Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
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I suppose you could test your hypothesis by offering an approval book that is a shake-up from your normal style/offering and see if that garners a different reaction.
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One possibility is that you have 23 approval books listed. Of that number, 5 are from Spain, and 8 are from Germany. Only 10 books are from other areas.
Your pricing is much higher (double and more) than what almost everyone else is charging for the same stamps.
On Stamporama, there are many sellers who are in competition for a small number of buyers.
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Sellers must continually try and find different countries to put up, not just in the Approvals but also the Auctions.
There are only a limited no of buyers for specific countries/areas.
Over the last couple of weeks I have put up a few items of Singapore. They sold well.
Prior to me listing the Singapore items there had NOT been many Singapore items listed. Today there are now 55 items. Should I list more of mine, I still have quite a few to list, the answer is no I will not. Maybe in a month or two.
Last week I bought a nice Portugal accumulation over several stock books and loose. I was able to add many stamps to my own collection. The rest will be sold here and elsewhere but it will take many, many, many months to sell them, if at all. How many Portugal collectors are there on Stamporama? Not many. The same can be said of every country.
With the large number of Approval Books on here SATURATION POINT is getting closer and closer. For certain countries this point has already been reached.
The other constraint is how many 5-10 cent stamps do you have to buy from the one seller to off set the postage costs? 100, 200 or three hundred? How many sellers have enough Approval Books listed to satisfy the required number? Very few.
Of course the sellers can hold stamps for buyers for a number of weeks which results in the buyer forgetting what they have bought and they end up buying duplicates from other sellers.
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Many of my older books ( which would have shown more variety ) did expire in the past month or so - since I was away for awhile while I was in the process of selling my house and moving. Again, I am not talking about Sales but just views. The overall views by book have gone down a lot lately. You would have to view the book to see if the price for a certain stamp was too high - so pricing could explain lower sales in general. Although, I think my books do offer a greater variety of stamps and are targeted in smaller year ranges than many others . I do have many regulars that tell me they appreciate the fact that I do offer material that is not the same common issues they see in other books but have a better variety overall. There used to be more books in total at any one time - so the so called competition was always there. I am going to monitor what happens for the rest of the year to see how it goes. Steve
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Steve...
Am relatively new to SOR. So perhaps my perspective is a bit different.
One of the most valued aspects is the approval books. Have completed successful purchases from a handful of members. My collecting interest is WW. Chiefly material through the 1960s. Chiefly postally-used. (Although I purchase MNH or MLH material for a few “focus” countries.)
IMO most of the pricing I have seen so far is fair. IOW competive with other stamp trading circuits or some of the dealers with whom I periodically patronize. Obviously as with any philatelic sales outlet, better material commands better pricing.
I particularly appreciate approval books which include catalogue numbers. As well as sellers who are willing to postpone invoicing until a decent balance is accrued. These two factors influence my purchasing decisions.
One small criticism is inclusion of damaged material in approval books. Can understand including the occasional “high catalogue” item assuming it is appropriately described/noted. But damaged 5 or 10-cent stamps detracts from the overall offering.
Prefer one- or two-county books. Or books which are region-specific (e..g., Scandinavia, former French Africa). And if including catalogue numbers is impractical, at least present the stamps in chronological order.
Appreciate many sellers use the approval books as a channel for selling off surplus material. Such as a recently purchased country collection. However, would rather a seller post 10 books from five countries than 10 books of material from a single country. The concern being possible duplicative purchases.
Just my two cents.
Jim in SoCal
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"You would have to view the book to see if the price for a certain stamp was too high"
Well, yes and no.
When you search for approval books, be it by seller, country, etc. The list you get has to columns that show the minimum and maximum prices for the stamps in each book. If, for example you list all the approval books with stamps from Germany, you will find 2/3 of the books have a minimum price of less than 10 cents minimum price. The other 1/3 books have a minimum price of 10 cents and higher. There's no need to look inside a book at that point. With that large a percentage of books selling for less than 10 cents, there would be plenty of books to look at before going to the higher priced books.
Ian and Cal, people should carefully read your comments, and follow your advice. This is especially so of all the damaged stamps that are contained in approval books, many at the same prices as undamaged stamps.
Some sellers then redo their books, and continually add the unsold damaged stamps to the books so that the percentage of damaged material gets higher and higher. I have seen the same damaghed stamps in some sellers' approval books for a number of years. To me, that seems to be a big waste of time to try to sell damaged common stamps at any price since they have a very scant chance of selling.
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The number of views is a guide to the popularity of that country or area.
How many views are totally dependent on the percentage of the book which has already been sold.
I do not look at books that have already sold 50% of their items.
I am sure that some members do not view books that have sold less than 50% because they think all the best stamps are gone.
We all know the vast majority of a book sales happen within the first few days.
My personal ethos as a seller is that if a book sells 50% or less, within a month, de-activate it because it will not sell any more and it clogs up my system.
The Approval Books system here is unique, fantastic, well thought out and has been great for both Buyers and Sellers.
Long may it continue.
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A few comments from a buyer. I am in the US and as a rule I tend to ignore non-US sellers especially if I cannot find a significant number to justify postage.
Including a catalog number is a good way to get me to study especially when listings are in cost order not catalog or year order. If the images are not clear or out of focus I will not look very hard. As of late I have purchased little as countries I like are not being posted.
