store when my year subscription expires. When sellers leave, buyers too. HS. MGM has to work fast.... to do damage control, and change for buyers and sellers that catastrophic decision,
I now have 7400 listings. I cannot afford to go to the next level for the identical "service". I agree with the sentiments expressed here. Sounds a lot like this country trying to commit suicide??
Since I have an annual subscription am I correct in believing my cost and my volume limit will stay the same until that renews? Even then I will have to look for a new venue. HipStamp has been falling apart for a year now. Did Mark leave?
There's unisquare dot com. Not as good a platform, but it's free (no listing or final value fees), has a bulk uploader, and if buyers know to go there... bring it!
I will NOT add the extra items to hit that 10,000 - just let what is listed wind down and go back to dealer to dealer to those who still do shows. Or take another look at Ebay - that is where all the buyers will be going when this place is a vast wasteland. I WILL NOT make some kind of special deal with "support" - that takes a lot of guts to offer to make special deals with each of us. Absolutely beyond unprofessional;. Will obviously pull out of Hippostcards as well - was going to list a few thousand ephemera but there won't be any customers.
Just sent the following to Hipecommerce - this makes what Donahoe did to Ebay seem trivial
Please advise when my annual subscription expires for both Hipstamp (Webpaper) and Hippostcard (Webpaper2) and what type of notice you require so we can be absolutely certain you won't somehow mistakenly renew our contract (and force a chargeback). Henry Brooks
Arghh....I've spent a ton of time getting my shop up and running. I hate to close my store, but if often-visited sellers leave, so will the often visited buyers. Really pisses me off, and I DO NOT want to go to Ebay! Ahh....crap!
How is this for a problem? It is going on two years now that my bulklister has been on temporary hold although I never used it before. And now they decided that I can no longer send them my zip file to upload but instead I can upload my items one at a time. As a result, my store has fallen from about 100,000 items to just over 50,000 items. Their reason is that I was causing them to much work?? Being slick about the whole thing, just before my subscription was about to renew I was told that I could use it again. Paid the money and again I was denied. At least now I know why they won't let me use it. Talk about a scam. Now I read they are cutting back the number of items for a store and charging you more for it-I always thought that someone was a little behind the IQ curve when they said I could load my items one at a time ( now over 40,000 more with a few 100,000 down the road. ) It goes right up there with pay more and get 1/10th as much for you money so they can improve the services that they think you need! Does anyone have a store on Ebay? I need to figure out how to start one, it can't be that expensive. Thanks, Len Len's Stamps and Stuff.
so HS who thunk this up?? I'm only a buyer but here's stamp size another possible solution - maybe cut stores in half and if seller opens a 2nd store charge 1/2 of monthly rate. You get your $ and still have a business -not best option for sellers but better than nothing -and to Van Guno looks like you have a # of sellers to contact if you can read between the lines the left or that's where you may be in August- an unemployment line because of HS demise
A post by Rogdcam on one of the MB sites where I started a thread: " In 2020 Hip eCommerce (Hip) raised 5.3 million dollars in investment capital. Again, in March of this year Hip raised another 1 million dollars as part of a new round of funding with a goal of 3.5 million dollars. It is unclear if Hip received the other 2.5 million dollars as of this date. In March 2022 Hip CEO Rosenberg stated that Hip was seeing more than 2 million dollars in monthly sales across each of its collectible marketplaces . Apparently, according to Doc's shared email, that number shot up to 3 million in a matter of months but is that for all three marketplaces or 90% for comic books or.......?
My point in saying the above is that it seems as if Hip is seeing extremely healthy sales which in turn means in theory greater net income even without fee increases. Given the outside cash infusions AND the increasing fees one would think that Hip was all of that and a chocolate covered cherry with real whipped cream. I don't see it. So what is the end game.
Whatever it is suffice it to say that without the legions of small sellers using Hip's platform it does not exist. They have no real inventory other than their own seller account. You, the small seller ARE Hip and wield great power if you choose to flex your muscles. Buyer accounts mean nothing if there is nothing to buy.
This is all pretty obvious I realize but it is my "Gipper" speech.
Leonard. I have an eBay store. Level: basic. pr. month $ 21.95 ( 1 year subscription ) Included monthly in the Sub. Fee. ( $ 21.95 ) : 250 Auction + 1000 store listings and as long as I remember 10.000 extra store listings pr. month. Selling fee +_ 10 % dependence of product.
From my years of experience listing on eBay and sync the eBay listings to HS, the sales on Hs are only around 10% of the same items/amount as listed on eBay.
eBay has other Store subscription levels. Check on eBay.com. Store subscriptions.
I do not list from eBay but have for +_ 20 Years used Inkfrog for listing. store/auction/pic.
Also, check out other auction sites, almost.. free. Ebid and Webstore. Both sites are easy to list and work with.
I tried Webstore a few years back, and found that the sales just did not justify the work involved with listing there. It seems every few months I get an email from Ebid offering a cheap lifetime price or some other low price offer, but have not tried it. One downside of Feebay is that with "mismanaged payments" one does not get the customers email address, and it is not possible to build up an email list from Feebay sales.
