Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
8582 Lots today, the largest number of Lots for months!
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Impressive number Ian. But (yes there is a but) do you have an idea how many items have been relisted at infinitum, store like! (but we have no stores here at SOR 
Now I bet you the number of items re-listed for no more than 3 times, per SOR rule (once, but I think the rule is gone) is much, much less impressive. If sellers are allowed infinite reposting then WHY NOT ALLOW STORES, and remove the "New item label" issue that fakes buyers in thinking that an item is truly New, when in fact it has been here again and again? Some sellers are forced to add "ACTUALLY NEW ITEM" on their listings to clarify this.
It may be time to re-open this Store concept. We have stores, even if we don't call them stores, and formally allowing them simplifies the Auction platform. (this could be its own subject for discussion)
If we still don't want stores (why?), I know we cannot police the sellers, but maybe we can institute a penalty rule to deter to them, and some members may then be more inclined to report abuses. And letting the moderator decide what to do, without having to review every item listed! 
rrr...
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04:25:06pm
I think I suggested once before that genuinely new items have a red "new" and repeated new items have the typical yellow "new". This should be possible with very little change to the program.
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rrraphy:- I'll respond to your points later as its 9pm here and "she who thinks she must be obeyed" demands my company. (It must be my great wit and repartee?)
Harvey:- the difficulty as I see it is "What is New?"
One could always have New in red or yellow or green or blue (sounds like a line from a song) but there is a simple way round it.
All the seller has to do is physically list the item again or using the Bulk Uploader, within the hour or several days later. As long as the seller doesn't use the relisting system you cannot determine what is "New".
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05:14:45pm
I guess since I don't sell on SOR I thought differentiating actual new items would be easier - my ignorance is showing, I guess! It would be great if we could have a way of showing the actual items that are not being repeated!
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"if we could have a way of showing the actual items that are not being repeated! "
Some of the other platforms do not have a way to differentiate what is "New".
Stamporama has many, many, many ways to seek out stamps. You can look for items by:-
Country, Keyword, Category, Seller, Closing Soon or "New" Items.
You can even list your favourite countries, categories and sellers.
How difficult is it to find something?
At the moment by country:-
Poland has 24 Items for sale,
Russia has 127 items for sale,
Canada has 190 items for sale,
Germany has 194 Items for sale,
The largest Items for sale are from Denmark at 422.
There are many countries that haven't even reached double digits!
What more do you want?
In this world of "I want it and I want it now" I hate to say this but "the universe goes on its merry way and you or I are not the centre of it"
I have said this in the past and I'll say it again:-
"Take the time to learn the system and you'll find out what it can do for you."
No system is perfect, one has to make adjustments when using any system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krxU5Y9l ...
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rrraphy:-
To make "Stores" official would involve Tim in needless work for no apparent reason and the server would get clogged up.
The problem with "Stores" is that once an item is listed in a "Store" it can sit there for days, weeks, months and even years. Just look at Hipstamp, Delcampe ebid etc etc etc.
If the sellers of these "Stores" had to physically Relist them every few weeks their inventory would decrease. (No bad thing as they clog up the systems) Would you look through a sellers 10,000 items. Of course not!
The reason that sellers relist 3 or 4 times or more is that the buyers on this site are few and far between and human!
I have seen on numerous occasions that a buyer WILL ignore the first time an item is listed, WILL ignore the second time an item is listed and may well buy it the seventh time it is listed.
Due to the lack of buyers here a seller has to try and catch the eye of potential buyers and you have said so in the past "I don't like to bid on something that is lasting for more than seven days" so the seller has to relist, relist, relist and relist just to keep their items visual. What is the point of listing an item for 3 x 14 days when you can do 6 x 7 days. Visibility of an item in 3 x 14 days in the New items and closing in 24hrs is 6 days while in the 6 x 7 days is 12 days. (Normally an item sells or is bid on here in the first 24 hours or the last 24 hours of listing)
You then have the weird system whereby you can list in the Approvals 120 stamps at 9cents of a particular country say Switzerland and then list 10 or 20 sets of Switzerland in the Auctions and you sell half or more of the Approvals but not one of the sets in the Auction.
It all comes down to a lack of members here in Stamporama. One day last week I was the only person logged on to the system yet it said 56 visitors. (I felt lonely!)
There is another way rather than "Stores" and that is using the Approval System. You fill your book, you list it and there it is up there for days, weeks even.
The main drawback with this system is again the lack of buyers and the fact most books are never looked at by any/many after the first week. Thus 10,000's of stamps are sitting in the Approval Book system not being looked at. There again they clog up the system.
Why? Insufficient buyers and the "All the best stamps have gone" mentality.
You might have guessed by now that I don't care for "Stores" but if the members want it then "Bring It On" and my heartfelt sorrow for Tim.
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Ian:
" I'll respond to your points later as its 9pm here and "she who thinks she must be obeyed" demands my company."
and thou must pretend to obey as you well know!
Ian: On the subject of listing "stores"
An approval book is in some ways a store, with special rules.
An auction that relists again and again is also a store.
Our strong aversion to "store" is strictly semantics. A store can have a limited posting rule!
You and others often mention not enough members, but I have consistently sold 40% to 50% of what I listed on Auctions or Approvals. What other platform does so well, within a limited time window? And it is virtually free (save your annual membership, now), for buyers and sellers, and without shipping overcharges typical of commercial sites. What more do you need?
I think you may be overestimating the ability of any platform to move any and all items.
For my part, I can vouch that when something I listed does not sell well, it may well be because (1) I listed it for completeness, but I seldom expected it to sell, or it is an area few members collect (2).
We are in a club, and these listings help members with specific holes, or allow some others to start collecting a new area with a quick filling of common stamps.
It is rare that many of the very common stamps will sell routinely. So when I say that I seem to sell in the 40-50% range, I bet you it is much higher, if one excludes the obvious very common stamps, that most collectors already have. As a general remark, cutting prices has seldom been the determining factor, and most listings here are very reasonable.
Collectors like me work in spurts, this week on a certain country, next week on something else. Your matching my semi random needs with what you offer (time constrained by platform limits) is impossible. Having the items in a "store" when I need them is just a better way of matching my demand and your supply.
And I won't waste time looking at the daily listings of so called "new" items that have been listed as "new" for the past year!
I am not bothered by the re-listing. I am by the inability to separate truly "new" items from "store" items relisted in various ways. Seems to me, this is what needs to be improved somewhat, from a buyer standpoint. When I select items listed today, I would really like to just see the new items listed for the first time today. Then it makes sense to check daily on the additional items that are available.
rrr...
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"You and others often mention not enough members, but I have consistently sold 40% to 50% of what I listed on Auctions or Approvals. "
Yes we can all determine percentages we sell.
I do not expect everything to sell at once if not sooner.
Increasing the number of items for sale in the auctions is giving members a larger choice of stamps.
As for New items, ignore the New Items section and go straight to the countries section. It is a lot faster going through 10, 20, 50, 100 items than 500 or 800 in the new items. Like a lot of things in this world one must put in the work to get the best use out of the system. Nothing is handed to you on a plate.
