Tuesday, January 6, 2009



I met with one of my stamp groups yesterday and because I had just gotten back from a four day prison ministry trip 3 hours away, I had to do some really quick preparing. I pulled out one of the speciality stamps SU sold a few years back for contibutions for the American Heart Society. Many of them said "Thank you for pulling out an old stamp to use." It makes us feel less pressured to buy new stamps when we don't even have time to stamp with the ones we have." My sales are down, and I know this practice will not help me out businesswise, but it did make me think that I do need to make them feel the stamps they do already have, have worth, and they need new and fresh ideas to make use of them too. The main reason I stamp with that group is to keep them stamping and loving it. They will have to at least buy paper that way and they will be tempted to want to purchase the new things too, but too often we devalue those old stamps by always only working with the new stuff. I'm not really demoing in this group, I'm just keeping them interested and active in this hobby. So, my new year's resolution is to make use of some of my favorite retired sets. I know the argument will be that it will frustrate your customers that they can no longer purchase these sets if they want them. But then, it does make it more valuable to those who hold those sets and may want to sell them. It's time we add some value to those retired sets instead of devaluing them, don't you think??

1 comment:

/p said...

What a great way of thinking about the retired sets. I'm a hobbyist, so don't need to worry about keeping customers motivated, but I do like the way you think.

/p

PS: I'm just "up the road" a bit from you north of I-10 and the Beltway.