Sebastian Delcampe presents the future of Delcampe!

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Los datos ya no están disponibles porque la cuenta de este usuario ha sido eliminada (Reglamento RGPD)

We would like to be able to offer all Delcampe members the possibility of having a live chat in the language of their community.
However, the live chat is organised by Sébastien Delcampe. As you'll understand, he can only do this if he speaks the language of the community.
Sébastien speaks fluent English and can therefore have some quality interactions with the members of the English-speaking community, even if he is not bilingual.
His level of German does not allow him to communicate with you in German.
We understand your frustration, and we know that you're not the only community that won't have a live chat ( we're not forgetting the Italian-speaking, Spanish-speaking and Dutch-speaking communities).
As we cannot offer this type of event in your languages, subtitles will be added automatically.
We also confirm that all official site communications will continue to be written in the site's 6 official languages.
We just can't offer this possibility during a live event.

Thank you for your understanding.

Hi Miranda....I would not care if Sebastian personally spoke...how about another English speaking Delcamper?
The frustration is the lack of information. And the lack of detail to clearly explain the plan. Also would be nice to know
exactally when to expect the "changes" I tried to make heads and tails of Sebastien's video...something very lost in translation. I would recommend he only addresses the fees for buyers and sellers and what the benefits are.A lot of his speech was not clear as to the issue.

There will be an English Q and A with Sebastian Delcampe at some point in March. (scroll up and see her previous post at the bottom of page 3 of this thread,

Miranda was responding to a German seller who was (rightfully) upset for the lack of communication in their language,

Whether there will be a video is not that important. However, it is important to get information in your own language. I prefer written statements - either by email or on the website. You can just take a look later, while you have to search forever for the relevant part in a 100-minute video. And that would be possible - and please give it enough time in advance and not "From next week applies to everyone..." without further explanations.

I would agree with the others above that a simple written explanation of what is proposed, with timelines and detail, emailed to everyone and posted on the site, would be much preferable to having to sit through a long video and try to pull out the key points. A written document can be referred to again and again easily. Such can surely be produced quickly in all the relevant languages. And if it is longer than one page of A4 it is probably too long !

Some tough decisions ahead when we finally find out what the changes are exactly about. For now I will postpone any further listing even though I've got a few thousand sorted and ready to go on. It looks more likely I will be cutting back down to 10,000 from around 18,000. I've not looked at other sites but I think it may be time to to do so.
The details are critical and should have gone out clearly in all languages.

I agree...I think the new payment system is going to effect sales. It is very unclear and I think buyers will be scared away.
I have already noticed a drop in sales. If it ain't broke...don't fix it.

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It seems to me the majority of this site are French speaking members. There was virtually no effort to english speaking members, nor german or italien. The question remains...why bother with this whole thing? That question needs to be clearly stated in all languages. The only reason I can see is to increase revenue,disguised in a cloud of confusion.
It's too bad, the site has gone through many growing pains over the years. I find this whole thing very disappointing .
I hope I'm wrong but as I said before...you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

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This not an issue of economics.It is an issue of poor communication. A company trading internationaly should accomodate
all it's clients in a straight forward way. The EU is not alone with with economic slow downs.A crisis is a little overstated.
The stamp market is very strong if you follow the worldwide auctions. Prices realized a very high from everywhere. What is see is that increasing fees you are taking out the buyers who want lower priced items.Server costs be damned. The server system was replaced several years ago and has been fine ever since. With all due respect I don't think you have a clue about Delcampe's future financial considerations. None of us have. The plan as I see it will decrease the buyers who are looking for inexpensive items and incourage store shrinkage.

I'll wait for the new story,let's see what happens.

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I've also thought that Delcampes main revenue will come from sellers with many thousands of listed items so they really need to look after these sellers. The bulk of additional revenue Delcampe will collect will also come from these sellers... there's no perks, Gold membership I've looked at many times but can't work out if it's worth it. If people don't list no one makes any money including Delcampe.

The English Q and A has been scheduled for Thurday 7 March at 3pm Paris Time.

Vinculo (https)

You can email questions in advance, and I have sent the following summarising my concerns on here :

I've run the numbers from the French Q&A on my sales from last year. The total fees due to Delcampe on my sales (both buyer and seller) will increase over 113% if I make no changes. By closing 10% of my sales and losing store plus I can get the fees down to a 47% increase. Do you think this is typical for most sellers and that this is sustainable for us?