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Sorry I opened up a "can of worms" by my initial post. It was just something I was observing lately. I was speaking about the number of views when a new book is posted. In my case it used to be averaging about 40 views in the first two weeks now it is about 20. It could be true that many buyers are not just interested in my books anymore and just ignore them - that could be the real answer. That is why quite some time ago - I mentioned it would be nice to have some feedback provided to the sellers so we could entertain changes. (Constructive Criticism)
First of all - I NEVER INCLUDE DAMAGED Stamps. As I am putting a book together I toss them out and if one slips thru and I notice a damage after the fact - I let the buyer know and refund them immediately. If one slips thru still and a buyer contacts me that there is a problem - I send them a refund and tell them to toss the stamp.
As for providing cat #'s - I use to do this for all books - and it was quite an extra burden - so I started quite some time ago providing the Scott # on any stamps greater than 25 cents. When I was providing Scott #'s on lower value stamps - I did not see any difference in the sales. My books are organized in year order - so it should be easy to determine on the common stamps what they are.
Finally, besides the feedback I would like - it would be nice to have a place where buyers can indicate what they are looking for. A wishlist ! It would help me determine what books I could put up. When I do try to put up something different - the book seems to fall flat. (Current example - my newest book on Cambodia - I might as well take it down - because there seems to be no interest in it). That's why I keep going back to the more common countries.
Anyone reading this - who has any feedback - please feel to send me a message. No need to keep beating a dead horse here !! Thanks, Steve
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steve,
delighted the conversation is ongoing. Seems that people are adding to it.
Myself, I'm a cover collector, especially interested in US rates and tied seals. If you got those, let er rip.
David
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" it would be nice to have a place where buyers can indicate what they are looking for. A wishlist !"
We already have that in the Classified Ads section of the Discussion Board. The topic is called "Stamps I want to Buy".
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I have looked in there - but most of the time they are looking for something specific - like I was able to sell an old color gauge folder someone was looking for and I had a spare. Maybe buyers from approval books should be told to put their desires in there more ! I sometimes get a message from a few of my regulars asking me if I had any of this or that !! Steve
P.S. David I do not have anything you are looking for. If I did - I doubt I would even put them in an approval book - I would probably do an auction or put them up elsewhere
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If someone wants something that you have, you do not have to put it in approval books or auctions. Stamporama is not a commercial site, and receives no financial benefit from the sale of items here. People are free to work out "backdoor" deals, trades, sales, etc., all they want. You just can't cancel an auction lot that has a bid on it, or any item that has sold in the auctions or approvals. As we say elsewhere on the site, just be knowledgeable to whom you are selling, and from whom you are buying.
Now and then we talk about the rules here, but actually, Stamporama is a much more relaxed site than most.
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I have said this previously over the last few years.
You cannot please all the people all of the time.
Sellers and Buyers are unique individuals.
Their wants, needs, desires and foibles are individual to them. Some we like, some we dislike.
The Stamporama System allows flexibility, choice and individualism within a wide set of guidelines whether you are a buyer or seller.
It enables us to discuss, educate and learn all things philatelic.
Where else can you find such a System?
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I have sold stamps off-line quite often here. If someone asks me for something I may have - I will work off a want list or I can tell them what I have. Also, since I sell stamps on Hipstamp - I have several buyers who tell me what they see over there that I may have and I pull those stamps for them and merge them into an invoice over here - so they can have one stop shopping - less shipping fees. I do that quite often. I just take down the stamp over there manually and add it to an invoice here. I probably should not mention that to the powers that be over there - I may get banned ! Steve
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I don't see why you should get banned. HipStamp has an Ebay sync. If a stamp sells on Ebay, it is closed on HipStamp. There is no fee assessed against the seller from HipStamp. I don't see any difference if you sell it to someone here, or if you had the stamps at a stamp show or brick and mortar store.
Before anyone thinks it all right, Stamporama rules prohibit selling an item here and also somewhere else. We have had problems with cross-selling in the past.
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I never have anything here that is not EXCLUSIVE to SOR. When I close out a book - I move any worthwhile extras over to HS. I always try to post here first unless it is a more expensive stamp. I was just joking about being banned over there. At one time in the forums over there - I thought there was a time when they did not want any mention of other selling sites.Maybe that was during the awful SGM era !!
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SGM was simply bad voodoo. A horrible period. Glad it's long over.
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Since we're "Observing"..
Note that my experiences have been just in the USA Approval and Auction categories.
The first thing that hurts sales are sellers who don't have enough items up for sale in the auction. Buyers need to be able to buy enough to justify the postage / transaction cost. When you've got ten items up for ten cents each... and you want $1 postage, nobody will be buying these items!
I have taken to looking at a sellers total offerings in both Auction/Approvals before placing my first buy or bid to make sure there's enough to buy!
Second issue is in the USA Auction category. As of a few minutes ago there were 849 lots available. Sounds good until you note that 605 of those are all from one seller, who has listed USA full sheets at pretty much full retail prices.
The first thing I do when I get to that category is sort down to "Exclude" that seller. But I'm sure a lot of buyers don't know how to do that, and after looking at page after page of that same seller's stuff, they just click off and go away!
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I buy a lot on SOR. Because postage to anywhere outside USA and Canada has gone up so much, I tend to ignore sellers who aren't in the US or Canada. However, every now and then, a non-North American seller lists enough of what I'm interested in to make it worthwhile. I've started to recognize who these might be so I spend more time looking at their pages.
Some sellers create approval pages on which the stamps are very hard to see in detail. Since I'm trying hard to not buy stuff I already have I don't spend much time looking at their stuff.
Some sellers sell mostly very common stuff, so I might just look at the first and last pages of their listings just to confirm what they're selling.
