A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

Used to love Reverb. Then Etsy bought them out and now their customer service has gone to shit and they raised their comissions as well as their payment processing fees in the middle of a pandemic.

Just sold a $1550.00 guitar and they hit me for almost $130. I know that is still cheaper than selling through a brick and mortar outlet, or getting ass raped from Amazon, but still I am curious if there are any upstart outlets I don't know about.

Any other options out there besides Ebay?

I'm keeping an eye on this as well. Nothing is standing out just yet, but something will come out, give it time. Just look at the numerous places that have come out since ebay has gotten so huge. FB marketplace, Letgo, Mercari, etc. Hell, Reverb itself was an upstart. The bigger and more corporate these places get, the harder they become to maneuver. That's where the smaller sites come in and grab market share.

You said Reverb's customer service has deteriorated. Although I assumed it would happen, I haven't seen evidence of this yet. Other than the fees going up, what happened?

(Jeez, had to edit for misspellings four times. Gonna need a second cup of java this morning, with a caffiene shot.)

I have been dabbling in Facebook Marketplace lately. Facebook itself is a cesspool of course, and even moreso right now - but the Marketplace site is somewhat insulated from the rest of the garbage - and you can search regionally. The search leaves a lot to be desired, but there is a separate catagory for musical instruments. I've found some interesting stuff lately, but it is also a free-for-all and there are a lot of dipshi**ts out there too, just like on CL.

I can recommend Facebook marketplace. Pain in the ass but I've had a ton of success using it recently. More so than craigslist.

fbm is still a mixed bag but there does seem to be a bag with a higher gem-to-turd ratio than craigslist. i think it helps that people aren't (by and large) anonymous. there are still crazies and of course the flip side of that is that you're not anonymous either, but you can also glance at fb profiles and at a glance there you might be able tot tell that this particular deal isn't worth the risk of dealing with this person.

i don't know if it's really competition for reverb though, it depends on what you're selling. having the whole internet looking at your thing instead of just locals can make a very big difference in how many potential buyers you might have (and how quickly it might sell). that said, that can also be a negative since there's also a lot more selling competition nationally than locally. just depends i think on what you're trying to sell what that calculus looks like. the fees do make it hard to make any money buying and selling on reverb though.

rrobbone wrote: ↑Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:19 am
You said Reverb's customer service has deteriorated. Although I assumed it would happen, I haven't seen evidence of this yet. Other than the fees going up, what happened?

The phone number is harder to find on the website. The last two times I have called them, I had to hold for 20 and 28 minutes to be able to talk to a rep. The last time I spoke to the rep, they seemed to be unaware of the companies policies. I ended up having to call back a second time, and then had to haggle to get them to resolve an issue. They kind of acted like they didn't care. You would have thought you were talking to Amazon.

Gergo wrote: ↑Tue Sep 01, 2020 1:07 pm

rrobbone wrote: ↑Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:19 am
You said Reverb's customer service has deteriorated. Although I assumed it would happen, I haven't seen evidence of this yet. Other than the fees going up, what happened?

The phone number is harder to find on the website. The last two times I have called them, I had to hold for 20 and 28 minutes to be able to talk to a rep. The last time I spoke to the rep, they seemed to be unaware of the companies policies. I ended up having to call back a second time, and then had to haggle to get them to resolve an issue. They kind of acted like they didn't care. You would have thought you were talking to Amazon.

That sucks. I was hoping it might've been a little longer to have that happen. It was inevitable. *shrug*

I always just use the chat function, no issues yet.

FB Marketplace worked okay for me until recently. It's been a big hassle recently with a person standing me up, a few people accusing me of having a fake Classic Series 60s strat (it's real they were confusing it with the AVRI 62 or AO 60s I think), and just a lot of people low balling me and acting like dicks. It's kind of what's wearing on me and why I may pause or stop buying gear for a while (I have enough anyhow).

I think I sold 1-2 things on TGP recently, but I also bought a few items there.

golem wrote: ↑Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:31 pm ..., and just a lot of people low balling me and acting like dicks. It's kind of what's wearing on me ....

I'm not sure I've ever posted anything on C/L or Facebook that wasn't met with immediate offers of 40-50 percent off of my only slightly inflated price (to compensate for people who take the attitude you never pay listed price). You know right off those people are flippers and aren't worth responding too.

If Reverb goes anything like Etsy it will be worse. I have bought on Etsy for a few years. So now i buy some items, and then pay for them. After about 30 seconds i realized my card on file had expired so i go in and update the expiration date. Now it tells me i have not paid and my item has not shipped. But the thing is there is noway to pay for this item now. It's under "orders" but marked not paid. How do i pay? Sent the seller a email asking what to do now. The help section is useless.

Letgo and Offer up probably have the same percentage of wackos as CL. I did finally make a FB account for my pedals/pickups but didn't really explore any of it yet.