As a lot of professional sellers have pointed out on the forum, having a printable statement (and CSV file) with starting and ending balances (and preferably rolling balances) is required showing all transaction details. The lack of Seller reporting on Mangopay is a significant issue in balancing our accounts (and proof for our accountants/tax authorities) with sales through this channel. All other payment channels provide this (Paypal, ebay Payments) and it is a regulatory requirement in the UK by the FSA for eMoney providers (which Mangopay is registered as here).

For paypal Sales, will you be (a) sending the seller only the amount due to them, or (b) the total buyer cost and then deducting your fees (both buyer and import fees)? If (a) i see no issues on my side. If (b) this could cause sellers issues as we will need to declare the total buyer cost as a sale, then require an invoice from you for recovery of the buyer and import fees so we can offset this in our tax affairs. The seller will also be paying additional paypal fees on the transaction for the fees that should have nothing to do with us. There are likely to be VAT implications for you as well.

A lot of the value from Club+ for me was the reduction in insertion fee. This alone offset the annual charge. Will this now reduce the buyer item fee on my lots? If not will it be cost effective for most sellers given the doubling in price?

Miranda,

This Delcampe strategy announcement passed me by – I had completely missed it.
I listened (or rather read the sub titles) to Sebastien’s presentation yesterday as I will unable to attend the 'English' version. I would offer the following observations:

1. It seems to me that the strategy relies on full payment compliance to use Mango or PayPal. The advantages of using Mango explaining the cheque example are a bit spurious since I have only received a cheque and / or cash twice in the last 3 years. Payments by bank transfer have on the other hand increased from EU based customers. They only take 24 hours to arrive and are easily checked. I note that my customers using this payment method do not want the bother of joining Mango. It may even take them longer to pay me – given that they have to pay into Mango first. Net, this is an issue.
2. The change to customers paying Delcampe fees on settlement of an invoice is a massive change. The mind-set of Delcampers is not in tune with such a change. Sebastien positions this change as needed to combat non-payment of fees by Sellers. And yet Delcampe is introducing a monthly fee for sellers depending on their usage of the site. Surely, collection of this charge will also be open to non-payment? Are EU regulations the real driver for this change?
3. Sebastien states that the site is overburdened by listings that are ancient and never likely to sell. I may even be guilty of this myself. However, there is no tool (as far as I know) that I can use (as a seller) to find out when a listing were actually added to the site. Net, it is difficult to be proactive on old listings to remove them.
4. If the plan to collect Delcampe fees from Buyers moves forward then a tool needs to be available to Sellers to adjust their listing prices. Since Delcampe introduced the sale fee per listing I am sure most Sellers will have increased / adjusted their listing prices to reflect the Delcampe fees they have to pay. Changing 1000s of listings manually is not viable. Changing listing prices by a percentage is also not an option in my opinion – as I apply a fixed addition to my price irrespective of value of the listing . If this capability is not available then prices (particularly the lower ones) will appear excessive to buyers.
5. While I get the impression that the Delcampe want to charge buyers a fixed charge for each purchase it is unclear whether the old percentage of value fee is being dropped? Until the new charges and their application to buyers and sellers is properly published this is all a bit of a guessing game.
6. Quite a few of my EU customers prefer to settle their ‘import VAT’ liabilities locally. Will they still have this option?
7. It is increasingly difficult to add customers to mailing lists so that Sellers can notify existing customers of promotions etc. Has any thought been given to enabling Buyers to join a Sellers email list? I note that some contributors to this thread have lots of listing and few sales. I suspect that may be down to the fact that they cannot proactively market to their existing customers. Just a thought.

Alan Catherall
[Hoatzinstamps]

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3. Interesting. But still like something more obvious.
4. Percentages don't work. On a low value item of 24p I might want to reduce by 10p. In fact, I would reduce all listings by the same amount. I have listings ranging from 20p to £100+. It's the low valued stuff that poses the problem.

I believe the majority of Delcampers are aged 50+. The proposed changes are seismic and there is likely to be a lot of pushback to these type of changes.

Alan catherall
[Hoatzinstamps]

Los datos ya no están disponibles porque la cuenta de este usuario ha sido eliminada (Reglamento RGPD)

The multiple changes page allows you to take a fixed amount of each listing (e.g. 14p as you will no longer be paying the insertion fee) or a percentage (e.g. 7% to cover the FVF moving to the buyer). 2 changes would allow you to adjust your pricing to accommodate this. You may not want to pass the full amount to the buyer due to the increased shop fees being proposed.

The changes have been discussed on the French forums for a month with a lot of pushback as you suggest. The fact that the structural changes are being accompanied by a doubling of total fee take by Delcampe have not helped (My post on page 2 has screengrabs from the Q & A showing the proposed charges). Feedback will no doubt increase when the changes are announced formally as I guess that a large number of buyers/sellers have not heard the news yet.