I've bought lots of great stuff on SOR so I hope it continues. It's a great service. But, from where I sit, stamp collecting in general is diminishing in numbers, although I suspect, but can't prove that the collectors who remain are spending as much, if not more, than they ever have.
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I am puzzled by this thread.
50% of all online traffic is now done using mobile devices, this website has content wider than screen, clickable elements too close together, text too small to read, and the viewport is not set. This is not my analysis, this is Google's analysis of this site. In other words, half of all users are finding that using this site is very difficult (at best).
But answers to the questions this thread raises are easily answered by looking at the server log files compared to the same time from previous years. Is traffic growing, shrinking, or staying the same? Is the amount of time that users spend on the site growing, shrinking, or staying the same? There is no need for speculation, the server log files provide real data which clearly show everything a person needs to understand website traffic over time. This is critical information for sellers to know, without it they are working in a vacuum.
This is the same as a retail brick and mortar store working hard to understand what changes they might make to help sales but not accounting for the fact that the road construction in front of the store has dropped the number of cars passing by 50%.
Note: these traffic metrics need to come directly from the server log files, not from some 3rd party website which tries to extrapolate traffic using other, less reliable means.
Don
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03:14:45pm
I joined SOR a few months ago and have bought many auction items already and have bought quite a few approval items. I have a few comments to make - most of them good. I've picked up many great items, your prices are good and the site is full of great people who seem to care about what they sell - I don't get the same feeling on E-Bay, even though I've got great stuff there as well. The only real negative I have are the people who sell stamps with watermark differences or any difference not evident from a picture without identification. I can't buy stuff like that, but people who only collect stamps without worrying about differences can, so I guess it's OK. I think any stamp over a certain value should be identified. Please don't get mad at me since I know how much work that is - some of the early US stuff takes a lot of work. But maybe that type of stuff should go to auction, not be in the approval books. Most of the auction material is numbered where most of the approvals are not - fine with me as long as the stamps are not a problem. I think your two services are fantastic and I will keep spending my money for as long as I can!
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"The only real negative I have are the people who sell stamps with watermark differences or any difference not evident from a picture without identification."
Not everybody knows what stamps have watermark differences.
For example Stanley Gibbons "Stamps of the World" catalogue makes no reference to watermark differences at all. It also makes no reference to different perforations.
Not everybody in the world has access to the Scotts catalogues.
Gibbons is the catalogue used in the UK, Michel and Yvert in Europe.
By the way the Scott catalogue ignores certain watermark variations in other countries as well as the different phosphor bands in the GB Machin Series!!!
Therefore every seller of every stamp would have to know every variation of every stamp in every country and their catalogue value to satisfy your statement.
The Approval system here was initiated to allow members to purchase stamps at a reasonable price. The amount of effort that is needed to prepare an approval book is considerable especially to sell each stamp for a few cents.
I can only recommend that if you know that there is a variation in a stamp and it is not identified by the seller then recognise that the seller may not know as much as you.
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"The only real negative I have are the people who sell stamps with watermark differences or any difference not evident from a picture without identification. I can't buy stuff like that......"
" I know how much work that is - some of the early US stuff takes a lot of work."
REALITY. First - I've been selling stamps for over 35 years and consider myself fairly adept at identification of colors, perfs and watermarks - I've got a couple of stockbooks full of reference material I've accumulated and kept over the years. Washinton-Franklins don't faze me a bit.
A year or two ago I put together an approval book of Hungary stamps. One of the early issues has 7 sets issued with 5 different watermarks and 4 different perf varieties. Most are minimum catalog value. My first page consisted of 34 stamps, all properly identified and priced at either 8 cents or 10 cents apiece, can't remember which. To identify them (watermarks are similar), place them on the stock sheet, scan and label both item number and catalog number took over an hour. For that 60 minutes of time I sold two of them - yes - TWO stamps totaling maybe 20 cents for an hour of work. The back pages full of common, easy to identify commemoratives, mostly CTO, almost sold out....
NEVER AGAIN.
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Without wishing to offend anyone _ I think many of the complaints about approvals or the forum in general do not grasp the amount of time and energy put into it. Its all very well to complain but lets see you step up and put in the time with little or no reward. I see many flaws as well but i don't see anyone getting paid big bucks to run it. Appreciate the efforts of what are essentially volunteers even if they don't meet your every desire. I've seen both sides of this coin and I'm grateful to anyone who wants to do some work with very little reward.
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"Appreciate the efforts of what are essentially volunteers even if they don't meet your every desire."
Well said!!
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12:07:19pm
It would certainly make life easier if all new collectors decided to use the SG "Stamps of the World" catalog. Eventually stamp collecting would become much simpler especially when all of us old farts are gone and forgotten. When I think of all the hours I spent sweating over the older US stamps!! Maybe your grand children would start collecting and would ask questions like "Grampy, what's a water mark?"
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In the beginning of the hobby, it was just like that, simplified. Eventually people began to look at and study stamps and discovered differences. The catalogs began to expand with the additional stamp types.
You are correct that the hobby would be very easy if collectors only concerned themselves with face different stamps. The Scott International Stamp Album Volume 1 fits that role to a great extent.
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Jings!.....Crivvens!.....Help Ma Boab!
Collectors using one catalogue ??
It would be very boring if we were all the same and collected the same.
We would have nothing to relate to one another, nothing to inform one another, nothing to moan about, nothing to discuss, nothing to argue about, nothing to fall out over, nothing to take the huff about and "here's the cruncher" no reason to escape from "She Who MUST be obeyed" !!!!!!
