sellig and buying stamps. hipstamps vs ebay

is one better than the other and why?
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Comments

  • 36 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • Really? click bait?
    open a store and find out-
  • Ebay is not called fee bay for no reason.
  • how do I get my name off this site and get them to stop sending me emails?
  • Actually, The Fee's have been adjusted downward, we are have been on Ebay for 15 years and have had very good experiences and it has been consistently Ebay, not some variant of HipStamp whether it's Rosenberg or Posner or BidStart or Gibbons market place, or the glory days of stamp-wants 2005 or what not. We do well on this site, always have which is why we have stuck around thru the revolving ownership door for 12 years now.

    So IF there is another criteria to judge a professional operation other than fee's (and no one has the market reach of Ebay), Sorry all you Hipsters, then you be the judge for yourself, not someone else's biased opinion. This site does extremely well for fixed price material at least for us, but we do well because we sell the odd stuff on here that people actually want to buy, Ebay has the auction thing owned lock stock & barrel.....for now. I think if we don't do another revolving ownership (and dealers with million dollar inventories at their disposal do pay attention to that mind you), then the potential for HipStamp could be a force in a few years to reckon with. With that said we remember well all of the Stampwants adds screaming about Ebay fee's and how they were going to give Ebay a run for it's money, if you want to know how that worked out for them, you weren't paying attention!
  • edited September 2018 0 LikesVote Down
    The mentality of online buying and selling comes down to one word: Ebay. It is part of our lexicon to use "ebay" when talking about buying or selling something online, just as it is to use "PayPal" when it comes to paying for all that stuff we buy..

    Look at the articles in the philatelic magazines. When they talk about buying online, they mention ebay 99% of the time. Rarely is another venue mentioned, unless it is Linn's touting its Zillions of stamps.

    Rarely when I am talking to other philatelists do I hear anyone say that they are buying stamps on Stamporama, HipStamp, Delcampe, etc. They say they buy stamps online on Ebay. I don't know how one can overcome the "ebay syndrome", other than Amazon, and get people to think about another site with any sort of regularity.
  • It really is true, would like to see Hipstamp pushed in the stamp mags more often. We have stores on stamps 2 go, ebay and Amazon but we really only talk up our store here. Like I said, Hipstamp has the potential to be a real force, what we really really need is a viable alternative for epayments to PayPal.
  • I have been selling here since 2005, and on Feebay since 1999. I prefer this site, although auctions probably do better on Feebay. Feebay is forever changing and "improving" things, which often means spending tons of time editing or changing something that will "improve the buying experience". Like many of us I was discouraged during the SG Reign of Error as I watched sales disappear, but Hip seems to be advertising well online and my sales here are now doing well. Sadly money spent on print advertising is getting harder and harder to justify for me and I suspect others are finding the same thing as circulation of print philatelic publications continues to decrease, at least in North America. And as far as the Boys in Belgium the work involved for making paltry sales just was not worth the conitnued effort to list there.
  • Lately I've noticed a serious uptick both in the amount of my sales here (I just filled an order for 22 covers!) as well as on HipPostcard where I also maintain a store. Many buyers also show as having 'zero' or very low feedback which tells me they are new to the site, a great sign that more and more collectors are finding their way here. eBay will always be with us, but they're going to be (and already seem to be) getting some serious competition from Hip.
  • I'm an Ebay Buyer for many years, while on Hip just recetly. But on Ebay the communication between Byers and Sellers is much better than on Hip! On Ebay I receive reply on my queriies very fast and ALWAYS! While on Hip I wrote a message with a question to a Seller 3 times! and never received a reply! It seems that this certain Seller is not interested to sell! The problem is that I found a stamp of my interest only on Hip, not on Ebay and not on PostBeeld! Otherwise I would even not registereing on Hip! It seems that Ebay is interested in proper site management and linking Buyers and Sellers, while Hip doesn't care about it!
  • edited September 2018 0 LikesVote Down
    Hi Irina,

    At HipStamp, we certainly take proper site management very seriously. I do see that you asked a Seller a question about a discount on shipping twice in the last couple of days, and the Seller has not yet responded. In general, you will find that Sellers are generally responsive to any questions.

