Rod for what site are you talking about that you can bulk load from your ebay store. I have in the past tried the Boys in Belgium, along with a couple of others based outside the US and found that there were little if any sales, probably due to the international postage rates. Even with that though probably 1/2 my Hip inventory is not in ebay It would still be a time consuming project, that might just take a year if I devote the time to converting 100 listings a week. The sticky point is listing cheap stamps on ebay. I could list them at a buck and offer free shipping. That will be test as I convert. If sales of cheaper material come through then come a year from now I too will be gone. I am very sure Mark calculated a percentage of lost revenue due to the increase and quite possibly factored that in when he came up with the new price. To totally close a store though means, I think, all listings are gone so if you wanted to come back, you are back to square one.
thats not true Scott - I assume you had issues there but it is the biggest and best. stats sales fee records are facts- generalizations -either yours or mine are not :-)
Whatever Jerry. In the year I've been here I've seen you open and close 3 stores in less than 10 months, complaining every time. We'll see you back again... with a new round of complaints.
John E Regarding your response to my comment that "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": It did not take me long to locate a Hipstamp seller with over 600 listings for used copies of USA Scott #1035e, the Statue of Liberty single that was probably among the first 100 stamps you owned. If you take time to look, you will find many other examples of this listing practice in Hipstamp stores. These are the kind of listing “Abuses” that I was addressing and I’m sure these sellers will be eliminating many of their duplicate listings to lower their listing count because of the new fees. Unfortunately, many other sellers with one-of listings will also have to reduce their inventory. Many of the stamps that disappear from the site will be of higher collectible quality than Scott 1035e. That is my concern
I'm not too sure where else to go. Someone mentioned Stamp Den. Looks pretty good but they only have 515 items under the United States Category. I just created a silver account where you get 1000 free. See how it goes. The good thing is that you can do a description search. Perhaps may become more viable due to this change. I currently have 14k+ stamps and have a bunch more to list. I find it mind boggling that the current Featured Store will go from 100k to 10k and being charge more. I could care less about the "Free" HipValue Subscription. The ebay sync does not work properly and can't do a description search which is really annoying.
I had a Shopify store for a few years, but no matter how I tried to get customers to shop there, it was very difficult. The other main problem I had was that there was no way to get the stamps to sort correctly. Because the Item Description was pure text, catalog number US 1000 would come up before catalog number US 2.
Is it possible to have 2 HipStamp Stores? This way I can get 20k for $53.90 per month. Something to think about.
I am currently subscribed at a BASIC level until 3/23. I have run my store with between 8500-9500 listings which is comfortable for me in terms of keeping an interesting amount of material on the shelves versus sales. To be honest I never thought that the newsletter feature or the extra listing capability was worth what they were charging for it and have felt very comfortable at the BASIC level.
My question is this... As an annual subscriber, can I extend my basic subscription out to 7/23 to delay the inevitable decision of whether to stay on the platform or not?
I used to sell on Ebay but abandoned that for a number of reasons... mostly the constant "tweaks" from the MBA types who tried to sell every seller position degradation as an "enhancement". Traffic is slower on HIP but it is also a more comfortable place for me to do business. I tried my own website for awhile but it is tough to attract traffic... not to mention managing numerous databases that don't always talk to each other(see EBay Sync for example).
I am not shocked by the announcement but am very surprised by the fact that it strikes in 2 places.... increased fees AND decreased listings. This is a tricky one that is going to require some serious thought. Moving 9500 items is not trivial. I am sure that that reality was part of HIP's decision process.
I first came to Hip as a buyer, then as a seller 6 years ago. I'm not sure about the cost differences between Hip and eBay. I just felt more at home here. After all the OWNER of the company took an active part in the forums and was helpful. Haven't seen him lately (probably counting his money...) I am leaving Hip, not because of the the fee increase and matching listing decrease, but because I am just getting too old for all this. I don't know what I would do if I weren't "retiring", probably leave too. It's sad when money gets in the way of good old fashioned business. If this is the new normal for these guys, I'm glad I'm old.
HipStamp is rapidly going down the tubes. They recently changed their website so that users can no longer select seeing all auction items together. You have to search for a country or area. This makes it almost useless to worldwide collectors or sellers. My sales have dropped off substantially as soon as they made this change. I'm exploring other sites (Delcampe) and dropping my store here. I've told them and they don't care.
