A first for me....knew it had to happen.

john o'neil

Couldn't locate a sold stamp. Sales have picked up a bit of late. Every time I go to fill and package an order, I wonder if this will be the one I can't find. Arghh! I KNOW the damn thing is here somewhere.

Scott Payton

What system are you using to keep track of your items?

Ted Tyszka

I’ve had that happen more times than I’d like to admit. Luckily, I usually had an identical duplicate, or I eventually found it. I keep my stamps in baseball card “penny sleeves,” and one time after hours of searching, I found it when I lifted an inventory box and found it clinging to the underside.

john o'neil

I keep stamps in dealer cards and then in envelopes. For Canada, I have different envelopes by "type"....Large and small queens, Jubilee, etc.

Dan Shilcrat

In 2010 I opened my first online store on the Delcampe site. I often found myself in that very same frustrating situation. At the time, I had a friend Matjorie in Manila, Phils. We spoke often in YM & she saw my grief. Marjorie told me it was the 'MUMU' or Ghosts in Tagalog culture having fun at my expense. Her advise was to leave a plate of cookies next to my laptop at night to appease them. I never did it, but will admit to some very serious consideration..

Bonaparte Moore

I used the old Library File Cabinet. Most libraries just put them in their storage room, they are hard to fine, took me six month to get one that would fit in my room, I gave them a donation. I store my stamps in a 102 card by cat # and Country. Do I loose some yes, but its a lot better then what I had.

Scott Payton

Bonaparte,
I'm SO envious of this. My first job at 14 years old was working in a library (which I did for 3 years). This was back when we not only still used card catalog files, but we RELIED on them, and they were awesome (though tedious). Now, having something like that for storing listed inventory... man, we are NO longer friends.

Seriously, I wish I had one of these, though it's not conducive to my Tokyo office in terms of convenience of size. If I could find one here, I would snap it up though. Great reuse of an outdated object. Love that.

Now I'm going to look around for one. Just don't know where I'll put it if I find it!

Greg Doll

John, I make it very simple on myself. I don't care what country or catalog or year or any of that for inventory purposes. Every item I list get a unique alpha-numeric identifier like 6BOB14578. The "6BOB" part tells me where I acquired the item and the "14578" part is what I use to inventory the item. Everything goes into red dealer boxes (or small binders for souvenir sheets and the like) in that numerical order. So, when 6BOB14578 sells, I just open up the box that contains that item and pull it. Very quick...very easy...and don't have to worry about what it is or where it came from. SImple as 1,2,3.

Luree Hughes

Bonaparte, I too am so jelly! I have been on the hunt for a card catalogue for years and not coming across one. I too would snap it up in a heartbeat!

Bonaparte Moore

If you guys find one that looks to big, Most of them are stacked together, so take a closer look, Mines was 10 trays by six, was able break it down to two units of 5 by 3.

Scott Payton

I'll have to keep an eye out here. But I'm not fussed about being too big... I have to sort that anyway.

Richard Pauls

I have seen one person use an old library card catalog cabinet to hold his baseball cards. He was very big into baseball cards.

Sanford Weiss

Hello and Happy New Year to all,

To keep inventory of my stamps I put them into 107 cards and each one has a number like this 010722_00001 obviously includes the date first and then the countdown from Hip so once a day I change the date and then it automatically counts the inventory as I enter it. This serves me 2 purposes....first is the date I entered it into inventory so if I get an offer on a stamp know how long it has been sitting around and can make a quick decision even if I am not at my computer. The second number is from Hip Auto Generate Private ID from the Preferences box on the selling page. Has been working great since I came aboard in March of this year. Just wanted to chime n on this one to say something constructive. Regards to all.

Joe Bellina

Interesting chat in two ways. First I hope to sell but was stymied by inventory control. Second as a collector of stamps with well centered cancels i wondered if sellers kept track of specific stamps since i want the one pictured z

Ted Tyszka

Any and every dealer should be keeping track of every single item in their inventory and picturing only the actual item for sale in their listings.

Scott Payton

Ted, there are times where I think it is reasonable to have an item that isn't part of the listing, particularly when demonstrating difference in shades (on early issues) or errors, and the original material is still of reasonable value.
Not always a strategy to sell both items together.

Ted Tyszka

What I meant was showing the actual item and not a “representative sample.”

Michael Duehr

Ted,

Just a curious question for you. Would you take the time to scan and list 100's of common unused postal cards as single listings showing each card as an individual listing? Or in some cases is discretion for those type of items a better option?

Ted Tyszka

Maybe my perspective is skewed because I am a (very) low-volume seller, and I have the time to do do what others feel is not worth the time and effort.

If a dealer has built a successful business and developed a customer base that is content to buy without seeing actual scans, far be it from me to begrudge their success. I, myself, have a dealer from whom I regularly buy, who scarcely includes any scans. I’ve come to trust him, because I know I will not be disappointed in what he sends me.

On the other hand, there is another dealer with a similar selling style from whom I bought, a couple of times, but who also sent a disappointing number of stamps I would not have bought, had there been images included in the listings. Needless to say, he is no longer someone I look to, to fill my blank spots.

The original question was by someone wishing to start selling on HipStamp. Starting with a customer base and reputation of zero (and, likely, a very small store inventory, to start) I feel that listing items with no images or stock images will get you nowhere very quickly.

Phil Atarium

I think Ted's analysis of the situation is spot-on.

Michael Duehr

Ted,

It really isn't a matter of whether it's worth the time and effort, it comes down to a practical matter of being able to handle lower value material quickly and easily otherwise you won't make it. If your minimum price point is 25 cents per item sold, in order to take in $20 on those type of items you have to process 80 items to take that in. If the seller is trying to become a full time dealer, it is not always practical to scan and list every single one of those low value items. Especially on items like low value postal stationary that doesn't have any difference between them. If the seller is trying to go full time the worst part of this business is dealing with the low value items. For a full time dealer there are really only about 4 ways of handling those low value items. One is limiting the number of those items you list to a bare minimum, lot them up some way to blow them out, lot them up to donate them, or to list them as quantities with a sample scan.

As far as your last statement you're forgetting that many of the larger sellers on here at one time or another were selling on Ebay back in the days when Ebay charged you for each and every listing.. Many of those dealers used sample scans due to that fact,. otherwise their fees would eat you alive.