Yes there is a lack of members
Over the past week there has never been more than 25 members signed into the system at any one time. Yes a miserable 25. At times it has been a lot less with the average of 14.
Members must be logged in to purchase from the Auctions or Approvals. No members, no purchases!
We must try and increase membership otherwise there will be "diminishing returns".
Yes we are a club. We are a club for all, not specific individuals like other "clubs".
The Auctions and Approvals are only part of the club and here I am going to raise the hoary old chestnut that we are "run" by volunteers and adding a Store system to the club would give a heck of an amount of work for Tim for what benefit? That a couple of folkies can't find a way round the word "New".
My final words on the matter.
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I have noticed the large number of auctions as well - and personally I think it changes how many times an auction lot gets viewed, especially if it is more than a day or two old. I think the easy fix is to display the number of times a lot has been relisted. This could possibly be done because if the system was counting how many times it saw the same listing before (up to 3) perhaps that number could be changed to a max of say 15. After that a 15 is always displayed. The field could then be sorted and true new items would be shown first. Tim of course would know better if this is possible
Greg
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The large bump in auction listings was the result of one member listing almost 4,000 lots last Saturday. The lots all end on this Saturday. He has sold around 1,000 items thus far. He posted about it in the classified ads section.
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So the Auction figures were skewed by one seller selling off a few thousand dirt cheap stamps that maybe should have gone in the Approvals, But as the Bulk Uploader is only for auctions not Approvals.
Give the seller a coconut for finding a brilliant way to "dump" (a marketing term) his old stock.
We have a saying in Old Caledonia "Gaun yersel' Son, Pure Dead Brilliant By The Way!"
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"My final words on the matter."
....or not.
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At the time that was my intention however when new interesting information is revealed one just has to comment.
The deafening silence on certain points I made is extremely noteworthy and worth breaking one's word.
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Limiting the number of times an item can be listed or relisted does not seem to be the way to go. Take the Austrian Bird airmails I have listed over the years. (See example below). I have sold over 20 of them in a 3 year stretch. Yes. It took multiple listings to get an occasional sale. But they did sell. Limiting the number of listings to 3 would have deprived me of a sale, and the buyer the chance to to place a desirable stamp in his/her collection.
Larry
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To me. running a store via auction, and thousands of listings with the same BIN as the starting price is indeed a store, it is just too time consuming. Perhaps you need not list every image week after week, but if so, 2000 images a week takes some time. I can see it working to the sellers advantage though to do that here rather than Hipstamp. The only reason I would not is the exposure problem and, in theory everything listed here is NOT supposed to be listed elsewhere. At least that was one of the rules when I came on board. That being said, to have stock that size for exclusive sale here is tying up an awful lot of stamps to be viewed by a handful of people. Now if that rule is NOT part of the rules anymore, that might change things for me going forward. I could easily enter all my old Hipstock that has been in the store for at least 5-7 years and relist it on a 14 day basis, and skip auctions here all together. Auctions take me about 4-5 hours a week. In the long run, it might take less time as all that would need to be done every week is an image upload - and I would have 2000-3000 listings.I will have to try to find a ruling on this matter
I see rule C5 is still in effect, though I imagine if you sell under a different name someplace else there would be no way to know
Greg
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" I could easily enter all my old Hipstock that has been in the store for at least 5-7 years and relist it on a 14 day basis"
AHHH! rrraphy!
Did I not say:-
"The problem with "Stores" is that once an item is listed in a "Store" it can sit there for days, weeks, months and even years."
Be careful what you wish for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQHmWvPs ...
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Greg,
If the same item is offered for sale in more than one store, won't that create a problem when an item is sold in one store, but still shows as available in another store?
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Not at all, at least for me. Currently I have some same stamps listed both in Hipstamp and ebay, and if one sells in either place, I just go to the one hat it is still listed in and cancel it out of my store. It has never happened that the same stamp sold in both places on the same day. Why SOR does not permit listing elsewhere I do not know. Currently I have a couple of buyers, and I know other sellers do as well, that buy from their Hipstore and have the purchases added to their SOR invoice. They get a discount, at least from me, because I am not paying Hip for the sale. They also save on the extra postage they would pay had they purchased the stamps out of my Hipstamp store. Its a manual checking to be sure, but its not like I sell hundreds of stamps a day across all my sites.
I have to think that this rule came about because a person purchased an item and the seller could not find it, and probably admitted it sold out of their store, though the only way I could see that happening is at auction, and why even then would be a mystery. To list it you need to scan it. Unless they were listing things at auction and the stamp sold during that period. Me, I would simply tell that buyer I could not locate it and refund their money in the event that the stamp did sell at auction. But that's just my way of doing things. Someone else might just honor the elsewhere sale because it brought in more money.
If the rule was dropped here, I might consider what is being called an auction store, with a very slow implementation. It would have to be cost effective, and maybe I could add 50 lots a week until I got to around 1000. Maybe not. I have a lot of old listings on Hip going back to 2005 or so that I am pretty sure will never be sold. Most of my Hip sales are for things listed over the past couple of years where I have added an accept best offer flag. I would have to do that for those old Hip listings, along with adjusting the price upwards to account for it. It's all a matter of how many sales would the auction store get on a weekly basis due to the number of buyers here on SOR compared to going through 50 old listings in Hip and altering the information.
Greg
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"Why SOR does not permit listing elsewhere I do not know."
Having read the huge number of complaints about how some of our folk handle their auctions, and with experience as auctioneer that makes some of those comments pale, i can just imagine the difficulties we would have were we to allow that. Some of you could pull it off, most likely, but.....
We also have the rule that any stamp on our platform must also be in your possession; that can't be true the second it's sold elsewhere.
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I have been following this thread although I have rarely sold here via Auctions - I thouhgt I just share my opinion . Like Greg said - I have several buyers here whom also shop my store on Hipstamp. The majority of the stamps on Hipstamp are higher catalog valued stamps than the majority of my approval books here. So a buyer here goes thru my approval books and let's me know they see some stamps on Hip that they also would like - so I manually pull them for them and add them to the SOR invoice under other charges. They avoild a duplicate shipping charge and I often give them a discount on the items that are from Hip since I avoid the fees over there - so I pass those savings to the buyer..
For me - it would take too long to put up many of these stamps in auctions with BIN options and I would try to do some but the selling on 2 places rule stops me from doing that. I would try some on auction at a lower price than what I have them listed in Hip - again due to the fees on Hip. I have tried higher dollar approval books but although I have some occasional success with them - the last two attempts yielded nothing. It was alot of work to put these books together and hold those stamps off of putting them on Hip until the book was taken down to avoid the selling them in two places rule. It would be easy to put some of the stamps up on auction here at the same time I post them in Hip - since i Have the stamp image ready to go and I could do them at the same time.
Steve
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"We also have the rule that any stamp on our platform must also be in your possession; that can't be true the second it's sold elsewhere."