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Catalogues ,I use Gibbons SOTW, and will admit it is very basic take for instance the map stamps of India Gibbons has one listing 1957 numbers 375/412 no mention that there are two printings with different watermarks.
But in Gibbons Commonwealth& British Empire Stamps 1840/1970 it lists both sets and gives the watermark numbers for both.
I also use Scott's but only buy the countries I collect from Chirokmd in the US .My complaint with Scott's is the way they price a lot of the stamps .I personally think only giving the price of a set of stamps mint and used is rather slack on their part,what is their reasoning? do they expect collectors only to buy sets?
For stamps I have trouble locating I use Stampworld on the web .
Brian
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".I personally think only giving the price of a set of stamps mint and used is rather slack on their part,what is their reasoning?"
When Scott started lumping stamp sets into one listing, I emailed them and asked why. My response was this:
- that's how collectors collect them (in sets)
- it saves space
I followed up with Scott and asked about used stamps. The comment back was that such are rarely found. I responded by telling them that it seemed more like laziness to me. Because of that listing practice, I bought the Gibbons "Stamps of the World Catalogue". It provides individual listings for each stamp in a set. With modern stamps (aside from definitives) most commemorative sets only come in one variety.
When they split the catalogs into two parts per volume, I asked Scott if they were going to split the sets to list individual stamps now that they had the space to do so. I never received a reply.
Inconsistencies in catalogues ruin the catalog and its usefulness.
Have you ever noticed that the Scott Standard catalogues for the 19th century often omits the major catalogue number from many definitive sets from many countries? If you want to find the information on the major number, you have to purchase the Scott Classic Catalogue.
I asked Scott why they did that. I got the same response as you find in the Scott International Stamp Albums. The standard Scott Catalogue provides information relating to stamps that collectors would likely buy. Since, in their opinion, most collectors do not collect varieties, they (Scott) only put one variety (the cheapest) in the standard catalogues. I told them that was a bunch of hogwash and was untrue, and that it seemed to me that the only reason for deleting the major numbers from the standard catalogue was to force collectors to buy the classic catalogue. I never received a reply to that comment.
Folks, it's all about the money, but Scott does its best to push collectors away from itself.
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Jings!.....Crivvens!......Help Ma Boab!
"it's all about the money"
Surprise? Surprise?
I don't think so.
Catalogue producers are there to make money for themselves. They have costs and have to recover them, and more, to make a profit.
We know how long it takes to make up an approval book. Imagine the man hours required to gather all the new issues from all the countries add it to your existing database. The market research required to update, each year, the same database must also take many man hours.
If they also sell stamps it is their Price List.
While in a second hand book store recently I came across several catalogues from the 1940's and 50's from different companies. Their "values" were of course their prices!
Catalogues are not there for the benefit of the stamp collecting community but for the benefit of the catalogue companies.
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Brechinite wrote
Catalogues are not there for the benefit of the stamp collecting community but for the benefit of the catalogue companies.
If they were for collectors all they would need to do would be to publish a yearly update the cost of that would be minimal , Stanley Gibbons does a monthly one for new issues in their magazine.No wonder collectors don't buy new catalogues every years 99% of the contents they already have in last years catalogues.
Brian
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In the US, libraries and dealers must be the primary buyers of complete sets on an annual basis. I have a complete set of Scott but I purchased them used. A new set is like $630. The e-editions run $75 per volume.
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There's a monthly update from Scott in Linn's.
Clubs also buy the catalogues, or in many cases, a dealer donates a new set to the club.
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Even our libraries do not buy the catalogues every year.
My local library has the 2011 gibbons stamps of the world.
In the whole county of Angus the "newest" one is 2016!!!
Who says the "old country" is going downhill?
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Always the same question:
What are catalogues for?
a) For collectors, just to know what stamps exist and how complete are our collections...
b) For swappers, have a basis for a "fair" exchange, no matter what catalogue you use...
c) For dealers, how to make the highest possible profit (on one side, by selling the catalogues, on the other by pricing high the stamps thay have in stock, and low those they want to buy...
In my case, I gave up buying catalogues. I just use some older ones to make up the pages of my albums. The most recent issues I take from on-line catalogues or dealers´ catalogues.
My want-list I prepare with scanned images of the stamps I need, so that no confusing and clumsy cat.ns have to be used. When there are wmk or perf varieties, I just make a notice.
Of course, as I am a frequent Approvals seller and buyer, I think it would be too much work to identify exactly the varieties, except if you want to sell a quite expensive item with a special wmk or perforation.
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Approvals
I have been selling stamps via approval books for several years now. This is not about overall sales but just views. I notice a trend that has started in the last few months. It used to be that when I put a new book up - I would get an average of about 40 views within the first few weeks. Now the average views for a new book is around 20. Obviously that would translate to sales on those books as well. Either what I am putting up is of no interest to others anymore but how could you know for sure if you don't at least view the book. The other option is that there are just less folks even looking at the approval books now compared to a few years ago. It could just be my first option and what I am putting up is of no interest anymore based on the book title - so no reason to even view it. I am starting to question if the amount of time to put books together and post them is worth my effort. This is something I will continue to monitor for the rest of this year but I would be interested in knowing if other sellers have noticed a similar trend or not. Thanks, Steve
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re: Just An Observation
I suppose you could test your hypothesis by offering an approval book that is a shake-up from your normal style/offering and see if that garners a different reaction.
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02:03:35pm
re: Just An Observation
One possibility is that you have 23 approval books listed. Of that number, 5 are from Spain, and 8 are from Germany. Only 10 books are from other areas.
