Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Seems to me it would really improve the performance of sellers on the Auction platform. I for one, don't bid on items that are not closing soon, ie within a few days. I usually watch the NEW items placed on auction, and if there is a buy now price listed, I will act right then. Otherwise, I may or may not return, using the "Closing Soon" sort, but most often then none it will escape my attention...memory is not what it used to be.
So as far as I am concerned, most sellers without the Buy it Now Price will escape my attention, even when I am interested in their material. I know I was recently watching a number of higher priced Belgium auction items, and ended up missing them because of I neglected to check my Watch List.
I ususally have a number of items on my watch list, but I often forget to watch them since there is no reminder that the item I am watching is about to expire.
I definitely favor sellers with Buy it Now, and will pay the additional price above minimal bid, if there is one, just to secure an item I want, when I first see it. Waiting a few weeks does not agree with me. I may just wonder off to Hipstamp if it triggered in me a "must buy" frenzy.
There does not seem to be a lot of competition in the auction bidding on SOR, so it seems to me that putting a Buy it Now option will accelerate sales...certainly as far as I am concerned.
I am curious about WHY this option is not used more often. Does it really increase the average price paid on the Auction platform? Why do YOU as an Auction seller not use it?
rrr...
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01:43:25pm
I agree with RRRalph. If there is a buy-it-now and I want the stamp I almost always pick it up. There have been a couple stamps that had a buy-it-now quite a bit higher than the bid price that I either passed on or bid for. But I really prefer the BIN!!
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My own aversion stems from Ebay where If I put a buy it now figure on an item I would leave a lot on the table.
Exampled - awhile back I had a cover in 3 pieces, soiled and one of the flaps missing along with a equally soiled letterhead from an obscure manufacturer of a sporting goods item. I seriously thought of putting it in a floor sweepings lot but decided maybe someone would want it. Were I to put a buy it now figure it would have been fairly low. It sold for over $100 - who knew.
Many items I would have priced in the buy it now at $5 or $10 have sold for between $50 and $100.
Just my 2 cents worth - when I was doing shows 35 years ago a dealer who I learned a lot from told me - "every item that follows you home was a mistake". During the late 80's when you often sold half your stock at a monthly one day show that was close to the truth, not so much now.
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03:00:06pm
My wife and I were part time antique dealers for about 30 years. We started doing shows in the early 1990's. We could do $1000/day back then and have to take in new stuff daily. I quit doing shows about 3 years ago and at that time you were lucky to bring in $1000 for a whole show. Things had really changed, the younger people don't want to be burdened with "stuff" and all the parents are downsizing (hate that word) because their kids don't want their stuff!! I still love having all my "stuff" around me, my executors have a big job to do. I have no family to burden with it and all the proceeds go to six small local charities I have stated in my will! As Hondo says, "STAY LIQUID"!!
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rrraphy:-
Unfortunately not every buyer is like you.
There are buyers that are not willing to pay one cent above their own valuation of an item. You may have seen on some lots an auction price of 75cents and a BIN price of 76cents and yet a buyer put a bid in of 75cents rather than pay 1 cent more.
A few times a week you will notice that some items are marked "Hot" meaning there is active bidding on an item. If the seller had put a BIN on it they may have undersold the item.
Personally I list some items with a BIN some not thus giving a range of options so those that like auctions are covered and those that prefer BIN have a choice as well.
It all boils down to sellers are human, buyers are human and they both have their own wee foibles.
We have a saying in Old Caledonia:- "There's nowt queerer than fowk!"
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There’s a big difference between selling on eBay and on Stamporama.
Let’s face it.. the auctions don’t have a frenzy of bidding, you’re lucky to get that one bid on an item. When I’ve listed stuff, I always do the opening bid and Buy It Now at the same price, letting folks know I just want it sold. And wouldn’t ya know, people still hit the bid button!
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The approvals are buy it now including some premium material. Auction BIN material is easier to find as one is not wading through approval books often without identification.
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"Auction BIN material is easier to find so not wading through approval books often without identification."
A BIG objection of mine! But identification was never required although for a long time I encouraged sellers to do some minimum amount of it! Maybe in sequence, or grouped by year, or with (any) catalogue number?
Has it been getting worse, as we get more and more books, or is it just a few sellers?
I do think though that books without titles that describe the content should be flagged. Books with faulty material that are not noted should be flagged. Books with stamps in quadruplicates or more, all over the place should be flagged.... etc..
I suspect that some Approval Book sellers are not even aware that they are infringing on the relaxed rules we have, not to mention certainly the essence of what Approval Books COULD be with just a minimum of effort. I don't think anyone is proactively telling them. If it sells, I guess it is ok?