No doubt many who sell on Hip sell on ebay, and at times either may be not found due to not correctly checking. However the stamp is ALWAYS in the possession of the seller, so if the rule was dropped and I got into cross listing hip/SOR, SOR would get preference. These days on ebay and Hip, I believe people want to make offers and don't want to buy at full price. Of 100 sales on Hip for me anyway, 95-99 of them are for items that have best offers allowed. The likelihood of a stamp selling here and on the exact same day there is almost impossible. Again, I don;t really have the time to get into cross listing here and Hip, as I do not really think it would be cost effective. My guess is that these days with so many auctions, people are looking at the new auctions right away, and then they are done with them. I also think that once an auction goes off the new status, it will get minimum if any looks. To put up 1000 auctions to have them viewed for one day, is hardly worth the effort. Others might think differently. I saw that with my Monday night auctions. They would rotate for 7 weeks and the first week more than half the new listings would sell, and over the course of the 7 week period, 90% would sell. It dropped to 10-20% and less than 50% in 7 weeks, which is why I ended them.
Steve I switched the way I list here auction wise from one at a time to a spreadsheet, because I had a week where of my 100+ listings, I sold 13 cents worth, or 13 of the penny listings. With a spreadsheet upload, you can easily take the unsold listings, change the column headings, do a wee bit of tinkering, and upload the who thing to Hipstamp. With auctions in a good week running 50% (primarily due to penny auctions selling for a penny) it makes sense to do work for one site that can be carried over elsewhere. Only drawback here on the spreadsheet is looking up all the country codes. I have thought about dumping everything into one code, but I don't know if that would hurt the exposure, not knowing how people pull up my listings. I am going to look carefully at my view count come tomorrow afternoon (auctions start tonight) and compare it to next Monday afternoon and see if my theory about greatly reduced looks holds water.
I suspect more and more people are going to be running "auction stores". The spreadsheet is quite easy to work with and if you know a little bit about finding something in Excel, then when an item is sold, the entry is simply removed. My guess is that all the images get uploaded every week to correspond with the spreadsheet as you can't take a chance that the image isn't going to be there. That being said the time consuming process would be to pick and choose which images to upload. People will simply just upload everything every week. Much easier to do and a lot quicker as well. I did a pick and choose with my Monday night auctions, and the most I ever had to work with was about 130 or so. That took a lot longer than I wanted it to. I cannot imagine doing it that way for 1000 or more images.
It will be interesting to see if people who do not upload hundreds or thousands of listings report diminished sales.
Greg
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"AHHH! rrraphy!
Did I not say:-
"The problem with "Stores" is that once an item is listed in a "Store" it can sit there for days, weeks, months and even years."
Be careful what you wish for.
"
AHHH! Ian!
But WE HAVE stores, even if we call them something else. Semantics does not solve a problem.
Just like the NEW problem is not solved by labeling it "Item listed in the Last 24 hours". (although it does clarify the meaning of the abbreviated NEW icon). But it does not tell a buyer what the truly newly listed items are?
And with a store with items static, (not relisted again and again), "New" will regain some of initial intent.
I think the biggest issue none has touched upon is our STORAGE COST, as a Club with limited financial ressources.
This may trump all decisions, including the relisting by some of the same items again and again.
rrr...
PS: By the way, the Club could set a limit to the number of items listed in a store, or listed in Auction at any one time. To make a parallel, in Approval we have set a limit to the time books are stored and available.
With all these caveats, stores could be generating some revenues. We should see the need for any revenues at the end of our first year as a on-line Club with a small fee paying our bills.
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"I think the biggest issue none has touched upon is our STORAGE COST, as a Club with limited financial ressources.
This may trump all decisions, including the relisting by some of the same items again and again."
I said this earlier:-
" and the server would get clogged up."
rrraphy said:-
"With all these caveats, stores could be generating some revenues. We should see the need for any revenues at the end of our first year as a on-line Club with a small fee paying our bills."
Be careful with the regards to "revenues from Stores".
It is my understanding that "revenues" other than membership subscriptions may lead to extremely arduous more work for the "volunteers" to produce statistics especially those that would then be required for the I.R.S.!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQHmWvPs ...
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in discussing the change to a membership fee, we ruled out any kind of sale or listing fees.
if we had an accounting department, it might work
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"Be careful with the regards to "revenues from Stores".
It is my understanding that "revenues" other than membership subscriptions may lead to extremely arduous more work for the "volunteers" to produce statistics especially those that would then be required for the I.R.S.!
"
Nonsense.
We charge a membership fee.
We charge extra (flat fee) for those who sell here.
We could charge extra (flat fee) for those who maintain a store.
How complicated is that?
The store size could be capped, based on our Paid Storage limits.
Just saying, it does not have to be complicated, and every new idea does not have to be rejected. Let us not forget what was intended here. To prevent bulk listers from listing again and again...and again the same items, which get the "New" icon attached. This was a problem identified here.
rrr...
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"To prevent bulk listers from listing again and again...and again the same items, which get the "New" icon attached. This was a problem identified here."
As long as there is a bulk uploader you will not be able to stop this "New" problem. As long as there is a re-list system you will not be able to stop re-listing multiple times.
What do you do if nobody takes up the offer of a "Store" due to the extra charge?
Still doesn't fix the "New" problem.
What about those that continue relisting only small amounts and don't want a Store?
It still won't fix the "New" problem.
To be honest I do not see this obsession with "New".
The word "New" only stays on the item for 24 hours as far as I can see. As most of us are in our beddy-byes for 6-8 hours the "New" sign is only visible for 16 - 18 hours for each member.
Besides it is not as if there are tens of thousands of stamps in the auctions.
I suggest that there are other ways on the system to find what one is looking for without requiring software modifications or charging members extra.
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"and every new idea does not have to be rejected. "
i seem to recall a rather massive idea being accepted and implemented with the guy who suggested it given essentially operational control
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"I do not see this obsession with "New"."
what was new is now old, very very very very old
Maybe it's time to retire this old biddy
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Ya know.. I think Stamporama needs to decide what it wants to be! My vote? Let’s concentrate on the message boards and communication.
There are already enough sales venues out there, so there’s no real reason to pursue the sales thing. It’s been exploited already since we’re giving away Tim’s work for free. If we cancelled it tomorrow the exploiters would be the first to complain! Let them pay for the other venues.
I originally listed stuff, both auction and approvals. I sold a few things, and competed against the sellers that were giving stuff away. And there are the clueless with the ten auctions at 4 cents each, with a dollar minimum order!
I started listing the same covers that never sold on this venue for a quarter, on eBay for a dollar or two. Lots of it sold! I started back in August and now have 1100 items in my store.
There are covers I listed back in August that suddenly sell today! I find some of those get sent back to their original town or state. They were sitting there 6 months just waiting for someone to do that search. That buyer doesn’t care if he’s paying $2.99 plus $1 postage. We don’t have that buyer here. Same cover was in my approval book for a full tour here for a quarter!
It’s worth my time to list stuff on eBay. It sells and it’s interesting to see who buys it and why. The folks who complain about the fees on sales they couldn’t have otherwise generated, just don’t understand how business works!
An example.. a model car guy lists a kit for $99 on eBay. It sells for $200. Guy is posting on the model car equivalent of Stamporama that eBay is robbing him because they charged him $22 for that sale.
Without eBay he wouldn’t taken that same kit to a show marked $99. He would’ve paid for gas to get to the show. Possibly a motel room. Definitely $50 for a vendor table. A customer would offer him $75 and they’d settle for $80 and he’d be happy!