    If you have any issue with an order or a listing, you can also always reach out to our support staff for assistance, and we'll respond promptly. Just click on the Contact Us link at the bottom of any page. That being said, if you have a question about a seller offering a discount on their shipping rate - we would recommend that you contact the Seller.
  • Dear Mark,
    Thank you for your kind comment and quick respond. So I see that the site is managed really properly. I'll wait for couple of days for Seller's respond, because I want to buy the certain item, but with the standard shipping cost. This can be confirmed only by Seller. Anyhow, In case of any other matters I'll apply to HipStam staff following your kind advice. Regards,
    Irina
  • I've been on eBay since 1999, delcampe, and all the prior iterations of Hipstamp.

    In my experience the fees end up being about the same irregardless of the site if one counts all the things one does to "be seen" like promoted listings, giveaways etc. Normally for me ebay is the lowest (as I mentioned considering all costs not just FVF), but sometimes, this month being an example, my Hipstamp costs are lower, significantly lower than eBay. I've been impressed with the growing regular customer base I'm continuing to build here.

    In my experience all sites have their advantages, disadvantages and areas of selling strength and weakness. The key is to understand what to sell where most effectively.

    Focusing on Hipstamp, the increased visibility via shows, advertising etc looks to be paying off.

    For certain in my experience, no other site has ever come close to the responsiveness of the support folks here.

    Just like anyone who's trying to make a living, I'm investing my time at the places that generate the best return for the effort and I continue to build my presence here for that reason.
  • I think Ron makes a really good point, several actually Finding what sells best where is just a great point. Kitty and I began to list 1,000”s of Latin America on gibbons marketplace because we saw so little of it being listed. Can’t give it away on eBay but I pull 80 percent of Scott here, and my customers continue to come back all the time. Finding what sells where best is selling 101 but a valuable tool to remember. decampe I understand has nixed minimum cat listings or under a dollar items, which would really hurt us as the vast majority of Latin America as everyone knows is low cat. Hipstamp on the other hand doesn’t have such a policy which is nice. Fees don’t really bother us, the person running the sites has to eat too, all sites have their ups and downs, my only gripe with hipstamp is the lack of block a seller feature. Bid start and marketplace had it and I think ievery reason for not having the feature here is ridiculous and doesn’t hold water. Our biggest complaint with online selling is PayPal. For all of the complaints I hear about eBay I’m surprised I don’t Hear more concerning their little Frankenstein PayPal. What a nightmare.
  • I'm not sure what Irina means by "standard shipping cost," but if she lives out of the country and expects inexpensive shipping (first class letter), please refer to the the LONG forum discussion about legally shipping merchandise out of the USA since the new rates went into effect in January. I just had a customer from Germany who could not believe the cost of shipping even using the cheaper ShippingEasy rates. Since most philatelic societies require you to follow the law, there is no way I am going to risk my almost 40 years of APS membership just for a few extra bucks.

    On the other hand, there still are customers willing to pay for the shipping. Just sold some items earlier this month and used a lot of nice high-priced US dollar stamps that ameliorate the fee.
  • "Finding what sells best where is just a great point."

    I agree with that too. However, consider that the sync between HipStamp and Ebay doesn't really bring a need to do that on HipStamp. Just put up everything you have on Ebay, sync it to HipStamp, and pay attention to your Ebay store and forget about HipStamp since that is secondary and takes care of itself. Also, such syncs do not provide any incentives for buyers to visit HipStamp. They can do it all on Ebay.
  • Irina - Please note that if you are trying to contact a seller who lives in the mid to south-eastern United States, they have gone through a serious hurricane, and might not be able to answer your questions until they can get back home and clean things up from the storm. I don't know if that's the case, but people here generally respond quickly to inquiries. I just mention this for your consideration.
  • I recently contacted two sellers on Ebay for additional information on items that they were selling.

    One responded that he didn't have time to answer my question. The other said that he can't see well, so he can't look.