Ok I know I am off topic, and it "ain't gonna change". In Auctions, one can dispense from listing sellers one does not want to see. Having that option on Approvals seems unnecessary (and it would remove my excuse for ranting and raving). But what if Approval Books would highlight ORGANIZED Books with Cat numbers, grouped by year, or in sequence... with a
icon (or one appropriately selected to indicate an organized Book). We do it for high value books and Large item books!Just a little extra effort on the part of some sellers could do wonders, too!
rrr....
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Two reasons that I do not do it on my Wednesday auctions and list my BIN's completely separate. First, the field does not reset to a blank when you go to the next auction. You can accidentally leave a price in there that you do not want to leave, and sell an expensive stamp cheaply. Happened once years ago when I tried out the feature (and sold no more lots than normal) and I sold a stamp that should have sold for $50 for a couple of bucks due to that field not resetting. The other is time - and speed. I can do 100 auctions in under an hour and to stop and make sure of the BIN field having the correct amount in it is a time killer. That, and I have to calculate and list a second amount on my pad for filling in the blanks so to speak. All that to generate perhaps a couple of dollars in sales, is hardly worth the time.
My BIN sales or what seems to be the much hated relisted items with no price changes, are in a spread sheet where it is quite simple to create a unique BIN amount and takes no time at all (spreadsheet formulas are even faster than my head). All of my auctions would be done on a spread sheet with a BIN if I could lump them all together under one country code so I would not need to look every one of them up. I have no idea if people search on countries being auctioned or on sellers. If I knew that no one search's on say, St Lucia to see what is for sale, they absolutely would all be lumped under the country Zaire because how many people really sell stamps from there?
Carol almost everything in my ebay stores have a BIN option, but I do not sell things that "might" be valuable such as covers. I sold nothing but stamps and postcards until I worked as a lister for guy who sells about 15K a month listing (well his listers list) mostly stuff he buys by the trailer full from house clean outs. His rule is one that I follow. Double the wanted price and add in the "free postage". Take nothing less than 1/2 of your asking price plus the postage costs. I have found over the years I get very close to the asking price even at double what I was expecting.BIN also allows me to not accept any buyers offer who have a feedback of less than 10 especially if they live outside the US. I decline their offer and block them as a potential buyer. Keeps those overseas losses at a minimum for stamps. I sell nothing else outside the US.
Greg
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Jings!.....Crivvens!.....Help Ma Boab!
"To BIN or not to BIN? That is the Question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...etc etc"
The answer is in the word......Auction!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iDds31CdNA
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Greg I totally agree with your BIN strategy on stamps, postcards, letterheads, etc where it is easy to determine the value of the item. Postal history is different 0 I have bought almost all of my covers from knowledgable dealers, but there are so many things to look for it is easy to miss the one thing that makes an item worth a lot of money to a knowledgeable collector.
On several occasions i have sold covers back to the dealer I purchased them from..I have also bought covers back from dealers I have sold them to. Covers bring big bucks based on the number of active collectors seeking them - not on scarcity.
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"All of my auctions would be done on a spread sheet with a BIN if I could lump them all together under one country code so I would not need to look every one of them up."
When I was doing the trials I wrote down each country code I used onto a piece of paper. When I needed that code again several days later I just looked at the sheet. Much faster than looking it up on the computer.
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Faster, than looking them up every time yes. Perhaps I am spoiled by Hipstamps loader which if you DONT want to look up a country you put in a "0" and the system generates a country code. This is why on that site the bulk loader to me is the ONLY way to list as if you do it individually online you have to go through all kinds of screens and menu's, which causes each listing to perhaps take as much as 2 minutes each. Without their bulk loader I would not sell on that site. Ebay is even faster one at a time than that! Still, to look up countries from a list on paper while faster still adds too much time for each listing especially when you factor in time spent vs sales. For the most part I think auction buyers and approval buyers are in their own groupings. I have some cross overs that buy both but I have some that only buy auctions and some that only buy approvals. The fact that a lot has a BIN on it I don't think, will cause an approval buyer to say - let me check out auctions for this seller.
It will be interesting now that we have hit 5/1 to find out how many active members we have and how many of them actually but at auction or on approval.
Greg
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Approvals
I am curious why there are so many auction items WITHOUT a Buy it Now option.
Seems to me it would really improve the performance of sellers on the Auction platform. I for one, don't bid on items that are not closing soon, ie within a few days. I usually watch the NEW items placed on auction, and if there is a buy now price listed, I will act right then. Otherwise, I may or may not return, using the "Closing Soon" sort, but most often then none it will escape my attention...memory is not what it used to be.
