Fee Changes to Take Effect May 1, 2005 (Updated)

Fee Changes to Take Place May 1, 2005:

In the first month since StampWants.com's launch, we have registered nearly 1,000 members, sold almost 2,000 items, for a total of over $20,000 in sales. To continue to grow and prosper, we believe it necessary to make a few changes to our current fee structure, mainly by requiring a fee of a couple of cents for each auction listing. This is because of two main reasons:

1) With all of our listing fees being free, the following problem is arising: If a user lists 100 items for free, and 40 sell, and 60 do not, the user will simply list 100 new items. Since listing is free, the user relists the same 60 lots that did not sell, and usually at the same price. As this continues, the amount of lots that do not sell (probably because they are listed to high) builds up and overshadows the site. However, if a very small amount is charged to list items, sellers will either not forever relist items that do not sell, or they will adjust their prices accordingly. Doing so will make our site much more appealing for buyers, and will help out all of the sellers on our site overall. Along these lines, we will also be making it easier to mass modify auctions including prices, before relisting them. However, we also understand that some sellers would just like to put up their inventory on our site, in their store, at set prices. Because of this, we will be charging only 0-2 cents per 30 days for store items (and a $3.95 a month store fee). And as you can see from the chart below, all our listing fees will be less than 1/10 of eBays!

2) Regardless of a listing fee being charged for any items, every seller puts their time and effort into preparing items and creating listings. If we charge a very small fee for listing items, it will not make much of a difference to each individual seller, as far as their costs to sell. But it can greatly increase their ability to sell their items. This is because the money we collect will go towards advertising for our site, and attracting buyers to your auctions! We plan on continuing to take out quarter page color ads in the APS Magazine, and a very large ad in Linn's Stamp New at the beginning of May. There are a few sites out there that involve buying and selling stamps for 'free'; however they are lacking in several areas. They do not have many of the features that StampWants does (and we also continue to develop new features constantly), are plagued by items that never sell (and are just relisted over and over again), are more difficult to use, and lag in overall design. Another huge problem about these sites is that people put their time and effort into listing items, which never sell because they are not advertised. With additional revenue we can put more money into creating ads, purchasing ad space, and promoting StampWants.com. We are currently the fastest growing stamp website ever, and we plan on growing even more and attracting many more buyers to your auctions! We also have many more features and enhancements in the works, from importing all of your items from eBay (which is almost done and is currently in testing), to allowing users to store their Want Lists on our site, and then be able to see all of the auctions that match their want lists!

Here are the listing fees that will take place effective May 1, 2005 (and how they compare to eBay's fees):

Auction and Fixed Price listings appear before all Store Inventory Items on StampWants.com, and on all of our pages and searches. If you want to have a store there will be a monthly fee of $3.95 (Starting May 1, 2005), and you are required to have a store to list store items. All store items automatically relist themselves every 30 days, and the $0.00 - $0.02 fee is charged every time the item is relisted (or every 30 days). Also, our end of auction fees for store items will remain between 1.5% and 2.5%, unlike eBay's which are between 3.0% and 8.0%.

After May 1, 2005 the above listing fees will take effect, along with the new $3.95 a month fee for stores. If you do not wish to continue your store subscription, simply close your store before May 1st (you will be allowed to keep any Store (Good Til Ended) items you have created before May 1st, even though you do not continue to have a store). No listings created before May 1st will be effected by these changes, but all Store Items that are automatically relisted after May 1st will incur the $0.00 - $0.02 fee.

From now until May 1st, we will open a forum for discussing any questions or comments related to these new fee changes. To reach the forum, please log into your StampWants account, click on the Forum button, and under the Resources category, select the Announcements Forum. In this forum there is a Topic called "StampWants Fee Changes (Effective May 1, 2005) Forum". Or if you are already logged in Click Here. Please post all your questions and comments related to these changes there.

Thank You, and we look forward to the future of StampWants, where sellers can sell items for less than 1/20 of eBay, and Buyers can enjoy all the features they need, and more! We can all thrive in a powerful auction site dedicated to Philately!

*Note: We are trying to make these changes to further the ability of users to sell and buy on StampWants. If after we make these changes, it is apparent that overall sellers do not see more return on their time and money invested (by way of selling more items), we will revise and lower the fees. Again, revenue collected from these fees will go to advertising and promoting the site, and thus every users auctions.

*Note: We will be sending an email out to all active sellers one week before these changes take effect in order to ensure their awareness of such changes.