Your pricing is much higher (double and more) than what almost everyone else is charging for the same stamps.
On Stamporama, there are many sellers who are in competition for a small number of buyers.
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08:07:20pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Just An Observation
Sellers must continually try and find different countries to put up, not just in the Approvals but also the Auctions.
There are only a limited no of buyers for specific countries/areas.
Over the last couple of weeks I have put up a few items of Singapore. They sold well.
Prior to me listing the Singapore items there had NOT been many Singapore items listed. Today there are now 55 items. Should I list more of mine, I still have quite a few to list, the answer is no I will not. Maybe in a month or two.
Last week I bought a nice Portugal accumulation over several stock books and loose. I was able to add many stamps to my own collection. The rest will be sold here and elsewhere but it will take many, many, many months to sell them, if at all. How many Portugal collectors are there on Stamporama? Not many. The same can be said of every country.
With the large number of Approval Books on here SATURATION POINT is getting closer and closer. For certain countries this point has already been reached.
The other constraint is how many 5-10 cent stamps do you have to buy from the one seller to off set the postage costs? 100, 200 or three hundred? How many sellers have enough Approval Books listed to satisfy the required number? Very few.
Of course the sellers can hold stamps for buyers for a number of weeks which results in the buyer forgetting what they have bought and they end up buying duplicates from other sellers.
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Approvals
re: Just An Observation
Many of my older books ( which would have shown more variety ) did expire in the past month or so - since I was away for awhile while I was in the process of selling my house and moving. Again, I am not talking about Sales but just views. The overall views by book have gone down a lot lately. You would have to view the book to see if the price for a certain stamp was too high - so pricing could explain lower sales in general. Although, I think my books do offer a greater variety of stamps and are targeted in smaller year ranges than many others . I do have many regulars that tell me they appreciate the fact that I do offer material that is not the same common issues they see in other books but have a better variety overall. There used to be more books in total at any one time - so the so called competition was always there. I am going to monitor what happens for the rest of the year to see how it goes. Steve
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09:13:35pm
re: Just An Observation
Steve...
Am relatively new to SOR. So perhaps my perspective is a bit different.
One of the most valued aspects is the approval books. Have completed successful purchases from a handful of members. My collecting interest is WW. Chiefly material through the 1960s. Chiefly postally-used. (Although I purchase MNH or MLH material for a few “focus” countries.)
IMO most of the pricing I have seen so far is fair. IOW competive with other stamp trading circuits or some of the dealers with whom I periodically patronize. Obviously as with any philatelic sales outlet, better material commands better pricing.
I particularly appreciate approval books which include catalogue numbers. As well as sellers who are willing to postpone invoicing until a decent balance is accrued. These two factors influence my purchasing decisions.
One small criticism is inclusion of damaged material in approval books. Can understand including the occasional “high catalogue” item assuming it is appropriately described/noted. But damaged 5 or 10-cent stamps detracts from the overall offering.
Prefer one- or two-county books. Or books which are region-specific (e..g., Scandinavia, former French Africa). And if including catalogue numbers is impractical, at least present the stamps in chronological order.
Appreciate many sellers use the approval books as a channel for selling off surplus material. Such as a recently purchased country collection. However, would rather a seller post 10 books from five countries than 10 books of material from a single country. The concern being possible duplicative purchases.
Just my two cents.
Jim in SoCal
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11:35:58pm
re: Just An Observation
"You would have to view the book to see if the price for a certain stamp was too high"
Well, yes and no.
When you search for approval books, be it by seller, country, etc. The list you get has to columns that show the minimum and maximum prices for the stamps in each book. If, for example you list all the approval books with stamps from Germany, you will find 2/3 of the books have a minimum price of less than 10 cents minimum price. The other 1/3 books have a minimum price of 10 cents and higher. There's no need to look inside a book at that point. With that large a percentage of books selling for less than 10 cents, there would be plenty of books to look at before going to the higher priced books.
Ian and Cal, people should carefully read your comments, and follow your advice. This is especially so of all the damaged stamps that are contained in approval books, many at the same prices as undamaged stamps.
Some sellers then redo their books, and continually add the unsold damaged stamps to the books so that the percentage of damaged material gets higher and higher. I have seen the same damaghed stamps in some sellers' approval books for a number of years. To me, that seems to be a big waste of time to try to sell damaged common stamps at any price since they have a very scant chance of selling.
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05:28:59am
Auctions - Approvals
re: Just An Observation
The number of views is a guide to the popularity of that country or area.
How many views are totally dependent on the percentage of the book which has already been sold.
I do not look at books that have already sold 50% of their items.
I am sure that some members do not view books that have sold less than 50% because they think all the best stamps are gone.
We all know the vast majority of a book sales happen within the first few days.
My personal ethos as a seller is that if a book sells 50% or less, within a month, de-activate it because it will not sell any more and it clogs up my system.
The Approval Books system here is unique, fantastic, well thought out and has been great for both Buyers and Sellers.
Long may it continue.
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re: Just An Observation
A few comments from a buyer. I am in the US and as a rule I tend to ignore non-US sellers especially if I cannot find a significant number to justify postage.
Including a catalog number is a good way to get me to study especially when listings are in cost order not catalog or year order. If the images are not clear or out of focus I will not look very hard. As of late I have purchased little as countries I like are not being posted.