My 1968 yearbook from Syracuse University showed a carnival exit on the next to the last page. On it were the words "It's been nice having you". The next page had the words "It's been nice being had". Thanks Hipstamp.
Is Mark even part of HipStamp anymore?. Before he would weigh in on the Forums about these things, but I haven't seen anything on the Forums from him in quite awhile.
My thinking (and I'm rather ignorant in the field of business finance) is that, with multiple rounds of outside capital investment, Hip had to give up some financial control. Investors want to see a certain return on their capital, and they could be the ones pulling the strings on these changes.
All of my paypal transactions for ebay, go through ebay with a transaction id. Looks like ebay is guarding identities. Nothing like limiting contact between the parties at every turn. Must be part of the managed payment system.
Think you nailed it George - lots of hungry mouths to feed. At least we all know who we are now dealing with. this is not like the silent partner in your local gin mill - these people want results regardless of cost. If there was ever any doubt about where Hip is headed there is no more - we all need a plan B.
Dennis, my bad. I recall, now, the last time I did business on ebay, I couldn't contact a customer even by looking at the PayPal transaction. That was a major reason I quit for good and won't go back. How is a dealer supposed to nurture a customer relationship?
I just got an email response from support. They have decided NOT to change the item levels for the Tiers of Basic and Featured. Basic will remain at 10,000 items and Featured 100,000. Looks like enough of us have complained about that part of the change. So in my case I will remain as Basic. The monthly and annual rate still goes up but I can decide now to switch to an annual payment and hold the current rate for a year. Next year at least I will be able to stay at the Basic level and I can decide to renew for another annual year or go back to monthly. I can handle the rate increase so long as I can remain basic with no more than 5000 items most of the time... Steve
Comments
I can only say to those who have grand plans to run off to eBay... don't expect any better there.
The grass is always greener...
Change is a funny thing. You can embrace it or you can resist it, but you can't stop it.
We'll see you back again... with a new round of complaints.
Regarding your response to my comment that "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":
It did not take me long to locate a Hipstamp seller with over 600 listings for used copies of USA Scott #1035e, the Statue of Liberty single that was probably among the first 100 stamps you owned. If you take time to look, you will find many other examples of this listing practice in Hipstamp stores. These are the kind of listing “Abuses” that I was addressing and I’m sure these sellers will be eliminating many of their duplicate listings to lower their listing count because of the new fees. Unfortunately, many other sellers with one-of listings will also have to reduce their inventory. Many of the stamps that disappear from the site will be of higher collectible quality than Scott 1035e. That is my concern
I had a Shopify store for a few years, but no matter how I tried to get customers to shop there, it was very difficult. The other main problem I had was that there was no way to get the stamps to sort correctly. Because the Item Description was pure text, catalog number US 1000 would come up before catalog number US 2.
Is it possible to have 2 HipStamp Stores? This way I can get 20k for $53.90 per month. Something to think about.
My question is this... As an annual subscriber, can I extend my basic subscription out to 7/23 to delay the inevitable decision of whether to stay on the platform or not?
I used to sell on Ebay but abandoned that for a number of reasons... mostly the constant "tweaks" from the MBA types who tried to sell every seller position degradation as an "enhancement". Traffic is slower on HIP but it is also a more comfortable place for me to do business. I tried my own website for awhile but it is tough to attract traffic... not to mention managing numerous databases that don't always talk to each other(see EBay Sync for example).
I am not shocked by the announcement but am very surprised by the fact that it strikes in 2 places.... increased fees AND decreased listings. This is a tricky one that is going to require some serious thought. Moving 9500 items is not trivial. I am sure that that reality was part of HIP's decision process.
Bob
I am leaving Hip, not because of the the fee increase and matching listing decrease, but because I am just getting too old for all this. I don't know what I would do if I weren't "retiring", probably leave too.
It's sad when money gets in the way of good old fashioned business. If this is the new normal for these guys, I'm glad I'm old.
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/hip-ecommerce
https://wraltechwire.com/2022/03/23/startup-hip-ecommerce-collects-1m-is-hiring-to-expand-market-for-collectibles/
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1736010/000173601022000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml
Thanks for the expose -
Bentley? You there?
Thanks,
Bob
Bentley, the Great and Wise Cat
Robert Duvall, and every store owner that complained to management (Bravo)