5 states to go
Few brick and mortar stamp stores remain locally and the weakly-attended monthly stamp shows make it hard to get a sense of the hobby's health. Even here on the forums comments are most commonly posted by "regulars" so it's hard to gauge whether the population of collectors is holding or continuing to decline. As a one-man seller here, I decided to check past records to see the geographic range of my US buyers. Surprisingly, last year there were orders from all but 5 states. This I found encouraging, that interest remains and is widespread. BTW the 5 states I'm still hoping to hear from are (understandably) AL, AK, SD, RI and WY. Wondering how others experiences have been.
Comments
AL, RI, SD are common to all 3 of us.
I did have sales to 9 foreign countries, before eliminating my international shipments.
When I was a kid I had many many friends that collected stamps.
Right now, I am not aware of any kid in my family or friends circles that collect stamps.
Partially likely because stamps became stupidly boring especially that ugly adhesive they use now. But also the younger generations simply rather play xbox or what not and diddle daddle on their phones. Maybe a few stamp related phone apps might spark some interests. Who knows....
Btw I am 50...
When I was younger I spent more time collecting rare stamps nowadays its harder to buy new ones to add to family collections...
For all I know there maybe other secret philatelies among us.
Is there an easy way to check this here? I'm still new to Hipstamp (we're in month 3 now), and not full across all the reporting mechanisms. Does this have to be done by hand just looking at each sale, or is there a way to look at a bulk data?
Scott, i think, unless I'm wrong, you have to do your own form to track your customers. This is what I do:with the "Numbers" program on Apple
Pseudo Name Adress Subject Feed/ Purch. Total Date Ship/Rcv Ship #1 Recv Ship #2 Recv Ship #3 Recv
Many sellers quit selling overseas when it became so expensive to legally mail the stamps. I now charge $11.00 for this service which is less expensive than the USPS. Unfortunately this price does not include tracking, so if the stamp is "lost in the mail", it is a very big loss as you have effectively paid this out twice. Once for the service and a second time for the refund. I also hate mailing to someone who has purchased 50 cents worth of stamps and pays $11.00 to ship it. I certainly wouldn't do it. I'm also considering eliminating overseas sales. They use to amount to about 15% of total sales. Now they are less than 5%.
You are also constantly responding to inquiries as to why you shipping cost is so high. Unfortunately many sellers continue to charge $2.00 for this service as they include the stamps in first class letter mail which is prohibited by the USPS. These sellers are either ignorant of the regulations or choose to ignore them.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/10/24/2017-22749/international-mailing-services-proposed-product-and-price-changes-cpi
I, also, just eliminated shipping Internationally for the reasons John has stated and the new VAT tax rule.
@John Eckhardt wrote, virtually verbatim, my own reply to your question.
@Scott Payton no, I have not heard of any legal prosecutions, but I have heard on multiple occasions about mail either being returned to the sender, or a postal clerk declining a piece of mail because it did not have the required service franking for international parcel.
It just seems to be one of those things with no teeth... I wouldn't get in a twist over it.
@Jeri Stathas Didn't then President Trump withdraw the US from the UPU? And what is the VAT tax rule? The US doesn't have a VAT.
Ah, found this interesting article:
https://time.com/5687134/trump-universal-postal-union-deal/
regarding the agreement with the UPU.
The last I had heard of it was that the US was exiting the UPU. But what is comical, the argument why the US wanted to exit is now what is making it very expensive for you in the US to send stuff out... well done.
As for the EU - each country has their own rules.
Scott, at my age I don't get into a twist about anything!!! But I do believe in following rules & regulations.
I'm all for following the rules and regulations as well. Not suggesting one should do otherwise. Just saying I understand it. I'm curious who this is really targeted at though... Amazon, AliBaba, Walmart?
And sales taxes are regressive tax, hurting those who can least afford it, but required on everything they buy.
I was stunned when I had heard UK VAT had reached 20%.