# ?? on water fowl stamp



## miruss (Apr 18, 2003)

went to post office to get federal waterfowel stamp only to find out local sporting goods store bought them all so had to go out there to get the stamp and they ended up charging a EXRTA .75 so instead of 15.00 it was 15.75 i'm trying to figur eout if they can or can not do this


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## malainse (Sep 2, 2002)

I see no reason why they could not charge more. The post office will get more in or you can buy them online or any other post office. I would ask the postmaster or local postal inspector..


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## William H Bonney (Jan 14, 2003)

Ooooohhh. I'd be FUMING, if I that happened to me!!!!!!! Isn't that kinda like "scalping"??


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## Ninja (Feb 20, 2005)

William H Bonney said:


> Ooooohhh. I'd be FUMING, if I that happened to me!!!!!!! Isn't that kinda like "scalping"??


Not really....first let me say, I DO NOT sell the stamps at my store.
However, as a store owner, let me see if I can figure out his rationale.

The Post Office is the supplier for this product, he is the retailer.
He's making a 5% profit. For this, he must pay someone to drive to the post office. He then must pay someone to stock the item and ring up each purchase.
He must keep track of each purchase for 10 years to prove it is exempt from sales tax.
Then, depending on his volume of sales, he must PAY the State of Michigan a percentage of that sale for the Small Business Tax.
AND....if the stamp was purchased with a credit card, he must PAY the credit card company over 2% of the sale.

Luckily, there is a post office right near me, and my customers don't mind stopping there and getting the stamp.


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## miruss (Apr 18, 2003)

the way i look at it he didn't have to go and buy them all so you have no choice but to go there it's the fedral stamp say 15.00 right on it so if he needs to make a profit whats to stop him from adding on to hunting lic that he sells just the way it was done is wrong to me i've spent close to 2000 in the store so far this yr on diferent guns ammo and other thing instead of going to wally world or miejers for that matter cabelas is only 40 mins away. all i can say is that .75 just cost him more then he made i just sent about 150. with a friend to pick up some things at cabelaS that he has that i could have gotten tuesday


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## Ninja (Feb 20, 2005)

miruss said:


> the way i look at it he didn't have to go and buy them all so you have no choice but to go there it's the fedral stamp say 15.00 right on it so if he needs to make a profit whats to stop him from adding on to hunting lic that he sells just the way it was done is wrong to me i've spent close to 2000 in the store so far this yr on diferent guns ammo and other thing instead of going to wally world or miejers for that matter cabelas is only 40 mins away. all i can say is that .75 just cost him more then he made i just sent about 150. with a friend to pick up some things at cabelaS that he has that i could have gotten tuesday


 
Miruss,
I really doubt he bought every last one of them as a ploy to get everyone to buy them from him so he could get rich making 75 cents on each one. :16suspect 

Stamps are different than licenses.....you can mark them up....collectors pay HUGE money for some of them.
He cannot mark up the DNR licenses....it is a LICENSE, a FEE that must be paid to the State.
If he has given you good service in the past, why hurt him over 75 cents???


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## boehr (Jan 31, 2000)

If it was not legal it would be federal law, contact US Fish & Wildlife. State licenses it is not legal to charge more regardless what the costs was to obtain the licenses of course there is a small profit already built into the purchase price for state licenses.


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## LilyDuck (Dec 29, 2004)

Ninja said:


> Miruss,
> I really doubt he bought every last one of them as a ploy to get everyone to buy them from him so he could get rich making 75 cents on each one. :16suspect
> 
> Stamps are different than licenses.....you can mark them up....collectors pay HUGE money for some of them.
> ...


If he is given him good seevice in the past then why is the store to make a extra .75 on the customer? If he is spending the money on a licensce there why not make your sale in the decoys, camo, if you are a well stocked outdoor store very few Waterfowlers will make it out of thier with as much cash as they had when they entered. 

This is not a collector stamp! This is an all over, anyone that wants to get one can stamp. I think that its pretty sad that a store owner would hike up the stamp 5%. 

I would take my buisness elswhere too Miruss!!!

Ninja I hope that you didnt take this directed at you. There was absolutely no offense to you as a Outdoor Store owner but this is the "little stuff" that can make a little buisness go under, you dont realize that .75 is not worth what they will spend in the long run!


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## roger23 (Jan 14, 2001)

I have bought stamps at bait shops before and paid $1.00 more I was grateful because I had lost mine I guess try to find a post office open at 5am on a Sunday morning .this may have not been your case but at least you got one Also the little post office in our town only gets so many and when there gone that's it for the year


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## wally-eye (Oct 27, 2004)

I wonder how many items the guy has in his store that he is selling and not making a margin. Zero, zilch. He isn't giving items away.


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## Ninja (Feb 20, 2005)

wally-eye said:


> I wonder how many items the guy has in his store that he is selling and not making a margin. Zero, zilch. He isn't giving items away.


 
How do you know that?

I have several hundred different SKU's right now on sale that I am LOSING money on.

Do you tie your own flies???
Come in and see me....you can buy everything you need for less than I paid for it.

Lily....click here to see the collectibility.
http://search-desc.ebay.com/search/search.dll?sofocus=bs&sbrftog=1&catref=C6&from=R10&satitle=waterfowl+stamps&sacat=-1%26catref%3DC6&fts=2&sargn=-1%26saslc%3D2&sadis=200&fpos=48371&ftrt=1&ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=1%26fsoo%3D1&coaction=compare&copagenum=1&coentrypage=search

And he is not making an EXTRA 75 cents.... he's making 75 cents...and he's making less than that after he pays his expenses.