    For both of those sellers, the items are still sitting there, unsold. I don't have the time to click on the buy button.
  • edited September 2018 0 LikesVote Down
    Hmmm I posted something that was wrong but somehow it got here so I've edited it out.
  • I don’t have time to click on the sold button! That’s s classic lol, or maybe just my Slavic sense of humor. Like several of you we also run multiple sites BUR you just gotta respond, not sure how one would expect to sell much without We don’t offer best offers. With that said, we will whether it’s myself or kitty will reply with a what did you have in mind or something else cordial, I mean you don’t have to take the time to even look at my listings so we’re gonna respond . And yes if it was realistic we’d accept, full time numismatics and philatelic s is how we pay the bills. Guess some people respond better if they are hungry enough. Lot of good points on this thread. Great bunch here on hipstamp. Love it
  • I wasn’t saying that if you have trouble seeing or something too bad, if I said anything up above that was offensive that was in no way my intent. Wasn’t trying to be judgmental either. Not everyone has to sell to pay the bills. If that came across wrong I apologize in advance. Thanks!
  • edited September 2018 0 LikesVote Down
    You are correct, and I loved your comments. Most people will jump on an inquiry in an attempt to get the next sale. It was just odd for me to hit two sellers in a row who weren't "hungry enough" to care. I guess they can get plenty of ruffage from the paper on the stamps and album pages if they do get hungry.

    I have seen many sellers on Ebay who simply reject every best offers that they receive. They use the feature wrongly to get noticed on searches for sellers who offer Best Offers. Well, if one offers Best Offers, then they should accept all reasonable offers. If not, then that's false advertising. I don't think that Ebay does any policing of that feature and declined offers by sellers.

    This reminds me of a model railroad show I attended a few years ago. It was a two-day show. A seller there had a freight car that I would have liked to buy. He was overpriced with his stock compared to the other sellers. On this freight car it had the road name that I wanted, so I gave him an offer for $5.00 less than his asking price. That was still a couple of dollars higher than what the other sellers were charging for the same model, albeit with different road names. He declined my offer. Fine. The second day, I made him another offer. This time it was for $4.00 off his asking price. He told me that he needed to sell his items to put food on his table. A friend of mine had a table next to his, and told me that the seller had not sold a single item all show. Obviously because his pricing was too high. I repeated my offer. He again rejected it. I told him that he couldn't eat plastic, and walked away. Yes, he had every right to reject offers, but you also have to know your potential buyers, and know what others are selling similar items for. You also have to be willing to negotiate reasonable offers. It is after all a model show where most items offered for sale are used, and full retail rarely sells. I have never seen him at another show, and I sell at several each year.
  • A lot of great info here. Thanks to everyone.
  • I think how well a seller responds to questions is a good indication of how well they will respond if there are any problems with the purchase. If the seller doesn't respond to questions, or responds tersely,rudely etc, then that is a good indication things would be similar (or worse) in the event I purchased something and had issues. So a non or poor response would be a very good indication to avoid the seller.

    I've known folks who purposefully ask a question of a seller for this very reason, to see how they respond, and they'll only purchase from sellers who "pass" the questions test!

    Regarding best offer, I do utilize best offer, normally only for high value items, and normally I do respond, although "reasonable" seems to have many definitions.

    For example, if I have a $1,000 item listed:
    -if the best offer is $500 or more, I will respond with my counter offer (if necessary) and a message to the offeror
    -if the offer is in the $200 to $500 range, I normally simply decline the offer with no message
    -if the offer is below $200 I normally do not respond to the offer at all

    I've actually received best offers of $50 against a $1,000 item. Im my experience to date, I've never had a transaction successfully completed when the original offer was wayyyy below the original price.
  • edited September 2018 0 LikesVote Down
    It's the same way when you sell at flea markets and bourses like I do. You have some nice material, often brand new, and they want Neiman Marcus quality and value at sub-flea market pricing. A few weeks ago at the flea market I sell at I had a very nice espresso/coffee maker I was selling for my son. A guy wanted to buy it, and said that he'd buy it for half of what I was asking if I would give him a 3 year extended warranty like he could get at Costco. I told him to go to Costco.

    It is common for people to try to buy things on the super cheap by telling sellers that they won't pay the asking price, because they can get it at Wal-Mart cheaper. Sellers usually tell such people to go ahead and go to Wal-Mart, because we know that they won't get it cheaper there.