So as far as I am concerned, most sellers without the Buy it Now Price will escape my attention, even when I am interested in their material. I know I was recently watching a number of higher priced Belgium auction items, and ended up missing them because of I neglected to check my Watch List.
I ususally have a number of items on my watch list, but I often forget to watch them since there is no reminder that the item I am watching is about to expire.
I definitely favor sellers with Buy it Now, and will pay the additional price above minimal bid, if there is one, just to secure an item I want, when I first see it. Waiting a few weeks does not agree with me. I may just wonder off to Hipstamp if it triggered in me a "must buy" frenzy.
There does not seem to be a lot of competition in the auction bidding on SOR, so it seems to me that putting a Buy it Now option will accelerate sales...certainly as far as I am concerned.
I am curious about WHY this option is not used more often. Does it really increase the average price paid on the Auction platform? Why do YOU as an Auction seller not use it?
rrr...
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
27 Apr 2021
01:43:25pm
re: Why are there so many auction items without a "Buy it Now" price?
I agree with RRRalph. If there is a buy-it-now and I want the stamp I almost always pick it up. There have been a couple stamps that had a buy-it-now quite a bit higher than the bid price that I either passed on or bid for. But I really prefer the BIN!!
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02:27:11pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Why are there so many auction items without a "Buy it Now" price?
My own aversion stems from Ebay where If I put a buy it now figure on an item I would leave a lot on the table.
Exampled - awhile back I had a cover in 3 pieces, soiled and one of the flaps missing along with a equally soiled letterhead from an obscure manufacturer of a sporting goods item. I seriously thought of putting it in a floor sweepings lot but decided maybe someone would want it. Were I to put a buy it now figure it would have been fairly low. It sold for over $100 - who knew.
Many items I would have priced in the buy it now at $5 or $10 have sold for between $50 and $100.
Just my 2 cents worth - when I was doing shows 35 years ago a dealer who I learned a lot from told me - "every item that follows you home was a mistake". During the late 80's when you often sold half your stock at a monthly one day show that was close to the truth, not so much now.
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
27 Apr 2021
03:00:06pm
re: Why are there so many auction items without a "Buy it Now" price?
My wife and I were part time antique dealers for about 30 years. We started doing shows in the early 1990's. We could do $1000/day back then and have to take in new stuff daily. I quit doing shows about 3 years ago and at that time you were lucky to bring in $1000 for a whole show. Things had really changed, the younger people don't want to be burdened with "stuff" and all the parents are downsizing (hate that word) because their kids don't want their stuff!! I still love having all my "stuff" around me, my executors have a big job to do. I have no family to burden with it and all the proceeds go to six small local charities I have stated in my will! As Hondo says, "STAY LIQUID"!!
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03:58:31pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Why are there so many auction items without a "Buy it Now" price?
rrraphy:-
Unfortunately not every buyer is like you.
There are buyers that are not willing to pay one cent above their own valuation of an item. You may have seen on some lots an auction price of 75cents and a BIN price of 76cents and yet a buyer put a bid in of 75cents rather than pay 1 cent more.
A few times a week you will notice that some items are marked "Hot" meaning there is active bidding on an item. If the seller had put a BIN on it they may have undersold the item.
Personally I list some items with a BIN some not thus giving a range of options so those that like auctions are covered and those that prefer BIN have a choice as well.
It all boils down to sellers are human, buyers are human and they both have their own wee foibles.
We have a saying in Old Caledonia:- "There's nowt queerer than fowk!"
Login to Like
this post
re: Why are there so many auction items without a "Buy it Now" price?
There’s a big difference between selling on eBay and on Stamporama.
Let’s face it.. the auctions don’t have a frenzy of bidding, you’re lucky to get that one bid on an item. When I’ve listed stuff, I always do the opening bid and Buy It Now at the same price, letting folks know I just want it sold. And wouldn’t ya know, people still hit the bid button!
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re: Why are there so many auction items without a "Buy it Now" price?
The approvals are buy it now including some premium material. Auction BIN material is easier to find as one is not wading through approval books often without identification.
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Approvals
re: Why are there so many auction items without a "Buy it Now" price?
"Auction BIN material is easier to find so not wading through approval books often without identification."
A BIG objection of mine! But identification was never required although for a long time I encouraged sellers to do some minimum amount of it! Maybe in sequence, or grouped by year, or with (any) catalogue number?
Has it been getting worse, as we get more and more books, or is it just a few sellers?
I do think though that books without titles that describe the content should be flagged. Books with faulty material that are not noted should be flagged. Books with stamps in quadruplicates or more, all over the place should be flagged.... etc..
I suspect that some Approval Book sellers are not even aware that they are infringing on the relaxed rules we have, not to mention certainly the essence of what Approval Books COULD be with just a minimum of effort. I don't think anyone is proactively telling them. If it sells, I guess it is ok?