As you say this is a seismic change. You are just over the 10k item tier like me. It may be worthwhile shrinking your store a bit to save EUR14.95 a month unless the sales on those items are sufficient to offset this. A 0.30EUR per item fee is prohibative for smaller lots, so is a good place to start.

OK, got it now. Thanks.

Alan Catherall
[Hoatzinstamps]

Thanks, I hadn't appreciated that 0.30 euros per item was the starting point. I guess that is to cover the FVF somehow. No doubt some calculations have been done. That level of charge will kill small item purchases. The majority of my customers buy a mix of small and higher value items. This approach could prove detrimental to overall sales and drive buyers away..

Alan Catherall
[Hoatzinstamps]

Also two questions - no, three:

1. This is a double question. Why is there no information in German? I know that you don't or barely speak the language, but that's no reason not to provide German-language information. Written information with all relevant points on the website or in an email is the minimum that must be provided. This is about basic contractual matters. And I don't mean parallel to the introduction, but long beforehand, so that you have enough time to prepare, for example to adjust the price of a large number of items (possibly even manually). And the second part of the question: Why do you provide information via video? Do you expect everyone to fast forward and rewind in a hundred minutes if they want to find out more about a certain point? A video is the worst possible way to provide information about contractual matters.

2. I avoid selling on platforms where there is something like a listing fee. Previously there was only an upfront fee of 4 euros per month (club). That apparently now increases to around 50 euros a month for me if I have 80,000 items, use the API and need reference numbers - so even if I take any "discounts" into account, that's around a tenfold increase in the upfront costs. Passing the costs on to the buyer doesn't do me any good. I currently pay around 500 euros a year in fees, after the change it will be 600 - and that in advance without you having done anything in return. Even with so-called discounts, I still have to pay this in advance, even if I'm sick or going on vacation. In my opinion, the platform operator lacks motivation when he already has his money. Why should he be interested in the sellers if he doesn't get more money from it? As you can see, I'm all for leaving the selling fees with the sellers. I say this as a seller, and not just because many more potential customers will probably leave the platform to look for other options. Or is it the case that you have to pay a sales fee in the supermarket in addition to the price? No certainly not. So I'm looking for alternatives, I say that openly. So why did you reverse this ironclad principle?

3. A nuisance for everyone involved on the site are the many cheap items that have been listed for years and for which practically nothing is done - in fact there seem to be more and more of them. Isn't it the case that the following is to be expected: Many who offer such items have not listed many items, perhaps 400, sometimes 3000. Those who have listed 400 items will pay nothing upfront in the future and even in the future no more sales fees. This is a dream world for him and he will do the opposite, he won't leave, but maybe post a few more articles until he's just under 1000. The person who has 3000 items will simply ask an uncle and a brother if they can then offer some of it in their name so that it remains free.
The person who has 3000 items will simply ask an uncle and a brother if they can then offer some of it in their name so that it remains free.
Die Person, die 3000 Gegenstände hat, wird einfach einen Onkel und einen Bruder fragen, ob sie dann etwas davon in ihrem Namen anbieten können, damit es kostenlos bleibt.
The person who has 3000 items will simply ask an uncle and a brother if they can then offer some of it on their behalf so that it remains free.
Die Person, die 3000 Gegenstände hat, wird einfach einen Onkel und einen Bruder fragen, ob sie dann etwas davon in ihrem Namen anbieten können, damit es kostenlos bleibt.
Or it's the baby's name that has to be used and the woman's account. And you know for yourself: If this is done with a different name, with a different email address and a different bank account, it is hardly noticeable. And it will also be said that the woman and the man can also sell separately. These many cheap items now automatically become more expensive, are therefore bought even less and clutter up the platform even more. And the providers certainly won't lower the prices. That's far too much work for them, they just want to earn something on the side and don't want to work for it too. We already saw all of this when the fixed sales fee was introduced. She also achieved the opposite of what was intended in this area. So what do you want to do about the many cheap items if you no longer charge these providers any fees?

Its even worse than that, the FVF is still there. It is 10% (up from the current 7%) under the new model, with no volume discount (not that I have ever got there). This is to be paid by the buyer.

My guess is that are attempting to move the fees to the buyer to try and disguise the fee increase. It's been working as I've had pushback on the forums saying I cant compare Delcampes take under the old fee structure to the new one. I can, and Delcampe are increasing their take on our sales massively, even taking into account the fee reduction due to Mangopay becoming 'free'.