But on eBay he got $200 with a net of $178. And add still he’s complaining that they’ve robbed him!
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"My vote? Let’s concentrate on the message boards and communication."
I whole-heartedly agree.
The sales platform is a great and fun addition...but the mainstay of SOR is the club as A STAMP CLUB.
Stamp clubs are for collectors to learn and share and interact with one another. Members sometimes sell or trade amongst themselves, yes.
But that's not the main focus or intent....here included.
We were meant to be a club first.
Selling is - and should remain - secondary.
No disrespect to those who primarily sell here, but that is the way this was originally intended.
I strongly believe it should remain as such.
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"We were meant to be a club first.
Selling is - and should remain - secondary.
"
This may feel strange coming from me but I agree.
I have learned a lot since joining stamporama about various topics and other branches of our hobby.
Yes I SELL and BUY.
I find that the systems in use are workable.
Any change to the systems I ask for I always keep in mind that any change should cause the minimum amount of work for Tim as possible. If I feel that any change would be too complex then that change would not be asked for. (Remember Tim has his own collection to look after.)
The systems have evolved over time and try to meet members needs as best they can with the minimum amount of supervision by the volunteers. (Remember they have to look after their own collections.)
Just take time for this thought....."What would you do if Stamporama wasn't here?"
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What?!?
You agree with me, Ian?!?
Just a tease here.....
But I agree with YOU as well.
As much as we all appreciate the selling platforms that the powers-that-be have installed into our club website, it remains a "club website".
And as Ian has said, the systems ARE workable as they are.
After all, I do try to avoid 'political complexity' as it were.....
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09:46:12am
"Ya know.. I think Stamporama needs to decide what it wants to be! My vote? Let’s concentrate on the message boards and communication."
"As much as we all appreciate the selling platforms that the powers-that-be have installed into our club website, it remains a "club website"."
"No disrespect to those who primarily sell here, but that is the way this was originally intended. I strongly believe it should remain as such."
Roy
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07:05:13am
Over the last almost sixty years, I have always been impressed
by the generally simple honesty of most dealers and fellow
collectors, and especially among those with whom I choose to
associate.
In the general world, I might expect a certain degree of
dishonesty, but not within the honor bound members of a
stamp club.
So I am somewhat shocked by the distinct odor of mendacity
I see, with a few members almost bragging about it, in
several of the comments I have been reading in this thread.
Is Hipstamp not run by a person who expects to earn a profit ?
I assume so, from the descriptions I've read.
If there is a fee earned there, but the buyer's purchase is
switched here to avoid that fee, there is a word for that.
Cheating.
If a member cheats there, what will prevent further cheating here?
The shocking part is the open admission of the cheating scheme.
Yes, therein reeks the distinct odor of mendacity.
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Aye Charlie.
I am not making excuses but members of Stamporama are what we call Humans.
In any group of Humans you will always find those that will push the bounderies to the limits and even beyond.
This discussion thread opened up a few questions with regards to what is appearing in the auctions and how often items appear, who lists the most items, for how long and what percentage of the members sell and what percentage of members buy.
Perception can be totally wrong and wide of the mark. I once had a Sales Team telling me that "they were contstantly being asked for a product that we did not manufacture and we should manufacture it". Once proper research was done it turned out that they were only being asked "once in a blue moon" not "constantly".
My feeling is that the answers to these questions will fall into the old 80/20 rule but I will "do the math" over the next few weeks to find out.
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09:04:26am
" .... In any group of Humans you will always find those that will push the bounderies to the limits and even beyond. ...."
A fact of which, I have no doubt. It is the open, almost bragging attitude, that I find most unfortunate.
And the almost complete silent acceptance as normal for a stamp club.
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"It is the open, almost bragging attitude, that I find most unfortunate."
Thankfully they are few and far between. The vast majority of members are honest upstanding citizens.
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10:18:44am
" .... are honest upstanding citizens..."
I'd say, "Honest to a fault".
In fact, I've said exactly that to non-stamp friends and family.
That is why petty cheating is so annoying.
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"That is why petty cheating is so annoying."
Looking at this with facts.
There is NO rule that limits re-listing.
We do have a Bulk Upload system so folkies can and do use it.
Using today as an example:-
There are 5308 individual items listed in the Auctions. There are 7984 items listed in all the categories an increase of 50% which means some items are placed in multiple categories.
There is NO rule against listing in multiple categories.
This is sensible as eg one can list say a Nigeria stamp in "Africa" and "British Commonwealth". Where it is not sensible is automatically listing every item in the Topicals Category without putting what the Topic is in the title or description.
Todays figures reveal that 30 Members have listed 5308 items available for sale in the Auctions of which:-
15 members have 1 to 50 Items listed.......50%
2 members have 51 to 100 Items listed........7%
4 members have 101 to 150 Items listed.......14%
1 members have 151 to 200 Items listed.........3%
5 members have 201 to 300 Items listed........17%
1 members have 301 to 500 Items listed.........3%
1 members have 501 to 1000 Items listed.......3%
0 members have 1000 to 1500 Items listed.......0%
1 members have 1500 to 2000 Items listed.......3%
The main conclusion shows that the majority of members are below the 300 items listed and only 9% are over 300 items listed.
If the 9% are "limited" in anyway (say to 300) then the 5308 items listed would reduce down to 3300 (approx) items thus reducing choice to the other members.
It may be an idea to look at what could be done with the Topicals Category as it has some 2100 items in that category alone. I know I never look at it due to the high numbers and it is such a hotch-potch.
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""That is why petty cheating is so annoying.""
Dishonesty is not a one time thing, it's a way of life. There are schemers and most of them aren't all that smart, Ralph Kramden schemes!
Earlier this year I was on the board of an event to be held in Philadelphia. At this time the city had mandated strict guidelines.. vaccine cards and masks for public events, even restaurants. The venue told us we'd be responsible for compliance.
We had a meeting to discuss the feasibility of holding the event. Enter the Schemer.. his suggestion? WE manufacture and give all attendees fake vaccination cards, and once everyone was inside we lock the doors so law enforcement wouldn't see that nobody was wearing masks!
I was floored! That was the final straw! We agreed NOT to hold the event this year. A thoughtless Schemer casually telling us to commit multiple felonies! Amazing!
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This is not unusual. They have always been around and will continue. They do not see it as wrong. It explains a lot about what we see.
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To Tom... I have to reply to your post... Ralph Kramden may have been a "get rich quick" schemer, but he never made dishonest schemes... just dumb ones! Gotta love him...
Paul
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"To Tom... I have to reply to your post... Ralph Kramden may have been a "get rich quick" schemer, but he never made dishonest schemes... just dumb ones! Gotta love him..."
Agreed! My sister's husband is a Kramden!
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07:01:27am
Approvals
Nice to see that the largest number of Auction Lots available.