Ok I know I am off topic, and it "ain't gonna change". In Auctions, one can dispense from listing sellers one does not want to see. Having that option on Approvals seems unnecessary (and it would remove my excuse for ranting and raving). But what if Approval Books would highlight ORGANIZED Books with Cat numbers, grouped by year, or in sequence... with a
icon (or one appropriately selected to indicate an organized Book). We do it for high value books and Large item books!Just a little extra effort on the part of some sellers could do wonders, too!
rrr....
Login to Like
this post
Auctions - Approvals
re: Why are there so many auction items without a "Buy it Now" price?
Two reasons that I do not do it on my Wednesday auctions and list my BIN's completely separate. First, the field does not reset to a blank when you go to the next auction. You can accidentally leave a price in there that you do not want to leave, and sell an expensive stamp cheaply. Happened once years ago when I tried out the feature (and sold no more lots than normal) and I sold a stamp that should have sold for $50 for a couple of bucks due to that field not resetting. The other is time - and speed. I can do 100 auctions in under an hour and to stop and make sure of the BIN field having the correct amount in it is a time killer. That, and I have to calculate and list a second amount on my pad for filling in the blanks so to speak. All that to generate perhaps a couple of dollars in sales, is hardly worth the time.
My BIN sales or what seems to be the much hated relisted items with no price changes, are in a spread sheet where it is quite simple to create a unique BIN amount and takes no time at all (spreadsheet formulas are even faster than my head). All of my auctions would be done on a spread sheet with a BIN if I could lump them all together under one country code so I would not need to look every one of them up. I have no idea if people search on countries being auctioned or on sellers. If I knew that no one search's on say, St Lucia to see what is for sale, they absolutely would all be lumped under the country Zaire because how many people really sell stamps from there?
Carol almost everything in my ebay stores have a BIN option, but I do not sell things that "might" be valuable such as covers. I sold nothing but stamps and postcards until I worked as a lister for guy who sells about 15K a month listing (well his listers list) mostly stuff he buys by the trailer full from house clean outs. His rule is one that I follow. Double the wanted price and add in the "free postage". Take nothing less than 1/2 of your asking price plus the postage costs. I have found over the years I get very close to the asking price even at double what I was expecting.BIN also allows me to not accept any buyers offer who have a feedback of less than 10 especially if they live outside the US. I decline their offer and block them as a potential buyer. Keeps those overseas losses at a minimum for stamps. I sell nothing else outside the US.
Greg
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06:35:07pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Why are there so many auction items without a "Buy it Now" price?
Jings!.....Crivvens!.....Help Ma Boab!
"To BIN or not to BIN? That is the Question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...etc etc"
The answer is in the word......Auction!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iDds31CdNA
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07:55:31pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Why are there so many auction items without a "Buy it Now" price?
Greg I totally agree with your BIN strategy on stamps, postcards, letterheads, etc where it is easy to determine the value of the item. Postal history is different 0 I have bought almost all of my covers from knowledgable dealers, but there are so many things to look for it is easy to miss the one thing that makes an item worth a lot of money to a knowledgeable collector.
On several occasions i have sold covers back to the dealer I purchased them from..I have also bought covers back from dealers I have sold them to. Covers bring big bucks based on the number of active collectors seeking them - not on scarcity.
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08:59:23pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Why are there so many auction items without a "Buy it Now" price?
"All of my auctions would be done on a spread sheet with a BIN if I could lump them all together under one country code so I would not need to look every one of them up."
When I was doing the trials I wrote down each country code I used onto a piece of paper. When I needed that code again several days later I just looked at the sheet. Much faster than looking it up on the computer.
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Auctions - Approvals
re: Why are there so many auction items without a "Buy it Now" price?
Faster, than looking them up every time yes. Perhaps I am spoiled by Hipstamps loader which if you DONT want to look up a country you put in a "0" and the system generates a country code. This is why on that site the bulk loader to me is the ONLY way to list as if you do it individually online you have to go through all kinds of screens and menu's, which causes each listing to perhaps take as much as 2 minutes each. Without their bulk loader I would not sell on that site. Ebay is even faster one at a time than that! Still, to look up countries from a list on paper while faster still adds too much time for each listing especially when you factor in time spent vs sales. For the most part I think auction buyers and approval buyers are in their own groupings. I have some cross overs that buy both but I have some that only buy auctions and some that only buy approvals. The fact that a lot has a BIN on it I don't think, will cause an approval buyer to say - let me check out auctions for this seller.
It will be interesting now that we have hit 5/1 to find out how many active members we have and how many of them actually but at auction or on approval.
Greg
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