Read my post again.


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## wally-eye (Oct 27, 2004)

Ninja said:


> How do you know that?
> 
> I have several hundred different SKU's right now on sale that I am LOSING money on.
> 
> ...


Ninja:

You need to take a chill pill and quit being so argumentative. If you read my post and think about it I was 100% agreeing with YOUR point. I think the person SHOULD be allowed to mark up the stamps if he wants. I guess I should have used a crayon and said that the person couldn't stay in business unless he was making something on each item he was selling.

Dan


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## roger23 (Jan 14, 2001)

Ninja said:


> How do you know that?
> 
> I have several hundred different SKU's right now on sale that I am LOSING money on.
> 
> ...


How do you stay in business if you are losing money on hundreds of items the other stuff must really have a mark up to make up for the loss


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## eyecatcher (Feb 2, 2004)

I dont really think this is about the guy making 75 cents. 
I think the idea of marking up a duck stamp turns a lot of people off. However few stores sell federal duck stamps for that reason. I doubt that the 75 cents comes close to the cost of having those stamps for his customers. 

As far as any small store having a hugh mark up on their inventory, thats not happening unless it the local conveniece store. then even with their high prices its a hard business to succeed in.

That said many stores sell items below cost to clear out inventory that is not moving, before it becomes shelf worn. The small store owner has a great deal of money tied up in many things that sell slowly, he needs to move those items and recover some of his investment to buy faster moving items. The more times he can move his inventory even at a small margin the better the chance will be that he can stay in business. I shop where I get service, price is not a major factor or I would go to walmart. I hate the thought of that. If your like most of the guys I hunt with you will spend a little more to deal with a store owner who caters to your needs, knows the items you want or will get it for you. Price is not what your looking for. Now if price is your primary concern go to walmart and don't bother the little guy whos trying to make a living giving the rest of us good service. We want him to be their for long time and the odds are against him from the start. IMHO


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## john warren (Jan 25, 2005)

thats what stores do, make a profit. as was said that amount is probably only covering his costs, and he's trying to provide a service of convenience to his customers. i odubt if he bought them all out. probably guessed how many he would need for past experiance and bought that amount. if a coupe stores did this and a bunch were sold normaly the PO could be out temporarily. that,,, or it could be a conspiracy by the big huntng license industry.


LilyDuck said:


> If he is given him good seevice in the past then why is the store to make a extra .75 on the customer? If he is spending the money on a licensce there why not make your sale in the decoys, camo, if you are a well stocked outdoor store very few Waterfowlers will make it out of thier with as much cash as they had when they entered.
> 
> This is not a collector stamp! This is an all over, anyone that wants to get one can stamp. I think that its pretty sad that a store owner would hike up the stamp 5%.
> 
> ...


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## Ninja (Feb 20, 2005)

Wally-Eye,
Sorry I misread your post, wasn't trying to be argumentative....my apologies.

Here's a story....on the very day of my post, I dealt with 2 different customers regarding the stamps.

Customer #1 asked if I had them, I told him no. He asked why? I told him we lose money on them, and I didn't want to charge my customers more than the face value. He called me a cheap SOB, said he hopes I go under, and he will never shop in my F***ing store again....he's going to WalMart.
He came back in a half hour later, apologized to me, said Walmart didn't have them, the Post Office was closed, he didn't have a cell phone and could I call around and see who had them.
I made a couple of calls, (all this on a very busy Saturday), and sent him to a place about 10 miles away.
On his way out, he said "thanx, but I still ain't shopping at your F***ing store again.

Customer #2.....he asked, I gave him the same answer....he said he'd gladly pay an extra 2 or 3 dollars for the convenience of not having to make the extra trip to the post office and spend more time and gas.

Soooo....how do I win??? What do I do??? I just don't know......


Roger23,

Eyecatcher's post nailed it right on the head.
To add to that, I special order alot of items for people....sometimes I have to buy minimum quantities of a product to order it.
So if a customer wants 2 and I have to buy 6, I'm stuck with 4.
I'll sell those four at a reduced price, just hoping to break even.
Why would I do this? As a service to my customers, it keeps them coming back.

And now that I just wrote that, I think I'll go ahead and get some stamps and sell them at face value.....it might be worth a little lost money to keep my customers happy.


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## wally-eye (Oct 27, 2004)

Hey, no problem, after I wrote I knew there had to be something behind it.

I wouldn't sell them at a loss. If people don't like it then they should shop elsewhere.........you can't please everyone all the time....

I know I frequent a local sports shop and pay a dollar more on any certain item that wally world would have but rather buy it locally and support the local sport shop. Plus their "lies" are a lot better than wally worlds could ever be. :lol:


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## flinch (Aug 10, 2003)

Ninja said:


> Wally-Eye,
> Sorry I misread your post, wasn't trying to be argumentative....my apologies.
> 
> Here's a story....on the very day of my post, I dealt with 2 different customers regarding the stamps.
> ...


Ninja, I agree that you should carry them and sell them at face value. Nobody is going to be sympathetic to you losing money but it does make a nice draw item and you will build a reputation as a store that has everything a sportsman might need in one stop if all the licenses, tags, and stamps are available and there is no perceived "gouging" going on. Hopefully some of those customers will buy other stuff while they are there as well.


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## answerguy8 (Oct 15, 2001)

This is the biggest fuss over 75 cents that I've ever seen.


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## wally-eye (Oct 27, 2004)

Can't figure it out either. Someone will spend $3 or $4 for a beer or spend 3 gallons of gas trying to find a stamp somewhere else. Just don't make sense.


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