    The bottom line is that everyone wants to find a bargain. Unfortunately, many do not understand that sellers are trying to make a few dollars. They haven't gone through the time and expense of getting the items ready to sell just to give it away at a loss. Of course some of those people are looking to get the item real cheap so that they can resell it at your expense. When that happens, they usually yell at me saying that they can't resell the items if they pay my prices. I tell then that I'm not their wholesaler. However, if they want to buy all that I have with me, I will give them a great "buy it all" price, but they aren't going to cherry pick my merchandise.
  • edited September 2018 2 LikesVote Down
    HipStamp seems to be growing nicely, their support and featured auctions are first rate. There are all types of buyers/sellers some moving material for quick cash, wholesale, low end, high end etc. and EBay has a huge traffic and volume advantage. However, if HipStamp keeps growing the site will have by far the most diverse stamp marketplace. It is nice to see more sellers coming on board 867 with 21 million listings. The cool thing Irina is here because she can't find the stamp she wants elsewhere.
  • And I just received an email from Linn's. The title? "Complete Your Stamp Collection on Ebay."

    Mark, maybe you could file a protest with Linn's for them to quit giving free advertising to Ebay and not other web sites that deal primarily in stamp collecting.
  • It is very possible that the email from Linn's is one that Feebay paid for. Linn's will send out "blasts" to its email list for only $1500 ( possibly higher now). For most of us that is too rich for our wallets, but for Feebay it would be chump change. Hipstamp has used the Linn's email "blast" in past. Mystic, Cherrystone and some others have used the Linn's "blasts" as well.
  • Another reason for prefering Hip to Feebay. Today I received an email from Feebay saying that 47 of my listings were not in compliance with some arcane part of their revised return policy. Feebay is constantly tinkering and as a result of the tinkering I have to edit 47 listings now, some of which are in compliance but some robo-dummy at Feebay thinks they are not. The staff here as always been helpful, even during the SG Reign of Error. After the initial start up kerfuffle here when Hip took over SG the site has operated fairly well and Mark and crew managed any problems I have
    had quickly - and I have never had to edit listing individually here because of a minor change.
  • Does anyone even read Linn's anymore? Linn's seems to be where Scott stamp monthly was before it's demise around 09/2010. That issue had a really good several page article on German states by the way, sad. We gave up on our Linn's subscription when the articles shrank to the size of a decent classified add! Barnes & Nobles carries "Stamps" & "Gibbons Stamp monthly" (a bit tech wordy though) but both are actually really good stamp rags, though a bit stiff at Approx $24.00 US for the 2 of them. They even carry articles of interest to the US collector from time to time.
  • The thing with eBay is this, and it was alluded to much earlier in this thread, ebay is now part of our lexicon, which it is but I try really hard to convince people that just because you saw it on ebay doesn't mean that's what it's worth or, and I love this one, " It's going for $$$$$ on eBay!" Well, probably not really going for that. But you can't convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced right? I think that back in the early glory days of ebay when people were actually getting unheard of sums for stuff (stamps) not necessarily even good stuff a mystique developed around them and it has hung around regardless. Here's a classic example, does anyone remember back on the front page of Linn's around summer 2005 of a guy selling what he thought was a run of the mill Hong Kong Queen Victoria issue used on eBay? He couldn't understand why the stamp quickly raced to like $2,025 in the last few hours of the auction. It had (and I'm not a Hong Kong guy) but I remember this well for the point I'm getting to.(and this was actually good stuff mind you) here the stamp had a rare D30 killer cancel on it that was only in use for 3 months or something to that affect. man, everyone that came into our store for weeks after that one went off was digging through our Hong Kong looking to strike it rich "like the guy on ebay!" Now no one was interested in purchasing any of my fascinating KuK cancellations, or Third Reich fancy cancellations probably because no one bought one for $2,025 on ebay! I know, I'm beating a dead horse, at least my memory is still somewhat intact lol. I think this site speaks for itself. We're from the Earl P Apfelbaum crowd down here around Philly, the older guys (older than Kitty & I) swear by eBay but one recently told me he saw that Hipstamp auctions seem to be doing rather well, but he'll stick with eBay anyway. What do you do with that? We talk up Hipstamp all the time, at the shows, on the phone etc. We don't do the bulk of our business on here but are moving to a premium store soon. I'm not always impressed with some of the very snide & snarky remarks kitty gets in the forums from some of the stallwarts here when she asks an innocent question (neither of us are natural born Americans and struggle still to convey our words well in English & maybe that's the problem there) but that really is about the only negative experience I've had here in 12 years. Guess were doing ok after all. Happy stamping all!
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