TalkBass doesn't want you to sell anything without paying. Same for Strat talk and TDPRI. Joined a Guild forum to see if anyone wanted to buy the old Guild case i picked up. I was told i have to post at least 10 posts before i was allowed to sell anything. I told the mod, all i wanted to do was help somebody out who may be looking for a old case, he was a asshole and i told him that rule was archaic and that's probably why they don't get any new members.

mozz wrote:If Reverb goes anything like Etsy it will be worse. I have bought on Etsy for a few years. So now i buy some items, and then pay for them. After about 30 seconds i realized my card on file had expired so i go in and update the expiration date. Now it tells me i have not paid and my item has not shipped. But the thing is there is noway to pay for this item now. It's under "orders" but marked not paid. How do i pay? Sent the seller a email asking what to do now. The help section is useless.

Letgo and Offer up probably have the same percentage of wackos as CL. I did finally make a FB account for my pedals/pickups but didn't really explore any of it yet.

TalkBass doesn't want you to sell anything without paying. Same for Strat talk and TDPRI. Joined a Guild forum to see if anyone wanted to buy the old Guild case i picked up. I was told i have to post at least 10 posts before i was allowed to sell anything. I told the mod, all i wanted to do was help somebody out who may be looking for a old case, he was a asshole and i told him that rule was archaic and that's probably why they don't get any new members.

remember when we had the minimum posts rule to sell and people would blatantly try to cheat it by bumping random zombie threads with silly things like "bump for block inlays"...

that was fun.

I Loooove Block Inlays!!!

Gergo wrote: ↑Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:02 am Used to love Reverb. Then Etsy bought them out and now their customer service has gone to shit and they raised their comissions as well as their payment processing fees in the middle of a pandemic.

Just sold a $1550.00 guitar and they hit me for almost $130. I know that is still cheaper than selling through a brick and mortar outlet, or getting ass raped from Amazon, but still I am curious if there are any upstart outlets I don't know about.

Any other options out there besides Ebay?

Honestly their fees went up 1.5% (5% vs 3.5% earlier), so it really is quite negligible (in this case re: the fee that goes to Reverb itself you're talking about maybe $25ish increase in fees on a $1550 sale). Given the thousands upon thousands of extra eyes on your item that Reverb provides and various other benefits, that really is pretty much nothing. Not referring to you here but in general I was kinda shocked by how many people got into an uproar about this little increase when it happened.

But if you're dead set on selling elsewhere, local sales really are the way to go in terms of minimizing headaches (no returns, no one negotiating for an extra discount after the sale, no shipping to worry about, etc). I never sell guitars online (due to the various headaches I just mentioned), strictly local...various apps, FB marketplace, Craigslist, etc.

slowhand84 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:23 pm

Gergo wrote: ↑Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:02 am Used to love Reverb. Then Etsy bought them out and now their customer service has gone to shit and they raised their comissions as well as their payment processing fees in the middle of a pandemic.

Just sold a $1550.00 guitar and they hit me for almost $130. I know that is still cheaper than selling through a brick and mortar outlet, or getting ass raped from Amazon, but still I am curious if there are any upstart outlets I don't know about.

Any other options out there besides Ebay?

Honestly their fees went up 1.5% (5% vs 3.5% earlier), so it really is quite negligible (in this case re: the fee that goes to Reverb itself you're talking about maybe $25ish increase in fees on a $1550 sale). Given the thousands upon thousands of extra eyes on your item that Reverb provides and various other benefits, that really is pretty much nothing. Not referring to you here but in general I was kinda shocked by how many people got into an uproar about this little increase when it happened.

But if you're dead set on selling elsewhere, local sales really are the way to go in terms of minimizing headaches (no returns, no one negotiating for an extra discount after the sale, no shipping to worry about, etc). I never sell guitars online (due to the various headaches I just mentioned), strictly local...various apps, FB marketplace, Craigslist, etc.

Well, my real complaint is that they went up in their commission fee, but down and quality of customer service at the same time. I see that as a sign of them going in the direction of Reverb or eBay

golem wrote: ↑Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:31 pm I think I sold 1-2 things on TGP recently, but I also bought a few items there.

I think forums like here on AGF, TGP, MyLesPaul, TDPRI are actually some of the best places to buy and sell. Certainly you are dealing with the niche interests of each forum to some extent, and the potential audience is much smaller - but i'd wager that probably about half of the guitars I've sold have gone through here or another forum. The collective community is usually good at weeding out the scammers very quickly so a lot of that work has been done. And pricing is usually a lot fairier - how many times do you see people posting here with a link to Reverb but give the "AGF" discount right up front.

Anybody check out https://www.gbase.com/ ?

bump for block inlays

Sweetwater used? I've only had one person contact me via that site though.