8582 Lots today, the largest number of Lots for months!
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
Impressive number Ian. But (yes there is a but) do you have an idea how many items have been relisted at infinitum, store like! (but we have no stores here at SOR
Now I bet you the number of items re-listed for no more than 3 times, per SOR rule (once, but I think the rule is gone) is much, much less impressive. If sellers are allowed infinite reposting then WHY NOT ALLOW STORES, and remove the "New item label" issue that fakes buyers in thinking that an item is truly New, when in fact it has been here again and again? Some sellers are forced to add "ACTUALLY NEW ITEM" on their listings to clarify this.
It may be time to re-open this Store concept. We have stores, even if we don't call them stores, and formally allowing them simplifies the Auction platform. (this could be its own subject for discussion)
If we still don't want stores (why?), I know we cannot police the sellers, but maybe we can institute a penalty rule to deter to them, and some members may then be more inclined to report abuses. And letting the moderator decide what to do, without having to review every item listed!
rrr...
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
14 Mar 2022
04:25:06pm
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
I think I suggested once before that genuinely new items have a red "new" and repeated new items have the typical yellow "new". This should be possible with very little change to the program.
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05:04:42pm
Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
rrraphy:- I'll respond to your points later as its 9pm here and "she who thinks she must be obeyed" demands my company. (It must be my great wit and repartee?)
Harvey:- the difficulty as I see it is "What is New?"
One could always have New in red or yellow or green or blue (sounds like a line from a song) but there is a simple way round it.
All the seller has to do is physically list the item again or using the Bulk Uploader, within the hour or several days later. As long as the seller doesn't use the relisting system you cannot determine what is "New".
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
14 Mar 2022
05:14:45pm
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
I guess since I don't sell on SOR I thought differentiating actual new items would be easier - my ignorance is showing, I guess! It would be great if we could have a way of showing the actual items that are not being repeated!
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07:16:14pm
Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"if we could have a way of showing the actual items that are not being repeated! "
Some of the other platforms do not have a way to differentiate what is "New".
Stamporama has many, many, many ways to seek out stamps. You can look for items by:-
Country, Keyword, Category, Seller, Closing Soon or "New" Items.
You can even list your favourite countries, categories and sellers.
How difficult is it to find something?
At the moment by country:-
Poland has 24 Items for sale,
Russia has 127 items for sale,
Canada has 190 items for sale,
Germany has 194 Items for sale,
The largest Items for sale are from Denmark at 422.
There are many countries that haven't even reached double digits!
What more do you want?
In this world of "I want it and I want it now" I hate to say this but "the universe goes on its merry way and you or I are not the centre of it"
I have said this in the past and I'll say it again:-
"Take the time to learn the system and you'll find out what it can do for you."
No system is perfect, one has to make adjustments when using any system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krxU5Y9l ...
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07:58:14pm
Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
rrraphy:-
To make "Stores" official would involve Tim in needless work for no apparent reason and the server would get clogged up.
The problem with "Stores" is that once an item is listed in a "Store" it can sit there for days, weeks, months and even years. Just look at Hipstamp, Delcampe ebid etc etc etc.
If the sellers of these "Stores" had to physically Relist them every few weeks their inventory would decrease. (No bad thing as they clog up the systems) Would you look through a sellers 10,000 items. Of course not!
The reason that sellers relist 3 or 4 times or more is that the buyers on this site are few and far between and human!
I have seen on numerous occasions that a buyer WILL ignore the first time an item is listed, WILL ignore the second time an item is listed and may well buy it the seventh time it is listed.
Due to the lack of buyers here a seller has to try and catch the eye of potential buyers and you have said so in the past "I don't like to bid on something that is lasting for more than seven days" so the seller has to relist, relist, relist and relist just to keep their items visual. What is the point of listing an item for 3 x 14 days when you can do 6 x 7 days. Visibility of an item in 3 x 14 days in the New items and closing in 24hrs is 6 days while in the 6 x 7 days is 12 days. (Normally an item sells or is bid on here in the first 24 hours or the last 24 hours of listing)
You then have the weird system whereby you can list in the Approvals 120 stamps at 9cents of a particular country say Switzerland and then list 10 or 20 sets of Switzerland in the Auctions and you sell half or more of the Approvals but not one of the sets in the Auction.
It all comes down to a lack of members here in Stamporama. One day last week I was the only person logged on to the system yet it said 56 visitors. (I felt lonely!)
There is another way rather than "Stores" and that is using the Approval System. You fill your book, you list it and there it is up there for days, weeks even.
The main drawback with this system is again the lack of buyers and the fact most books are never looked at by any/many after the first week. Thus 10,000's of stamps are sitting in the Approval Book system not being looked at. There again they clog up the system.
Why? Insufficient buyers and the "All the best stamps have gone" mentality.
You might have guessed by now that I don't care for "Stores" but if the members want it then "Bring It On" and my heartfelt sorrow for Tim.
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
Ian:
" I'll respond to your points later as its 9pm here and "she who thinks she must be obeyed" demands my company."
and thou must pretend to obey as you well know!
Ian: On the subject of listing "stores"
An approval book is in some ways a store, with special rules.
An auction that relists again and again is also a store.
Our strong aversion to "store" is strictly semantics. A store can have a limited posting rule!
You and others often mention not enough members, but I have consistently sold 40% to 50% of what I listed on Auctions or Approvals. What other platform does so well, within a limited time window? And it is virtually free (save your annual membership, now), for buyers and sellers, and without shipping overcharges typical of commercial sites. What more do you need?
I think you may be overestimating the ability of any platform to move any and all items.
For my part, I can vouch that when something I listed does not sell well, it may well be because (1) I listed it for completeness, but I seldom expected it to sell, or it is an area few members collect (2).
We are in a club, and these listings help members with specific holes, or allow some others to start collecting a new area with a quick filling of common stamps.
It is rare that many of the very common stamps will sell routinely. So when I say that I seem to sell in the 40-50% range, I bet you it is much higher, if one excludes the obvious very common stamps, that most collectors already have. As a general remark, cutting prices has seldom been the determining factor, and most listings here are very reasonable.
Collectors like me work in spurts, this week on a certain country, next week on something else. Your matching my semi random needs with what you offer (time constrained by platform limits) is impossible. Having the items in a "store" when I need them is just a better way of matching my demand and your supply.
And I won't waste time looking at the daily listings of so called "new" items that have been listed as "new" for the past year!
I am not bothered by the re-listing. I am by the inability to separate truly "new" items from "store" items relisted in various ways. Seems to me, this is what needs to be improved somewhat, from a buyer standpoint. When I select items listed today, I would really like to just see the new items listed for the first time today. Then it makes sense to check daily on the additional items that are available.
rrr...
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05:45:49am
Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"You and others often mention not enough members, but I have consistently sold 40% to 50% of what I listed on Auctions or Approvals. "
Yes we can all determine percentages we sell.
I do not expect everything to sell at once if not sooner.
Increasing the number of items for sale in the auctions is giving members a larger choice of stamps.
As for New items, ignore the New Items section and go straight to the countries section. It is a lot faster going through 10, 20, 50, 100 items than 500 or 800 in the new items. Like a lot of things in this world one must put in the work to get the best use out of the system. Nothing is handed to you on a plate.
Yes there is a lack of members
Over the past week there has never been more than 25 members signed into the system at any one time. Yes a miserable 25. At times it has been a lot less with the average of 14.
