INFLATED PRICES MAKING THE SITE LOOK BAD

  • Account deleted
    Account deleted

    0 messages

    New Zealand

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  • BobUK

    113 messages

    United Kingdom

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    • Created on 11 Jan 2018 at 03:37
    • #808616
    While I would agree with you regarding over inflated prices on this site, your suggesting of $1 (0.53 GBP) starting price would just not work, time the seller had obtained the card for whatever price, paid Delcampe fees and Paypal fees the seller would be out of pocket
  • wycombe1

    1853 messages

    United Kingdom

    Simply exclude/block those sellers you think are overpriced.

    Taking stamps as an example - a very high percentage of catalogue listings are at the 'minimum' price which is basically a handling fee anyway. But try ordering these minimally priced items and you will find that Gibbons or whoever cannot or will not supply them as it is not worth their while to do so. Yet you will find sellers on Delcampe who will supply these items at a very borderline profit margin which often takes no account of the time involved in processing such orders.

    So if you want the item you have to be prepared to pay to pay the asking price or forgo the item. Whether an item is 'overpriced' or not is very subjective and depends on many factors - Purchase price, time processing and listing, end of auction fees, Paypal fees etc.
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  • oceania

    54 messages

    New Zealand

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    • Created on 11 Jan 2018 at 03:37
    • #808616
    The problem is that so many items are are of no real value at all. They clutter up the servers and slow everything down. In effect the high priced items are subsiding the low priced items. Below 10.00 USD is not worth selling. I think maybe there should be a minimum start price of 10.00 to clear some of the low value items off. In my experience, a lot of ordinary stamps you can pick up in a bag at shows for a dollar, so why bother putting them on Delcampe.
  • mainlypostcards

    3539 messages

    United Kingdom

    The problem is that so many items are are of no real value at all. They clutter up the servers and slow everything down. In effect the high priced items are subsiding the low priced items. Below 10.00 USD is not worth selling. I think maybe there should be a minimum start price of 10.00 to clear some of the low value items off. In my experience, a lot of ordinary stamps you can pick up in a bag at shows for a dollar, so why bother putting them on Delcampe.
    • Created on 16 Jan 2018 at 17:19
    • #810586
    I strongly disagree with that suggestion.

    You may be able to pick up a bag of stamps for pennies, but this is certainly not the case for postcards or coins.

    There are plenty of postcards and coins to be had with a value of between 1 and 5 USD, that will sell rapidly.

    Setting a minimum price of 10 USD would only increase the problem of overpriced items, because many sellers would simply try it on and list their stuff at that price.

    Prior to the fixed fee, there were many sellers on the site who would sell many items for 10 to 25 cents/pence - many of these same items are now offered for 50+ cents/pence, with a much lower (or no) chance of selling them.

    The problem lies with the fact, which was correctly identified by andrezjp, that there is a large volume of items offered for sale at highly inflated prices (i.e. 10X or more market value).
  • crazyrebel

    15 messages

    United Kingdom

    I sell whatever i can at whatever price i can justify, i recently sold a batch of stamps and paid £27 fees for the sale more or less half of what i earnt. The time everyone has chewed off their percentage for fees, a cheap stamp which might be useful to someone would not be worth me listing as i will earn nothing, i try to encourage sales to combine postage but still have found that i loose money, so i am now having to charge extra for additional items to offset the fees otherwise i am only wasting my time on here. If the fees were not so high i could sell for less.
  • hoatzinstamps

    1098 messages

    United Kingdom

    I sell whatever i can at whatever price i can justify, i recently sold a batch of stamps and paid £27 fees for the sale more or less half of what i earnt. The time everyone has chewed off their percentage for fees, a cheap stamp which might be useful to someone would not be worth me listing as i will earn nothing, i try to encourage sales to combine postage but still have found that i loose money, so i am now having to charge extra for additional items to offset the fees otherwise i am only wasting my time on here. If the fees were not so high i could sell for less.
    • Created on 7 Mar 2018 at 18:34
    • #833891
    This is a gotcha type problem.

    Delcampe on the one hand don't want to clog up their site with lots of low value items and have gradually penalised sellers via the commission per item pricing for listing these items.

    Many Collectors on the other hand are looking for low values items to complete or enhance their collection - could be for postmark or specialised collections reasons (e.g. focus on aircraft, animals, mushrooms etc.). At one time Delcampe was perfect for accomplishing this as the Seller could put up a listing at a reasonable price (relative to Catalogue price) and make a sensible margin in percentage terms. Nowadays Delcampe get the majority of the sale price on low value sales in commission.

    It is now a difficult choice - do you list low value items to attract Buyers in the hope that they will buy higher ticket items or not? Some do and many don't. It is all swings and roundabouts. But without doubt you have to be selling both low value and high value listings to make it worthwhile.

    I suspect it forces some Sellers to raise their prices too high because they are determined to make high margins across the board. This in turn reduces the sales and clogs up Delcampe!

    No easy solution in my opinion.

    Alan Catherall
    [Hoatzinstamps]

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