New Store subscriptions and fees

Gary Steele · July 2022

Does this make sense to drop # of listings from 100,000 to 10,000 and then charge more?

Currently, a Starter Store subscription allows for up to 100 listings, a Basic Store subscription allows for up to 10,000 listings, a Featured Store subscription allows for up to 100,000 listings, and a Premium Store subscription allows for up to 1,000,000 listings. 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.

I have written many at Hipstamp to show my displeasure.

Richard Olsen · July 2022

I'm with you Gary.

I have a Featured Store and am not going to pay more for a lot less. It looks like I will have to delete about 3,000 items to keep a Featured store or I could just close my store.

George DeKornfeld · July 2022

I'm so delighted I've spent the last few weeks loading French stamps into my Basic Store only to find I'll need to delete over 1700 listings only to pay more for the privilege. The market has slowed down considerably here lately because of summer and, of course, inflation, so what do these greedy bastards do? Raise our prices and give us LESS, under the guise of "These changes represent our only fee increase since January 2020 and are necessary for us to continue key programs that are currently helping our Sellers to increase their sales each month, which are now approaching $3 Million per month across Hip eCommerce." That's $3 MILLION in sales that WE create, so their cut amounts to around $300K per month or $3.6 MILLION per year. Not enough for you greed mongers?? I've been selling all along on eBay but never had a store there. Looks like its time to open one and transfer everything over. I can hear the sound of stores on HipStamp slamming their doors shut already. The greed is going to back-fire on these mercenary clowns big-time!

Steven Wilner · July 2022

I am not happy. "The End For Me May Be Near !" My store has about 5000 items at any one time. So I have been in a Basic store on a monthly basis since Hipstart started and I currently pay $9.95 a month. So with the # of items I have Basic will no longer be an option. The cost of a Featured store on a monthly basis will be $32.95. An increase of about 333% !! Even the annual new rate of a Featured store would be $26.95 a month. I could pay right now for a 12 month annual rate for a Basic store and be grandfathered in for a year but then I will be faced with the same situation a year for now. I am not sure what I will do at this point. My sales lately do not justify the rate increase. Steve

Rod Simmons · July 2022

I was just looking at the new fees...currently I have a Basic store with over 4000 listings. So I will get "upgraded" to the Featured store for a monthly increase from $9.95 to $26.95...almost TRIPLE the cost. I have about a week to either reduce my inventory by over 3,000 items, pay the increase, or quit the site...As of right now I plan on closing my store. I just cannot abide that kind of increase considering the current state of our economy. Also, like y'all, I got an email from HS that had NO information on a rate increase. If I hadn't clicked the link (which I usually don't do) I would have no idea there was a rate increase...kinda underhanded if you ask me (since there are quite a few that may never click the link to see the update).

I would register my complaint with HS, but after all of the issues over the last year that went ignored or discounted, I don't think they give a flying flip what sellers want.

George DeKornfeld · July 2022

Here's a breakdown of what a Basic Store is faced with...
Currently: $6.95/month for annual subscription, or $83.40/year, for 10,000 listings.
To maintain 10,000 listings, New fees require a Featured Store, at $26.95/month, or $323.40/year (an increase of $240 per year simply to maintain 10K in listings!).
Or...keep Basic Store at $9.95/month ($119.40/year), an increase of $36/year for 1/10th of the listings.

Clearly, this move was well thought out by management...

Steven Wilner · July 2022

Rod, You are in the same bracket as I am. I have been paying for the Basic store monthly for $9.95 and i have about 5000 listings. The change to a featured store to maintain my listings would be $32.95 a monthly basis not the $26.95 you mentioned because that is the annual rate if you pay for the 12 months in advance. I do not think I can justify the higher rate and ony having a 1000 items is just not enough. This is a mess for me !

Rod Simmons · July 2022

The buyers should also be very upset about this...the sellers who stay here will have to increase their prices in order to cover the extra cost.

I've already created a store-wide discount of 25% (listed in Promo forum) thru the 21st, then closing my store https://www.hipstamp.com/store/green-country-stamps

Rod Simmons · July 2022

It actually makes me sad to see. I was so excited to find this site a couple of years ago. Figured it would be a great way to get rid of 50 years of accumulated stamps and make some extra money to get more stamps for my collection. I knew it would take me a couple of years to really get established so I could then start buying auction lots and increase my store. But that fee increase makes that plan moot. It's really a shame.

John Eckhardt · July 2022

Rod based on the title of the email ... 2022 Summer Seller Update .... the buyers don't even know about this. They will only find out about it when they see a number of stores either closing or reducing their inventory with the total number of available stamps decreasing dramatically. IMO HipStamp will actually collect less revenue as a result of these changes. I believe a lot of premium stores will also close their stores as a result of the $240 annual increase in cost.