While I agree 100% with the comments,and having been a seller on ebay since 1997, and here when it was Stamp Wants, I will remain here for another year to see what happens. I'll offset the increase a bit by closing my Hippostcard store. I have about 5000 stamps in stock but I do not have them all cross listed in ebay because in an ebay store, you cannot have anything under a dollar in inventory. Cheap stamps an only be sold here. I am pretty sure Mark has taken that into consideration. Where would you go to sell the stamps, and how much time would it take to move inventory? This site also has an amazing bulk uploader. I would not be here without it. To list stamps one at a time on ebay with all the things that must be filled in takes a lot of time, so I rarely add more than a couple a day. I do sell other things on ebay as well so I devote some time each day to list a couple in each category. Of course, it the sales drop down as some have suggested, come next August I will not be renewing my store here. In a down economy, people have limited funds for collectibles. If the economy gets back on track, that may change and sales will increase to the levels they were last year. Meanwhile, fees are tax deductible so that money that mark is now taking, part would go to Uncle Sam - which I totally resent.
Bob you said .... "If the site has become too large for economies of scale, then Hipstamp should have taken action to limit the number duplicate listings a seller can make rather than force all sellers to reduce what may be better quality listings."
I'm one of those sellers you that lists multiple examples of the same stamp. While you might not like it, many BUYERS do. A good example of this is that I just finished packaging an order for 50 copies of the same 20 cent stamp of which I had 81 copies listed. Therefore, I'm glad that HipStamp doesn't restrict the number of listings of a particular stamp.
I'm also confused with your implication that multiple copies of the same stamp result in inferior listing quality and therefore should be restricted. Why are the 1,766 stamps you have listed from 1 cent to 9 cents each with generic scans superior to my listings starting for at least 10 cents each? I'm glad HipStamp doesn't set a minimum sales price. Otherwise where would any of us be able to buy and sell common stamps valued at less than $1?
It's sad to hear that so many folks will be leaving HipStamp. Perhaps HipStamp could consider a less drastic change which would keep many of our friends here. The Forums will never be the same, if many leave. Hopefully the sales for those that remain will improve to help justify the increased cost.
Bob, just trying to help here really want to help... so apology if I am wrong but as I read it I am not you say... .....Guess I'm lucky that I renewed at the Featured Store rate at the end of May and increased my listings to over 19,000. I'm now grandfathered in for the next 10 months. ,,,, hmm ....... read carefully the announcement it says ............Effective July 22, 2022, a Basic Store subscription will allow for up to 1,000 listings and a Featured Store subscription will allow for up to 10,000 listings. so, as I read that, on 22July you have to be down to 10000 listings, happy to be corrected but.. I guess we will find out on 22nd July
this says ... you'll be grandfathered in at the old listing counts for the rest of your annual term so hope that is the case. I am wrong then. That is good to know
I have had a Featured Store since the Stampwants days, and never reached 10,000 items. Now I am just a few hundred away from the 10,000 mark, and Hip changes the rules. Very inconsiderate in my opinion. And my sales have declined drastically since the major change in the site on Feb 1st of this year. Since I am a monthly subscriber, this puts me in a bind.
unreal... pure greed! a very very bad deal here for the money they are trying to charge. I was thinking they are lucky to have any sellers here prior to the insane increases. Now it is just plain stupid. My NEW store gets closed today!
Status: Disabled Subscription Basic - valid through 07/14/2022 (Inactive)
"select Catagories" includes stamps! Basic level is 10,000+ listings - the plus is the extra listings bonus you get each month. so minimum is 10k listings - pay by yearly contract much better deal. sales for me there are 5000% better -consevative estimate is 50-100x here
i actually have a premium and a basic store there. I should reduce the premium one to basic. :-) but i like the 500 auction listings as opposed to 250 auction listings so its $21 and $59 month and the premium gets you 50,000 listings + the basic $21 gets you 10,000+ listings and 50 to 100x more sales.
So many of us hung with Mark through the SG debacle, watching sales tank every month but gladly coming back when he started Hipstamp. While it was never as good for my store as the previous iterations it felt like home. An almost 300 per cent price increase just erased all those memories - I will be out of here when my annual contract is up for both Hipstamo and Hippostcard. What a shame.
Comments
The numbers of listings is being grandfathered in on the annual subscriptions till the annual subscriptions renew.
I agree that this is a piss poor business decision on the part of Hipstamp. Especially in a downturn economy. Sounds like they are trying to find a way to recover their development cost for the Gold HipValues Subscription program which nobody wanted --- It certainly has little value for sellers who must now pay the burden of the $25 a month "value".
If my math is correct, I will have to pay an extra $60 per month to maintain my current listing level of 19K items. I average less than 4 invoices per day. Assuming I can generate an average of 120 invoices per month, I must charge each customer an additional 50c per invoice to cover the additional cost of doing business on the site --- Makes no friggin sense to me. Buyers will go to that place we used to call "FeeBay" in search of better deals
And by the way, I am not one of those sellers who lists dozens of copies of the same low value stamp. I typically limit my listings for a particular Scott number to no more than 3 items (3 mnh, 3 used, etc.). (I may have listed as many as 4 on fewer than a dozen occasions). If the site has become too large for economies of scale, then Hipstamp should have taken action to limit the number duplicate listings a seller can make rather than force all sellers to reduce what may be better quality listings.
