Hmm, I’ve never trusted selling on facebook, maybe I will have to start an account and give it a try. I can’t stomach giving away 10%+ just to use reverb or ebay etc, so it has always just been forums for me.
Well I cant speak for all groups, but then one I use is very good. Everyone is vetted, scammers and fakers get called out, and banned. Never had any issues myself.
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I guess I’ll try with a bunch of cheaper stuff first that wouldn’t bother me too much if a deal goes south. I’m trying to get a bunch of stuff out of my studio by the weekend so I can get it cleaned up… so here goes nothing lol!
The saved search functionality recently got ruined as well. I’ve gone out of my way to build several long-lived saved searched that exclude basically any chance of getting a false positive, because I only want to be notified if the quite specific criteria set is met. Earlier this week, I started receiving notifications for hits on items that matched ZERO of the defined criteria (none of the search terms even appeared anywhere in the title or description of the listing). So now it can’t be relied on, and I might as well delete all the saved searches…a feature that I’ve been using since it was introduced, and that had previously lead to several purchases.
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Preach brother! We are old enough to remember simpler times, and our oldies talk about their simpler times. Not saying it was better or worse just simpler. These days I prefer simple. As great as all of these modern day luxuries are, it’s pretty clear none of it is good for me. Didn’t mean to go all existential
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I sold my Prophet Rev 2 on there and with the fees lost £150. (Paypal). Ebay is good for small items but for dearer stuff it will cost you.
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I need to do this again. I did it when I was 40 (some pattern maybe) and next year is 50.
It does free up head space and time, it’s an important part of modern life I think, digital housework basically.
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I’ve been toying with dumping eBay for some time myself too, there just doesn’t seem to be hardly any bargains available on there now, it’s all by it now at nearly retail prices, the only plus side for me is that it’s still possible to find bits and pieces that Amazon just don’t carry, but yeah I hardly sell on there any more, overall I’ve done over 30,000 quid in sales over the 19 years I’ve been a member, makes me cringe to think how much I’ve lost in fees to them and PayPal…
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My first place to sell is local synth groups and on my Facebook advertised as selling locally
Then here
Then eBay
And last resort gumtree because I get loads of stupid offers and scam artists
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The only time I sell on eBay these days is if they notify me they have a sale on sellers fees otherwise between there fees and PayPal’s fees it’s just not worth it.
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Reverb fees are still 13% unfortunately when baking in all the costs. I only ever list on eBay when there is a final selling fee discount which translates to about 4% in fees.
For what its worth, the most reputable shop in the UK in my humble opinion, is Signal Sounds.
Jason is perhaps one of the nicest chaps out there, I highly recommend.
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Yea the listing creation page is almost funny in how over complicated it is - it’s better on mobile though.
Finding results can be tricky although I trust the products I find on ebay more than on Amazon - that’s a far worse environment for actually finding anything that’s not pure market-stall junk.
This is why I like Reverb.
Check in tomorrow for another edition of ‘Elektronaut shouts at cloud about random thing’
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Why do Ebay and Reverb charge such high commision?
Making over hundred and fifty pounds in my case for one sale. Reverb made £130 for one sale. Its only online not an actual auction house where theres storage etc. It feels extortionate.
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At least eBay’s decline has been relatively gradual. Discogs managed to go to commit seppuku pretty much overnight when they introduced the requirement to set up elaborate, ever-changing ‘shipping policies’ despite absolutely nobody thinking it was a good idea. Now you have to micro-manage your shipping costs ahead of time based on number of items etc. for every postal zone in the world, go back and do it again every time the Post Office ups their prices and probably be out of pocket pretty often because records and sleeves are generally not a super consistent weight.
I had about 500 seller feedback on there and I just stopped, going by the begging emails they’ve sent out since I imagine I’m far from the only one.
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Works out at less than 10% total at Reverb, that’s very modest - although I’m sure we’d all like it to be free.
They actively market your listings with PPC, handle payments and processing (which as an individual would cost you at least 3-4% on their own) and they manage and host an entire web experience that probably needs an office of 80-100 people.
I don’t think running a physical auction house is neccessarily more expensive either.
As comission goes it’s pretty modest - if there was room to undercut it, someone would. But they would likely provide a service you’d post here complaining about 
Even worse they demand photo id and bank details now, this was the last straw for me as a seller. Not to mention a lot of their pages simply don’t work properly, regardless of if I was using the app or in a browser, I’d too often get pages hanging, endless loops, and the “oops something went wrong” message.
It does not inspire confidence, and no way would I upload financial and personal ID to a company that can’t even get the basics right.
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Hmmm. But £130 in Reverb case for one days online experience as you put it is like a day at a hotel resort. And when you have to factor in your the one paying for postage it feels money lost rather than a bargain.
I agree, for all intents and purposes it costs ebay no more to host an item that sells for £2000 than it does for an item that sells for £20. So it should be a flat fee really. That they take fees from postage cost is a piss take too.
A physical auction house does a lot more for their cut, although they often take a chunk from both buyer and seller. A lot of auction houses now have online reach with digital auction aggregators too.
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Absolutely. Physical auction houses have to store and insure the items. Online dont.
Plus you can check items out before bidding, or ask for a condition report if you can’t make it to the auction.
“Auctions” on ebay always bugged me too, a flurry of bids in the last seconds allowed sniper tools to exploit bidding, rather than the bidding being continued as in a real auction or in proper online auctions. This scenario is worse for sellers, worse for buyers and worse for ebay, but great for snipers exploiting the silly limitation.
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