George DeKornfeld · July 2022

Interestingly, I just got a similar email from HipPostcard where I also have a Basic store. Here there is only mention of the fee increases (mirroring the ones we got from HipStamp), but there is NO mention of changing the amount of listings that will be available to each store level from what they currently are.
I guess HipPostCard isn't doing as well as HipStamp, so management isn't risking pissing off as many sellers there as here, but I bet they will still lose some stores there as well. Nothing like shooting oneself in one's foot....

George DeKornfeld · July 2022

John said: "Rod based on the title of the email ... 2022 Summer Seller Update .... the buyers don't even know about this."
Oh, Yeah? I don't know about the rest of you folks, but I participate in several philatelic message boards in addition to here. They're going to hear about this right about now!

David Peters · July 2022

I can assure Hipstamp that I will not be continuing on with my store subscription once it has expired.
Disgraceful
EVEN EBAY ARE NOT THIS GREEDY

Oliver Dziwoki · July 2022

Is this drastic increase in fees (greater than our national inflation rate,) a mean to chase away low volume sellers like me from Hipstamps?

Wayne Camolli · July 2022

Hipstamp (or is it ebay) seems intent on making money just to exist. Sit back and count the fees, the hell with sales.
I have already made the decision to close my store in October. Changed my store to yearly pay just for the hell of it to keep my item limit.
Maybe now I'll hang out till December and start posting again for a while...

Seems like Hipstamp is giving me the same reasons to bail out as ebay did 6 or 7 years ago.

Wayne Camolli · July 2022

AND you'll notice there was no good news for those who use the sync with ebay. Just blather.

Van Guno · July 2022

Hey everyone, thanks for your feedback.

If any seller has any concerns about our store subscription pricing, please reach out to our team directly at support@hipstamp.com as we may have options available to help you reduce your store subscription fees with us.

We'd be happy to take a look at your specific account and see how we can help.

George DeKornfeld · July 2022

Here's an option. You want to raise my Basic Store fees to $9.95/month, knock yerselves out, but ONLY if you don't screw with the number of listings allowed ie keep it at 10K !!!!!!!!!!!

Rod Simmons · July 2022

@Van Guno Why not specify here what those "options" are?

Michael Duehr · July 2022

Would someone be kind enough to post a copy of the 2022 Summer Seller Update? (I haven't gotten a copy of that email yet so...)

Thanks

George DeKornfeld · July 2022

https://www.hipstamp.com/p/2022-summer?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=email newsletter&utm_campaign=HipStamp Seller Update 20220711-as

Michael Duehr · July 2022

Thanks

Russ Romei · July 2022

I'm outta here with 10k items

Phil Atarium · July 2022

This is an extraordinary increase. It will cause me to rethink everything.

I've been here since at least 2005.

Russ Romei · July 2022

Just tried to get a sales report - NOT WORKING

Douglas Potter · July 2022

I have 4000+ items and have been a member of Hip since way back when. I have a yearly basic subscription. When they reduce the basic amount to 1,000 listings how are they going to determine which items get deleted or is that up to me? I wouldn't mind paying more but would like the number of listings kept at 10,000. Would have to close at the end of the subscription.

Jeri Stathas · July 2022

Let's see - Huge increase in store subscriptions and the IRS will now tax sales over $600.00 a year. Hardly a profitable venture anymore even with deductions. Good thing we have a whole 9 days to sort this out!! Almost forgot,, International sales pretty much out now. It was bad enough when USPS raised the rates but now countries are charging sellers VAT tax.

Dennis Jorgensen · July 2022

I doubt if anyone is happy about the increase in fees, but if a seller shuts down here. Where to go? Feebay? the boys in belgium? shopify? For Canadian members of the CSDA the CSDA site? Feebay is just as greedy if not more so, The Boys in belgium never prduced much in sales for me, and a shopify store was so so in sales. The CSDA site is free to members but advertising is minimal. Hip enterprises does do a lot of advertising and for me, produces more in sales than my own online advertising. There are other online sites but I have not heard anyone raving about their sales at them. I will grumble but carry on here. If I were approaching 10,000 items listed I would be faced with a larger increase but I don't seem to get above 5,000 much, and when I do sales bring the number of listings back down to under 5,000

George DeKornfeld · July 2022

This may not even be feasible, but if enough of us got together and divided the cost, what about starting our own platform? Clearly, I have no clue how much something like that would cost, but if enough of us were to pool our resources, perhaps this wouldn't be out of the question. Advertising could be done via any philatelic message boards we participate in, as well as any societies we belong to, along with FaceBook and the like. If we're going to get hosed with costs here, why not spend that money for something for ourselves? It could be set up as a Board, with a President, Treasurer, Secretary, etc with a membership, all equal partners. ....just brain-storming here...

David Lirette · July 2022

The forcing of the next level store at a much higher price in order to maintain my current listings is a deal breaker for me. Why would I pay more for a store here than what I pay on ebay for similar sized stores and much fewer sales? I have already created my reminder alarm to close the store on 7/19 since my subscription renews on 7/20 as I will not accept an increase from $25 to $100.

Jeri Stathas · July 2022

Russ is waiting for us, George

New Store subscriptions and fees

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