Members must be logged in to purchase from the Auctions or Approvals. No members, no purchases!
We must try and increase membership otherwise there will be "diminishing returns".
Yes we are a club. We are a club for all, not specific individuals like other "clubs".
The Auctions and Approvals are only part of the club and here I am going to raise the hoary old chestnut that we are "run" by volunteers and adding a Store system to the club would give a heck of an amount of work for Tim for what benefit? That a couple of folkies can't find a way round the word "New".
My final words on the matter.
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Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
I have noticed the large number of auctions as well - and personally I think it changes how many times an auction lot gets viewed, especially if it is more than a day or two old. I think the easy fix is to display the number of times a lot has been relisted. This could possibly be done because if the system was counting how many times it saw the same listing before (up to 3) perhaps that number could be changed to a max of say 15. After that a 15 is always displayed. The field could then be sorted and true new items would be shown first. Tim of course would know better if this is possible
Greg
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12:49:37pm
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
The large bump in auction listings was the result of one member listing almost 4,000 lots last Saturday. The lots all end on this Saturday. He has sold around 1,000 items thus far. He posted about it in the classified ads section.
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05:01:59pm
Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
So the Auction figures were skewed by one seller selling off a few thousand dirt cheap stamps that maybe should have gone in the Approvals, But as the Bulk Uploader is only for auctions not Approvals.
Give the seller a coconut for finding a brilliant way to "dump" (a marketing term) his old stock.
We have a saying in Old Caledonia "Gaun yersel' Son, Pure Dead Brilliant By The Way!"
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"My final words on the matter."
....or not.
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09:36:22pm
Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
At the time that was my intention however when new interesting information is revealed one just has to comment.
The deafening silence on certain points I made is extremely noteworthy and worth breaking one's word.
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Auctions - Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
Limiting the number of times an item can be listed or relisted does not seem to be the way to go. Take the Austrian Bird airmails I have listed over the years. (See example below). I have sold over 20 of them in a 3 year stretch. Yes. It took multiple listings to get an occasional sale. But they did sell. Limiting the number of listings to 3 would have deprived me of a sale, and the buyer the chance to to place a desirable stamp in his/her collection.
Larry
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Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
To me. running a store via auction, and thousands of listings with the same BIN as the starting price is indeed a store, it is just too time consuming. Perhaps you need not list every image week after week, but if so, 2000 images a week takes some time. I can see it working to the sellers advantage though to do that here rather than Hipstamp. The only reason I would not is the exposure problem and, in theory everything listed here is NOT supposed to be listed elsewhere. At least that was one of the rules when I came on board. That being said, to have stock that size for exclusive sale here is tying up an awful lot of stamps to be viewed by a handful of people. Now if that rule is NOT part of the rules anymore, that might change things for me going forward. I could easily enter all my old Hipstock that has been in the store for at least 5-7 years and relist it on a 14 day basis, and skip auctions here all together. Auctions take me about 4-5 hours a week. In the long run, it might take less time as all that would need to be done every week is an image upload - and I would have 2000-3000 listings.I will have to try to find a ruling on this matter
I see rule C5 is still in effect, though I imagine if you sell under a different name someplace else there would be no way to know
Greg
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03:44:48pm
Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
" I could easily enter all my old Hipstock that has been in the store for at least 5-7 years and relist it on a 14 day basis"
AHHH! rrraphy!
Did I not say:-
"The problem with "Stores" is that once an item is listed in a "Store" it can sit there for days, weeks, months and even years."
Be careful what you wish for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQHmWvPs ...
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
Greg,
If the same item is offered for sale in more than one store, won't that create a problem when an item is sold in one store, but still shows as available in another store?
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Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
Not at all, at least for me. Currently I have some same stamps listed both in Hipstamp and ebay, and if one sells in either place, I just go to the one hat it is still listed in and cancel it out of my store. It has never happened that the same stamp sold in both places on the same day. Why SOR does not permit listing elsewhere I do not know. Currently I have a couple of buyers, and I know other sellers do as well, that buy from their Hipstore and have the purchases added to their SOR invoice. They get a discount, at least from me, because I am not paying Hip for the sale. They also save on the extra postage they would pay had they purchased the stamps out of my Hipstamp store. Its a manual checking to be sure, but its not like I sell hundreds of stamps a day across all my sites.
I have to think that this rule came about because a person purchased an item and the seller could not find it, and probably admitted it sold out of their store, though the only way I could see that happening is at auction, and why even then would be a mystery. To list it you need to scan it. Unless they were listing things at auction and the stamp sold during that period. Me, I would simply tell that buyer I could not locate it and refund their money in the event that the stamp did sell at auction. But that's just my way of doing things. Someone else might just honor the elsewhere sale because it brought in more money.
If the rule was dropped here, I might consider what is being called an auction store, with a very slow implementation. It would have to be cost effective, and maybe I could add 50 lots a week until I got to around 1000. Maybe not. I have a lot of old listings on Hip going back to 2005 or so that I am pretty sure will never be sold. Most of my Hip sales are for things listed over the past couple of years where I have added an accept best offer flag. I would have to do that for those old Hip listings, along with adjusting the price upwards to account for it. It's all a matter of how many sales would the auction store get on a weekly basis due to the number of buyers here on SOR compared to going through 50 old listings in Hip and altering the information.
Greg
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"Why SOR does not permit listing elsewhere I do not know."
Having read the huge number of complaints about how some of our folk handle their auctions, and with experience as auctioneer that makes some of those comments pale, i can just imagine the difficulties we would have were we to allow that. Some of you could pull it off, most likely, but.....
We also have the rule that any stamp on our platform must also be in your possession; that can't be true the second it's sold elsewhere.
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Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
I have been following this thread although I have rarely sold here via Auctions - I thouhgt I just share my opinion . Like Greg said - I have several buyers here whom also shop my store on Hipstamp. The majority of the stamps on Hipstamp are higher catalog valued stamps than the majority of my approval books here. So a buyer here goes thru my approval books and let's me know they see some stamps on Hip that they also would like - so I manually pull them for them and add them to the SOR invoice under other charges. They avoild a duplicate shipping charge and I often give them a discount on the items that are from Hip since I avoid the fees over there - so I pass those savings to the buyer..
For me - it would take too long to put up many of these stamps in auctions with BIN options and I would try to do some but the selling on 2 places rule stops me from doing that. I would try some on auction at a lower price than what I have them listed in Hip - again due to the fees on Hip. I have tried higher dollar approval books but although I have some occasional success with them - the last two attempts yielded nothing. It was alot of work to put these books together and hold those stamps off of putting them on Hip until the book was taken down to avoid the selling them in two places rule. It would be easy to put some of the stamps up on auction here at the same time I post them in Hip - since i Have the stamp image ready to go and I could do them at the same time.
Steve
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Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"We also have the rule that any stamp on our platform must also be in your possession; that can't be true the second it's sold elsewhere."