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Approvals
re: Just An Observation
Sorry I opened up a "can of worms" by my initial post. It was just something I was observing lately. I was speaking about the number of views when a new book is posted. In my case it used to be averaging about 40 views in the first two weeks now it is about 20. It could be true that many buyers are not just interested in my books anymore and just ignore them - that could be the real answer. That is why quite some time ago - I mentioned it would be nice to have some feedback provided to the sellers so we could entertain changes. (Constructive Criticism)
First of all - I NEVER INCLUDE DAMAGED Stamps. As I am putting a book together I toss them out and if one slips thru and I notice a damage after the fact - I let the buyer know and refund them immediately. If one slips thru still and a buyer contacts me that there is a problem - I send them a refund and tell them to toss the stamp.
As for providing cat #'s - I use to do this for all books - and it was quite an extra burden - so I started quite some time ago providing the Scott # on any stamps greater than 25 cents. When I was providing Scott #'s on lower value stamps - I did not see any difference in the sales. My books are organized in year order - so it should be easy to determine on the common stamps what they are.
Finally, besides the feedback I would like - it would be nice to have a place where buyers can indicate what they are looking for. A wishlist ! It would help me determine what books I could put up. When I do try to put up something different - the book seems to fall flat. (Current example - my newest book on Cambodia - I might as well take it down - because there seems to be no interest in it). That's why I keep going back to the more common countries.
Anyone reading this - who has any feedback - please feel to send me a message. No need to keep beating a dead horse here !! Thanks, Steve
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re: Just An Observation
steve,
delighted the conversation is ongoing. Seems that people are adding to it.
Myself, I'm a cover collector, especially interested in US rates and tied seals. If you got those, let er rip.
David
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11:11:00am
re: Just An Observation
" it would be nice to have a place where buyers can indicate what they are looking for. A wishlist !"
We already have that in the Classified Ads section of the Discussion Board. The topic is called "Stamps I want to Buy".
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Approvals
re: Just An Observation
I have looked in there - but most of the time they are looking for something specific - like I was able to sell an old color gauge folder someone was looking for and I had a spare. Maybe buyers from approval books should be told to put their desires in there more ! I sometimes get a message from a few of my regulars asking me if I had any of this or that !! Steve
P.S. David I do not have anything you are looking for. If I did - I doubt I would even put them in an approval book - I would probably do an auction or put them up elsewhere
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12:35:32pm
re: Just An Observation
If someone wants something that you have, you do not have to put it in approval books or auctions. Stamporama is not a commercial site, and receives no financial benefit from the sale of items here. People are free to work out "backdoor" deals, trades, sales, etc., all they want. You just can't cancel an auction lot that has a bid on it, or any item that has sold in the auctions or approvals. As we say elsewhere on the site, just be knowledgeable to whom you are selling, and from whom you are buying.
Now and then we talk about the rules here, but actually, Stamporama is a much more relaxed site than most.
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02:26:38pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Just An Observation
I have said this previously over the last few years.
You cannot please all the people all of the time.
Sellers and Buyers are unique individuals.
Their wants, needs, desires and foibles are individual to them. Some we like, some we dislike.
The Stamporama System allows flexibility, choice and individualism within a wide set of guidelines whether you are a buyer or seller.
It enables us to discuss, educate and learn all things philatelic.
Where else can you find such a System?
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re: Just An Observation
I have sold stamps off-line quite often here. If someone asks me for something I may have - I will work off a want list or I can tell them what I have. Also, since I sell stamps on Hipstamp - I have several buyers who tell me what they see over there that I may have and I pull those stamps for them and merge them into an invoice over here - so they can have one stop shopping - less shipping fees. I do that quite often. I just take down the stamp over there manually and add it to an invoice here. I probably should not mention that to the powers that be over there - I may get banned ! Steve
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10:54:09pm
re: Just An Observation
I don't see why you should get banned. HipStamp has an Ebay sync. If a stamp sells on Ebay, it is closed on HipStamp. There is no fee assessed against the seller from HipStamp. I don't see any difference if you sell it to someone here, or if you had the stamps at a stamp show or brick and mortar store.
Before anyone thinks it all right, Stamporama rules prohibit selling an item here and also somewhere else. We have had problems with cross-selling in the past.
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Approvals
re: Just An Observation
I never have anything here that is not EXCLUSIVE to SOR. When I close out a book - I move any worthwhile extras over to HS. I always try to post here first unless it is a more expensive stamp. I was just joking about being banned over there. At one time in the forums over there - I thought there was a time when they did not want any mention of other selling sites.Maybe that was during the awful SGM era !!
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02:45:16am
re: Just An Observation
SGM was simply bad voodoo. A horrible period. Glad it's long over.
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re: Just An Observation
Since we're "Observing"..
Note that my experiences have been just in the USA Approval and Auction categories.
The first thing that hurts sales are sellers who don't have enough items up for sale in the auction. Buyers need to be able to buy enough to justify the postage / transaction cost. When you've got ten items up for ten cents each... and you want $1 postage, nobody will be buying these items!
I have taken to looking at a sellers total offerings in both Auction/Approvals before placing my first buy or bid to make sure there's enough to buy!
Second issue is in the USA Auction category. As of a few minutes ago there were 849 lots available. Sounds good until you note that 605 of those are all from one seller, who has listed USA full sheets at pretty much full retail prices.
The first thing I do when I get to that category is sort down to "Exclude" that seller. But I'm sure a lot of buyers don't know how to do that, and after looking at page after page of that same seller's stuff, they just click off and go away!
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04:56:27pm
re: Just An Observation
I buy a lot on SOR. Because postage to anywhere outside USA and Canada has gone up so much, I tend to ignore sellers who aren't in the US or Canada. However, every now and then, a non-North American seller lists enough of what I'm interested in to make it worthwhile. I've started to recognize who these might be so I spend more time looking at their pages.