This action STINKS and may kill the site. As stated by someome above "there are no buyers without sellers" I'm taking this personally because I have a lot invested in the site. I'm VERY DISSAPOINTED
I will not take it... and close my store when my year subscription expires.
When sellers leave, buyers too.
HS. MGM has to work fast.... to do damage control, and change for buyers and sellers that catastrophic decision,
On eBay I pay AU$24.95 ($US16.85) a month, not ANNUALLY, for UNLIMITED listings, and sell 10 TIMES what I sell here.
It's GOODBYE from me as soon as my annual sub here expires.
(Oh, and an eBay sync that is PERMANENTLY BROKEN, that does not sync all my listings. Confirmed by support as unfixable !!!).
Will obviously pull out of Hippostcards as well - was going to list a few thousand ephemera but there won't be any customers.
Please advise when my annual subscription expires for both Hipstamp (Webpaper) and Hippostcard (Webpaper2) and what type of notice you require so we can be absolutely certain you won't somehow mistakenly renew our contract (and force a chargeback). Henry Brooks
"
In 2020 Hip eCommerce (Hip) raised 5.3 million dollars in investment capital. Again, in March of this year Hip raised another 1 million dollars as part of a new round of funding with a goal of 3.5 million dollars. It is unclear if Hip received the other 2.5 million dollars as of this date. In March 2022 Hip CEO Rosenberg stated that Hip was seeing more than 2 million dollars in monthly sales across each of its collectible marketplaces . Apparently, according to Doc's shared email, that number shot up to 3 million in a matter of months but is that for all three marketplaces or 90% for comic books or.......?
My point in saying the above is that it seems as if Hip is seeing extremely healthy sales which in turn means in theory greater net income even without fee increases. Given the outside cash infusions AND the increasing fees one would think that Hip was all of that and a chocolate covered cherry with real whipped cream. I don't see it. So what is the end game.
Whatever it is suffice it to say that without the legions of small sellers using Hip's platform it does not exist. They have no real inventory other than their own seller account. You, the small seller ARE Hip and wield great power if you choose to flex your muscles. Buyer accounts mean nothing if there is nothing to buy.
This is all pretty obvious I realize but it is my "Gipper" speech.
Edit to add Investment Capital article link:
https://wraltechwire.com/2022/03/23...ollectibles/"
I have an eBay store. Level: basic. pr. month $ 21.95 ( 1 year subscription )
Included monthly in the Sub. Fee. ( $ 21.95 ) : 250 Auction + 1000 store listings and as long as I remember 10.000 extra store listings pr. month.
Selling fee +_ 10 % dependence of product.
From my years of experience listing on eBay and sync the eBay listings to HS, the sales on Hs are only around 10% of the same items/amount as listed on eBay.
eBay has other Store subscription levels. Check on eBay.com. Store subscriptions.
I do not list from eBay but have for +_ 20 Years used Inkfrog for listing. store/auction/pic.
Also, check out other auction sites, almost.. free. Ebid and Webstore. Both sites are easy to list and work with.
One downside of Feebay is that with "mismanaged payments" one does not get the customers email address, and it is not possible to build up an email list from Feebay sales.
1) if you have an eBay store, you can bulk upload from your Seller Hub, Reports.
2) auctions can be started at 1c.
Cheers,
Rod
Seems ridiculous to increase prices and lower item numbers, what are you thinking?!
I'm one of those sellers you that lists multiple examples of the same stamp. While you might not like it, many BUYERS do. A good example of this is that I just finished packaging an order for 50 copies of the same 20 cent stamp of which I had 81 copies listed. Therefore, I'm glad that HipStamp doesn't restrict the number of listings of a particular stamp.
I'm also confused with your implication that multiple copies of the same stamp result in inferior listing quality and therefore should be restricted. Why are the 1,766 stamps you have listed from 1 cent to 9 cents each with generic scans superior to my listings starting for at least 10 cents each? I'm glad HipStamp doesn't set a minimum sales price. Otherwise where would any of us be able to buy and sell common stamps valued at less than $1?
It's sad to hear that so many folks will be leaving HipStamp. Perhaps HipStamp could consider a less drastic change which would keep many of our friends here. The Forums will never be the same, if many leave. Hopefully the sales for those that remain will improve to help justify the increased cost.
Status: Disabled
Subscription
Basic - valid through 07/14/2022 (Inactive)
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/store-selling-fees?id=4809 EBAY FEES for Store
"select Catagories" includes stamps! Basic level is 10,000+ listings - the plus is the extra listings bonus you get each month. so minimum is 10k listings - pay by yearly contract much better deal. sales for me there are 5000% better -consevative estimate is 50-100x here
i actually have a premium and a basic store there. I should reduce the premium one to basic. :-) but i like the 500 auction listings as opposed to 250 auction listings so its $21 and $59 month and the premium gets you 50,000 listings + the basic $21 gets you 10,000+ listings and 50 to 100x more sales.