No doubt many who sell on Hip sell on ebay, and at times either may be not found due to not correctly checking. However the stamp is ALWAYS in the possession of the seller, so if the rule was dropped and I got into cross listing hip/SOR, SOR would get preference. These days on ebay and Hip, I believe people want to make offers and don't want to buy at full price. Of 100 sales on Hip for me anyway, 95-99 of them are for items that have best offers allowed. The likelihood of a stamp selling here and on the exact same day there is almost impossible. Again, I don;t really have the time to get into cross listing here and Hip, as I do not really think it would be cost effective. My guess is that these days with so many auctions, people are looking at the new auctions right away, and then they are done with them. I also think that once an auction goes off the new status, it will get minimum if any looks. To put up 1000 auctions to have them viewed for one day, is hardly worth the effort. Others might think differently. I saw that with my Monday night auctions. They would rotate for 7 weeks and the first week more than half the new listings would sell, and over the course of the 7 week period, 90% would sell. It dropped to 10-20% and less than 50% in 7 weeks, which is why I ended them.
Steve I switched the way I list here auction wise from one at a time to a spreadsheet, because I had a week where of my 100+ listings, I sold 13 cents worth, or 13 of the penny listings. With a spreadsheet upload, you can easily take the unsold listings, change the column headings, do a wee bit of tinkering, and upload the who thing to Hipstamp. With auctions in a good week running 50% (primarily due to penny auctions selling for a penny) it makes sense to do work for one site that can be carried over elsewhere. Only drawback here on the spreadsheet is looking up all the country codes. I have thought about dumping everything into one code, but I don't know if that would hurt the exposure, not knowing how people pull up my listings. I am going to look carefully at my view count come tomorrow afternoon (auctions start tonight) and compare it to next Monday afternoon and see if my theory about greatly reduced looks holds water.
I suspect more and more people are going to be running "auction stores". The spreadsheet is quite easy to work with and if you know a little bit about finding something in Excel, then when an item is sold, the entry is simply removed. My guess is that all the images get uploaded every week to correspond with the spreadsheet as you can't take a chance that the image isn't going to be there. That being said the time consuming process would be to pick and choose which images to upload. People will simply just upload everything every week. Much easier to do and a lot quicker as well. I did a pick and choose with my Monday night auctions, and the most I ever had to work with was about 130 or so. That took a lot longer than I wanted it to. I cannot imagine doing it that way for 1000 or more images.
It will be interesting to see if people who do not upload hundreds or thousands of listings report diminished sales.
Greg
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"AHHH! rrraphy!
Did I not say:-
"The problem with "Stores" is that once an item is listed in a "Store" it can sit there for days, weeks, months and even years."
Be careful what you wish for.
"
AHHH! Ian!
But WE HAVE stores, even if we call them something else. Semantics does not solve a problem.
Just like the NEW problem is not solved by labeling it "Item listed in the Last 24 hours". (although it does clarify the meaning of the abbreviated NEW icon). But it does not tell a buyer what the truly newly listed items are?
And with a store with items static, (not relisted again and again), "New" will regain some of initial intent.
I think the biggest issue none has touched upon is our STORAGE COST, as a Club with limited financial ressources.
This may trump all decisions, including the relisting by some of the same items again and again.
rrr...
PS: By the way, the Club could set a limit to the number of items listed in a store, or listed in Auction at any one time. To make a parallel, in Approval we have set a limit to the time books are stored and available.
With all these caveats, stores could be generating some revenues. We should see the need for any revenues at the end of our first year as a on-line Club with a small fee paying our bills.
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05:59:19am
Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"I think the biggest issue none has touched upon is our STORAGE COST, as a Club with limited financial ressources.
This may trump all decisions, including the relisting by some of the same items again and again."
I said this earlier:-
" and the server would get clogged up."
rrraphy said:-
"With all these caveats, stores could be generating some revenues. We should see the need for any revenues at the end of our first year as a on-line Club with a small fee paying our bills."
Be careful with the regards to "revenues from Stores".
It is my understanding that "revenues" other than membership subscriptions may lead to extremely arduous more work for the "volunteers" to produce statistics especially those that would then be required for the I.R.S.!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQHmWvPs ...
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
in discussing the change to a membership fee, we ruled out any kind of sale or listing fees.
if we had an accounting department, it might work
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"Be careful with the regards to "revenues from Stores".
It is my understanding that "revenues" other than membership subscriptions may lead to extremely arduous more work for the "volunteers" to produce statistics especially those that would then be required for the I.R.S.!
"
Nonsense.
We charge a membership fee.
We charge extra (flat fee) for those who sell here.
We could charge extra (flat fee) for those who maintain a store.
How complicated is that?
The store size could be capped, based on our Paid Storage limits.
Just saying, it does not have to be complicated, and every new idea does not have to be rejected. Let us not forget what was intended here. To prevent bulk listers from listing again and again...and again the same items, which get the "New" icon attached. This was a problem identified here.
rrr...
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03:53:43pm
Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"To prevent bulk listers from listing again and again...and again the same items, which get the "New" icon attached. This was a problem identified here."
As long as there is a bulk uploader you will not be able to stop this "New" problem. As long as there is a re-list system you will not be able to stop re-listing multiple times.
What do you do if nobody takes up the offer of a "Store" due to the extra charge?
Still doesn't fix the "New" problem.
What about those that continue relisting only small amounts and don't want a Store?
It still won't fix the "New" problem.
To be honest I do not see this obsession with "New".
The word "New" only stays on the item for 24 hours as far as I can see. As most of us are in our beddy-byes for 6-8 hours the "New" sign is only visible for 16 - 18 hours for each member.
Besides it is not as if there are tens of thousands of stamps in the auctions.
I suggest that there are other ways on the system to find what one is looking for without requiring software modifications or charging members extra.
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"and every new idea does not have to be rejected. "
i seem to recall a rather massive idea being accepted and implemented with the guy who suggested it given essentially operational control
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"I do not see this obsession with "New"."
what was new is now old, very very very very old
Maybe it's time to retire this old biddy
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
Ya know.. I think Stamporama needs to decide what it wants to be! My vote? Let’s concentrate on the message boards and communication.
There are already enough sales venues out there, so there’s no real reason to pursue the sales thing. It’s been exploited already since we’re giving away Tim’s work for free. If we cancelled it tomorrow the exploiters would be the first to complain! Let them pay for the other venues.
I originally listed stuff, both auction and approvals. I sold a few things, and competed against the sellers that were giving stuff away. And there are the clueless with the ten auctions at 4 cents each, with a dollar minimum order!
I started listing the same covers that never sold on this venue for a quarter, on eBay for a dollar or two. Lots of it sold! I started back in August and now have 1100 items in my store.
There are covers I listed back in August that suddenly sell today! I find some of those get sent back to their original town or state. They were sitting there 6 months just waiting for someone to do that search. That buyer doesn’t care if he’s paying $2.99 plus $1 postage. We don’t have that buyer here. Same cover was in my approval book for a full tour here for a quarter!
It’s worth my time to list stuff on eBay. It sells and it’s interesting to see who buys it and why. The folks who complain about the fees on sales they couldn’t have otherwise generated, just don’t understand how business works!
An example.. a model car guy lists a kit for $99 on eBay. It sells for $200. Guy is posting on the model car equivalent of Stamporama that eBay is robbing him because they charged him $22 for that sale.