Some sellers create approval pages on which the stamps are very hard to see in detail. Since I'm trying hard to not buy stuff I already have I don't spend much time looking at their stuff.
Some sellers sell mostly very common stuff, so I might just look at the first and last pages of their listings just to confirm what they're selling.
I've bought lots of great stuff on SOR so I hope it continues. It's a great service. But, from where I sit, stamp collecting in general is diminishing in numbers, although I suspect, but can't prove that the collectors who remain are spending as much, if not more, than they ever have.
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re: Just An Observation
I am puzzled by this thread.
50% of all online traffic is now done using mobile devices, this website has content wider than screen, clickable elements too close together, text too small to read, and the viewport is not set. This is not my analysis, this is Google's analysis of this site. In other words, half of all users are finding that using this site is very difficult (at best).
But answers to the questions this thread raises are easily answered by looking at the server log files compared to the same time from previous years. Is traffic growing, shrinking, or staying the same? Is the amount of time that users spend on the site growing, shrinking, or staying the same? There is no need for speculation, the server log files provide real data which clearly show everything a person needs to understand website traffic over time. This is critical information for sellers to know, without it they are working in a vacuum.
This is the same as a retail brick and mortar store working hard to understand what changes they might make to help sales but not accounting for the fact that the road construction in front of the store has dropped the number of cars passing by 50%.
Note: these traffic metrics need to come directly from the server log files, not from some 3rd party website which tries to extrapolate traffic using other, less reliable means.
Don
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
23 Jul 2019
03:14:45pm
re: Just An Observation
I joined SOR a few months ago and have bought many auction items already and have bought quite a few approval items. I have a few comments to make - most of them good. I've picked up many great items, your prices are good and the site is full of great people who seem to care about what they sell - I don't get the same feeling on E-Bay, even though I've got great stuff there as well. The only real negative I have are the people who sell stamps with watermark differences or any difference not evident from a picture without identification. I can't buy stuff like that, but people who only collect stamps without worrying about differences can, so I guess it's OK. I think any stamp over a certain value should be identified. Please don't get mad at me since I know how much work that is - some of the early US stuff takes a lot of work. But maybe that type of stuff should go to auction, not be in the approval books. Most of the auction material is numbered where most of the approvals are not - fine with me as long as the stamps are not a problem. I think your two services are fantastic and I will keep spending my money for as long as I can!
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03:48:52pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Just An Observation
"The only real negative I have are the people who sell stamps with watermark differences or any difference not evident from a picture without identification."
Not everybody knows what stamps have watermark differences.
For example Stanley Gibbons "Stamps of the World" catalogue makes no reference to watermark differences at all. It also makes no reference to different perforations.
Not everybody in the world has access to the Scotts catalogues.
Gibbons is the catalogue used in the UK, Michel and Yvert in Europe.
By the way the Scott catalogue ignores certain watermark variations in other countries as well as the different phosphor bands in the GB Machin Series!!!
Therefore every seller of every stamp would have to know every variation of every stamp in every country and their catalogue value to satisfy your statement.
The Approval system here was initiated to allow members to purchase stamps at a reasonable price. The amount of effort that is needed to prepare an approval book is considerable especially to sell each stamp for a few cents.
I can only recommend that if you know that there is a variation in a stamp and it is not identified by the seller then recognise that the seller may not know as much as you.
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10:05:19pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Just An Observation
"The only real negative I have are the people who sell stamps with watermark differences or any difference not evident from a picture without identification. I can't buy stuff like that......"
" I know how much work that is - some of the early US stuff takes a lot of work."
REALITY. First - I've been selling stamps for over 35 years and consider myself fairly adept at identification of colors, perfs and watermarks - I've got a couple of stockbooks full of reference material I've accumulated and kept over the years. Washinton-Franklins don't faze me a bit.
A year or two ago I put together an approval book of Hungary stamps. One of the early issues has 7 sets issued with 5 different watermarks and 4 different perf varieties. Most are minimum catalog value. My first page consisted of 34 stamps, all properly identified and priced at either 8 cents or 10 cents apiece, can't remember which. To identify them (watermarks are similar), place them on the stock sheet, scan and label both item number and catalog number took over an hour. For that 60 minutes of time I sold two of them - yes - TWO stamps totaling maybe 20 cents for an hour of work. The back pages full of common, easy to identify commemoratives, mostly CTO, almost sold out....
NEVER AGAIN.
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01:33:52am
re: Just An Observation
Without wishing to offend anyone _ I think many of the complaints about approvals or the forum in general do not grasp the amount of time and energy put into it. Its all very well to complain but lets see you step up and put in the time with little or no reward. I see many flaws as well but i don't see anyone getting paid big bucks to run it. Appreciate the efforts of what are essentially volunteers even if they don't meet your every desire. I've seen both sides of this coin and I'm grateful to anyone who wants to do some work with very little reward.
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04:18:32am
Auctions - Approvals
re: Just An Observation
"Appreciate the efforts of what are essentially volunteers even if they don't meet your every desire."
Well said!!
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
25 Jul 2019
12:07:19pm
re: Just An Observation
It would certainly make life easier if all new collectors decided to use the SG "Stamps of the World" catalog. Eventually stamp collecting would become much simpler especially when all of us old farts are gone and forgotten. When I think of all the hours I spent sweating over the older US stamps!! Maybe your grand children would start collecting and would ask questions like "Grampy, what's a water mark?"
