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Promoting My Business/Interest on the Web Receive a $100 thank you for your published article. Selling Stamps on the Internet By Valter Aguiar The pace of technological advancement in the last few decades can make hobbies a thing of the past. Many people wonder why we would still be interested in old hobbies, now that we have such a high technology available, such as CDs, computers and the Internet. This is the burning question for the hobby of stamp collecting. Will it survive? Will people continue to collect, trade, sell and buy those little pieces of paper, or will everybody concern themselves only with the new technologies available for their amusement? If the latter is true, what is the fate of stores that specialize in selling stamps? Will they disappear? Nobody can stem the tide against these new technologies. Therefore, stamp selling stores had to find their way into the modern world, and many of them are now coming to the internet. On one hand, the internet can diminish people's interest in stamp collecting but, on the other hand, it can offer a greater forum for stamp dealers to offer their services, with greater speed and efficiency than paper-based mail had allowed in the past. Henry Gitner Philatelists, Inc., of Middletown, NY, is one of the largest wholesale and retail stamp dealers in the US. In 1995, Mr. Gitner decided to experiment on the worldwide web for a six- month period. He was, in fact, one of the first stamp dealers on the internet. "Our main goal was to increase our company profile and visibility – and, of course, to sell stamps," he says. Today, Gitner receives inquiries from all over the world and has just hired a full-time person to take care of their web presence. "The most interest thing is that our online business took the form of indirect business, rather than direct sales. It became a new means of communicating with our current customers and contacting new ones." Mr. Gitner himself developed his web page, but one can always commission a web marketing company to do this. This was the choice of Malcolm Turners Stamps in New Zealand, who had relied solely on magazine advertising to promote their stamp selling activities. Then came the internet, and they discovered that it could be much less expensive than magazine advertising, AND they could reach a wider audience. "If you are serious about international marketing, you have to be on the internet", Turners says. The company now receives most inquiries from the UK and US, thanks to the internet: "How else would such a diverse, geographically challenged group be able to converse so regularly?" The internet may also be the ideal solution for those who always wished to start a business, but did not know how. This was the case of Richard Fox, a long-time collector who used to buy stamps by mail and now makes his purchases online. "I always wanted to start a business," Fox says, "and felt the internet would teach me about business. A goal of mine is to learn enough to possibly open a full-time shop." The techniques for internet marketing are of course different from traditional ones. Having developed only a web presence, Fox learned that lesson very quickly: "It is a very transient place, where customers are not able to physically see the merchandise before buying it." But the net gave him the opportunity to offer his service to a wide public, from the US, to Europe and Asia. Not everybody has gotten good results going on the net. Brazil has three million people connected to the internet, but Filatélica Penny Black's results were far below what they expected. Penny Black has been in the stamp selling market for more than 20 years in São Paulo, and maintains a sizable direct mail-based following. However, Penny Black's owner, Giorgio Radini, states that most hits are from people looking to sell stamps, rather than buying them. Canadiana Philatelics, in Canada, experienced similarly disappointing results. Many contacts they received via their web site were speculative, from people trying to sell stamps -- in most cases, very common stock. The low internet-based sales obtained by Canadiana are far from adequate to sustain their business. However, they found that most of that revenue came from outside North America, so it would have been much more difficult to reach those markets without help from the internet. But, in the US, Global Stamps is satisfied with the even the initial results obtained through their web site, developed internally at minimal cost. Global Stamps sends catalogues to prospective customers from the internet and, according to Vance Lewis, one in four buys from them. "The Internet will become the chief way of doing mail-order business, not just in stamps, but in all commerce," Lewis predicts. Does all this activity answer our first question – will the hobby of philately survive the emergence of the new technologies? Opinions are all over the map, but most people believe the answer is an emphatic "yes." Mr. Gitner, from Henry Gitner Philatelists, is of the opinion that "people who collect stamps are using computers to enhance their collecting." He mentions the possibility of identifying stamps with the help of scanners and image- editing software, and of course the facility to contact other collectors and dealers through the internet. "The stamp market will become what it was before the computer," he says, "only the forum will have changed." Collector Richard Fox believes that easy access to stamp information on the internet will help beginners to learn more about stamp collecting. "The Internet is making it easier for people to get into stamps. There are many avenues to learn about stamps which were not there when I was a kid. It allows you a greater potential for finding stamps that you might be interested in." According to these specialists, there is a bright future in stamp collecting with the help of computers. Of course, no one can predict the future and say how far internet marketing will go in a few years' time. Will it completely replace the traditional way of selling goods? Nobody knows. As Vance Lewis of Global Stamps says, "this thing is in its infancy – we have barely scratched the surface!"