Without eBay he wouldn’t taken that same kit to a show marked $99. He would’ve paid for gas to get to the show. Possibly a motel room. Definitely $50 for a vendor table. A customer would offer him $75 and they’d settle for $80 and he’d be happy!
But on eBay he got $200 with a net of $178. And add still he’s complaining that they’ve robbed him!
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"My vote? Let’s concentrate on the message boards and communication."
I whole-heartedly agree.
The sales platform is a great and fun addition...but the mainstay of SOR is the club as A STAMP CLUB.
Stamp clubs are for collectors to learn and share and interact with one another. Members sometimes sell or trade amongst themselves, yes.
But that's not the main focus or intent....here included.
We were meant to be a club first.
Selling is - and should remain - secondary.
No disrespect to those who primarily sell here, but that is the way this was originally intended.
I strongly believe it should remain as such.
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06:47:20am
Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"We were meant to be a club first.
Selling is - and should remain - secondary.
"
This may feel strange coming from me but I agree.
I have learned a lot since joining stamporama about various topics and other branches of our hobby.
Yes I SELL and BUY.
I find that the systems in use are workable.
Any change to the systems I ask for I always keep in mind that any change should cause the minimum amount of work for Tim as possible. If I feel that any change would be too complex then that change would not be asked for. (Remember Tim has his own collection to look after.)
The systems have evolved over time and try to meet members needs as best they can with the minimum amount of supervision by the volunteers. (Remember they have to look after their own collections.)
Just take time for this thought....."What would you do if Stamporama wasn't here?"
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
What?!?
You agree with me, Ian?!?
Just a tease here.....
But I agree with YOU as well.
As much as we all appreciate the selling platforms that the powers-that-be have installed into our club website, it remains a "club website".
And as Ian has said, the systems ARE workable as they are.
After all, I do try to avoid 'political complexity' as it were.....
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BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 500 categories
19 Mar 2022
09:46:12am
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"Ya know.. I think Stamporama needs to decide what it wants to be! My vote? Let’s concentrate on the message boards and communication."
"As much as we all appreciate the selling platforms that the powers-that-be have installed into our club website, it remains a "club website"."
"No disrespect to those who primarily sell here, but that is the way this was originally intended. I strongly believe it should remain as such."
Roy
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
21 Mar 2022
07:05:13am
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
Over the last almost sixty years, I have always been impressed
by the generally simple honesty of most dealers and fellow
collectors, and especially among those with whom I choose to
associate.
In the general world, I might expect a certain degree of
dishonesty, but not within the honor bound members of a
stamp club.
So I am somewhat shocked by the distinct odor of mendacity
I see, with a few members almost bragging about it, in
several of the comments I have been reading in this thread.
Is Hipstamp not run by a person who expects to earn a profit ?
I assume so, from the descriptions I've read.
If there is a fee earned there, but the buyer's purchase is
switched here to avoid that fee, there is a word for that.
Cheating.
If a member cheats there, what will prevent further cheating here?
The shocking part is the open admission of the cheating scheme.
Yes, therein reeks the distinct odor of mendacity.
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08:34:57am
Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
Aye Charlie.
I am not making excuses but members of Stamporama are what we call Humans.
In any group of Humans you will always find those that will push the bounderies to the limits and even beyond.
This discussion thread opened up a few questions with regards to what is appearing in the auctions and how often items appear, who lists the most items, for how long and what percentage of the members sell and what percentage of members buy.
Perception can be totally wrong and wide of the mark. I once had a Sales Team telling me that "they were contstantly being asked for a product that we did not manufacture and we should manufacture it". Once proper research was done it turned out that they were only being asked "once in a blue moon" not "constantly".
My feeling is that the answers to these questions will fall into the old 80/20 rule but I will "do the math" over the next few weeks to find out.
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
21 Mar 2022
09:04:26am
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
" .... In any group of Humans you will always find those that will push the bounderies to the limits and even beyond. ...."
A fact of which, I have no doubt. It is the open, almost bragging attitude, that I find most unfortunate.
And the almost complete silent acceptance as normal for a stamp club.
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09:39:01am
Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"It is the open, almost bragging attitude, that I find most unfortunate."
Thankfully they are few and far between. The vast majority of members are honest upstanding citizens.
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
21 Mar 2022
10:18:44am
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
" .... are honest upstanding citizens..."
I'd say, "Honest to a fault".
In fact, I've said exactly that to non-stamp friends and family.
That is why petty cheating is so annoying.
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11:52:39am
Approvals
re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"That is why petty cheating is so annoying."
Looking at this with facts.
There is NO rule that limits re-listing.
We do have a Bulk Upload system so folkies can and do use it.
Using today as an example:-
There are 5308 individual items listed in the Auctions. There are 7984 items listed in all the categories an increase of 50% which means some items are placed in multiple categories.
There is NO rule against listing in multiple categories.
This is sensible as eg one can list say a Nigeria stamp in "Africa" and "British Commonwealth". Where it is not sensible is automatically listing every item in the Topicals Category without putting what the Topic is in the title or description.
Todays figures reveal that 30 Members have listed 5308 items available for sale in the Auctions of which:-
15 members have 1 to 50 Items listed.......50%
2 members have 51 to 100 Items listed........7%
4 members have 101 to 150 Items listed.......14%
1 members have 151 to 200 Items listed.........3%
5 members have 201 to 300 Items listed........17%
1 members have 301 to 500 Items listed.........3%
1 members have 501 to 1000 Items listed.......3%
0 members have 1000 to 1500 Items listed.......0%
1 members have 1500 to 2000 Items listed.......3%
The main conclusion shows that the majority of members are below the 300 items listed and only 9% are over 300 items listed.
If the 9% are "limited" in anyway (say to 300) then the 5308 items listed would reduce down to 3300 (approx) items thus reducing choice to the other members.
It may be an idea to look at what could be done with the Topicals Category as it has some 2100 items in that category alone. I know I never look at it due to the high numbers and it is such a hotch-potch.
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
""That is why petty cheating is so annoying.""
Dishonesty is not a one time thing, it's a way of life. There are schemers and most of them aren't all that smart, Ralph Kramden schemes!
Earlier this year I was on the board of an event to be held in Philadelphia. At this time the city had mandated strict guidelines.. vaccine cards and masks for public events, even restaurants. The venue told us we'd be responsible for compliance.
We had a meeting to discuss the feasibility of holding the event. Enter the Schemer.. his suggestion? WE manufacture and give all attendees fake vaccination cards, and once everyone was inside we lock the doors so law enforcement wouldn't see that nobody was wearing masks!
I was floored! That was the final straw! We agreed NOT to hold the event this year. A thoughtless Schemer casually telling us to commit multiple felonies! Amazing!
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
This is not unusual. They have always been around and will continue. They do not see it as wrong. It explains a lot about what we see.
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
To Tom... I have to reply to your post... Ralph Kramden may have been a "get rich quick" schemer, but he never made dishonest schemes... just dumb ones! Gotta love him...
Paul
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re: Largest Number of Auction Lots
"To Tom... I have to reply to your post... Ralph Kramden may have been a "get rich quick" schemer, but he never made dishonest schemes... just dumb ones! Gotta love him..."
Agreed! My sister's husband is a Kramden!
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