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02:39:18pm
re: Just An Observation
In the beginning of the hobby, it was just like that, simplified. Eventually people began to look at and study stamps and discovered differences. The catalogs began to expand with the additional stamp types.
You are correct that the hobby would be very easy if collectors only concerned themselves with face different stamps. The Scott International Stamp Album Volume 1 fits that role to a great extent.
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02:40:49pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Just An Observation
Jings!.....Crivvens!.....Help Ma Boab!
Collectors using one catalogue ??
It would be very boring if we were all the same and collected the same.
We would have nothing to relate to one another, nothing to inform one another, nothing to moan about, nothing to discuss, nothing to argue about, nothing to fall out over, nothing to take the huff about and "here's the cruncher" no reason to escape from "She Who MUST be obeyed" !!!!!!
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re: Just An Observation
Catalogues ,I use Gibbons SOTW, and will admit it is very basic take for instance the map stamps of India Gibbons has one listing 1957 numbers 375/412 no mention that there are two printings with different watermarks.
But in Gibbons Commonwealth& British Empire Stamps 1840/1970 it lists both sets and gives the watermark numbers for both.
I also use Scott's but only buy the countries I collect from Chirokmd in the US .My complaint with Scott's is the way they price a lot of the stamps .I personally think only giving the price of a set of stamps mint and used is rather slack on their part,what is their reasoning? do they expect collectors only to buy sets?
For stamps I have trouble locating I use Stampworld on the web .
Brian
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08:54:36am
re: Just An Observation
".I personally think only giving the price of a set of stamps mint and used is rather slack on their part,what is their reasoning?"
When Scott started lumping stamp sets into one listing, I emailed them and asked why. My response was this:
- that's how collectors collect them (in sets)
- it saves space
I followed up with Scott and asked about used stamps. The comment back was that such are rarely found. I responded by telling them that it seemed more like laziness to me. Because of that listing practice, I bought the Gibbons "Stamps of the World Catalogue". It provides individual listings for each stamp in a set. With modern stamps (aside from definitives) most commemorative sets only come in one variety.
When they split the catalogs into two parts per volume, I asked Scott if they were going to split the sets to list individual stamps now that they had the space to do so. I never received a reply.
Inconsistencies in catalogues ruin the catalog and its usefulness.
Have you ever noticed that the Scott Standard catalogues for the 19th century often omits the major catalogue number from many definitive sets from many countries? If you want to find the information on the major number, you have to purchase the Scott Classic Catalogue.
I asked Scott why they did that. I got the same response as you find in the Scott International Stamp Albums. The standard Scott Catalogue provides information relating to stamps that collectors would likely buy. Since, in their opinion, most collectors do not collect varieties, they (Scott) only put one variety (the cheapest) in the standard catalogues. I told them that was a bunch of hogwash and was untrue, and that it seemed to me that the only reason for deleting the major numbers from the standard catalogue was to force collectors to buy the classic catalogue. I never received a reply to that comment.
Folks, it's all about the money, but Scott does its best to push collectors away from itself.
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12:18:59pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Just An Observation
Jings!.....Crivvens!......Help Ma Boab!
"it's all about the money"
Surprise? Surprise?
I don't think so.
Catalogue producers are there to make money for themselves. They have costs and have to recover them, and more, to make a profit.
We know how long it takes to make up an approval book. Imagine the man hours required to gather all the new issues from all the countries add it to your existing database. The market research required to update, each year, the same database must also take many man hours.
If they also sell stamps it is their Price List.
While in a second hand book store recently I came across several catalogues from the 1940's and 50's from different companies. Their "values" were of course their prices!
Catalogues are not there for the benefit of the stamp collecting community but for the benefit of the catalogue companies.
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re: Just An Observation
Brechinite wrote
Catalogues are not there for the benefit of the stamp collecting community but for the benefit of the catalogue companies.
If they were for collectors all they would need to do would be to publish a yearly update the cost of that would be minimal , Stanley Gibbons does a monthly one for new issues in their magazine.No wonder collectors don't buy new catalogues every years 99% of the contents they already have in last years catalogues.
Brian
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re: Just An Observation
In the US, libraries and dealers must be the primary buyers of complete sets on an annual basis. I have a complete set of Scott but I purchased them used. A new set is like $630. The e-editions run $75 per volume.
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12:52:32pm
re: Just An Observation
There's a monthly update from Scott in Linn's.
Clubs also buy the catalogues, or in many cases, a dealer donates a new set to the club.
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02:34:13pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Just An Observation
Even our libraries do not buy the catalogues every year.
My local library has the 2011 gibbons stamps of the world.
In the whole county of Angus the "newest" one is 2016!!!
Who says the "old country" is going downhill?
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06:24:03pm
Approvals
re: Just An Observation
Always the same question:
What are catalogues for?
a) For collectors, just to know what stamps exist and how complete are our collections...
b) For swappers, have a basis for a "fair" exchange, no matter what catalogue you use...
c) For dealers, how to make the highest possible profit (on one side, by selling the catalogues, on the other by pricing high the stamps thay have in stock, and low those they want to buy...
In my case, I gave up buying catalogues. I just use some older ones to make up the pages of my albums. The most recent issues I take from on-line catalogues or dealers´ catalogues.
My want-list I prepare with scanned images of the stamps I need, so that no confusing and clumsy cat.ns have to be used. When there are wmk or perf varieties, I just make a notice.
Of course, as I am a frequent Approvals seller and buyer, I think it would be too much work to identify exactly the varieties, except if you want to sell a quite expensive item with a special wmk or perforation.
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