Ebay guitar ‘traders’/flippers

randomhandclaps

In the reverse of the situation, if you saw a complete stranger selling a guitar for a fair amount under it's value (say a genuine LP Custom for £700) would you contact them and offer them a truer price?  If you then bought that guitar for the £700 but couldn't bond or needed money for something else on would you sell it on at the under priced £700 in the interest of fairness?

I reckon it's safe to say that virtually all would say no to both.

I can appreciate how it's annoying but whatever you agree to sell for you must have been happy with.  TBH for the amount of effort it takes and the fees incurred I doubt these 'trader/flippers' make much on a deal very often and mostly is just chicken feed for a lot of toing and froing.   There plenty of guys around here that have being doing the same with cars for years and none of them have swimming pools yet.

kos5150

I think the key issue for me is the level of bullshittery that is involved. For example:

Chuffola said:

Obviously, I'm not running this as a business but if, for example, I see a Mex Strat listed for £180 and I think I can clean it up and sell it on for £250 then I'm investing a bit of time in that and can sell for what I like, if I can get a buyer.

Its a hobby of sorts.

Seems absolutely fine to me. Whereas this…

Iamnobody said:

However if some twat comes to my house and beats me up on the price with a sob story then flips it within 8 hours I'd be pissed off. As much with myself for falling for it!

…is where it starts to grate.

crunchman

Iamnobody said:

There is a chap on EBay who I've mentioned before who usually bids around £1050 for Les Pauls. Then flips them for £1300-£1500 with lots of pretty pictures and a load of waffle. I've missed a few and lost out to him.

Oh well!

He's probably not making a lot of money on them.

He's likely to be paying £1080 by the time he pays for insured tracked delivery.

When he sells he will be paying £75 Ebay fees plus another £50 or so in Paypal fees which will take his total outlay over £1200.  If he's only getting £1300 then he's not got a big margin and he's making less than £100.  If he gets closer to £1500 then he'll make a decent amount.  Trading on Ebay isn't entirely risk free either.  If one deal goes bad on him then he'd need to sell another 10 or so to get the money back.

You do get better prices on Ebay sometimes than on the forum or Gumtree, but I'm not sure I'd sell something expensive on there - especially with stories like this doing the rounds:

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/dec/09/seller-beware-listing-ebay

Ebay is generally a last resort for me when selling these days.  With high end guitars I'll put them in a shop on a commission sale.

kos5150

BTW, I just used my situations as a way to highlight how it happens and where the thought behind the idea for the thread came from, not to have a rant about how some big bad guitar 'dealer' ripped me off. I came out relatively unscathed.

Iamnobody

crunchman;101771" said:

He's probably not making a lot of money on them.



He's likely to be paying £1080 by the time he pays for insured tracked delivery.



When he sells he will be paying £75 Ebay fees plus another £50 or so in Paypal fees which will take his total outlay over £1200.  If he's only getting £1300 then he's not got a big margin and he's making less than £100.  If he gets closer to £1500 then he'll make a decent amount.  Trading on Ebay isn't entirely risk free either.  If one deal goes bad on him then he'd need to sell another 10 or so to get the money back.



You do get better prices on Ebay sometimes than on the forum or Gumtree, but I'm not sure I'd sell something expensive on there - especially with stories like this doing the rounds:



http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/dec/09/seller-beware-listing-ebay



Ebay is generally a last resort for me when selling these days.  With high end guitars I'll put them in a shop on a commission sale.

True. I guess the fact that players are missing out on decent priced guitars is the main issue for me.

Don't get me wrong I've snapped up a few bargains in my time and sold on eventually at a profit. But I've not concisely set out to do it, just stumbled upon things in shops and once at a car boot!

For example I don't have two eBay accounts one for buying and one for selling...

chrisj1602

What if you buy a 7 string guitar, convert it to a 6 then sell it on for a profit to a builder with sausage fingers?

bertie

chrisj1602 said:

What if you buy a 7 string guitar, convert it to a 6 then sell it on for a profit to a builder with sausage fingers?

do your wurst

Basher

This happened to me with the last guitar I sold on Music Radar.
Agreed a price and, in the spirit of helping out a "brother seamus", ended up picking up the paypal fees and, IIRC, postage myself , only to see the guitar straight up on ebay (with my photos from here!) at something like 40% more. As with @kos5151 it then sold at this price!
However it's totally the new owner's business what they do with something. I got the cash to pay for a guitar that I much prefer, which was my objective. I felt the new owner's ebay description was rather hyped and would not have been comfortable with it myself and that's the key to it for me. I have been very lucky at various times to benefit from the kindness and generosity of friends and fellow forumites and hope that I do my best to be the same with others. On my deathbed I'm more likely to wish I was a nicer person than someone who screwed a few quid extra from people at every opportunity.

ToneControl

Iamnobody said:

crunchman;101771" said:

Ebay is generally a last resort for me when selling these days.  With high end guitars I'll put them in a shop on a commission sale.

True. I guess the fact that players are missing out on decent priced guitars is the main issue for me.

Don't get me wrong I've snapped up a few bargains in my time and sold on eventually at a profit. But I've not concisely set out to do it, just stumbled upon things in shops and once at a car boot!

For example I don't have two eBay accounts one for buying and one for selling...

I'd advise anyone buying and selling on ebay to have 2 accounts: when selling, you need to leave your history public to let buyers see you are trustworthy, but if you use the same account to buy all your kit, you are advertising what you have bought that's worth stealing (someone can buy something for £1 from you and get your address from ebay), as well as anything bought as gifts, or second hand clothes or furniture which you may be embarrassed to let friends know about.

guitarfishbay

Well, also time is money.

I've sold stuff on at prices slightly below what I'd prefer, just because I'd rather have it sell quickly rather than have it potentially sit for a couple of months to make a bit of extra cash.  It really depends on the item and the price, and if I think a sale at the price I want is realistic within the time frame I want the cash by.  To me, if all I'm going to get for waiting several months is a couple of quid then I can't be bothered.  If we're talking a couple of hundred quid though, I'd wait.

Sometimes you just get lucky though.  Last year I listed an amp at what I thought was an ambitious Buy It Now price, with the option to send an offer (which I was expecting to happen regardless of the original price, or ability to send best offers, based on past experience).  It sold within an hour at the full asking price and the deal went smoothly.  It has never worked the same way since, I've always had to sell at around the going rate to get a sale.

JookyChap

It is just one of those things and I know I get thru a ridiculous number of guitars, but I never set out to make money on them, and usually don't. Some I've sold on at a profit and others at a loss and overall it kinda evens out, hopefully.

It is a bit galling when you see something you've sold being offered for twice what you sold it for, mind, which I have a couple of times recently, but such is life. What goes around and all that.

crunchman

Basher said:

This happened to me with the last guitar I sold on Music Radar.
Agreed a price and, in the spirit of helping out a "brother seamus", ended up picking up the paypal fees and, IIRC, postage myself , only to see the guitar straight up on ebay (with my photos from here!) at something like 40% more. As with @kos5151 it then sold at this price!

People on the forum are definitely after a bargain!

I've advertised pedals (here and on the old MR site) with a price based on Ebay completed auctions, and had no interest until I've dropped it 10 to 15%.  Normally people then offer me another 10% off that - sometimes more.

I've come to the conclusion that if I don't get any interest at a price I like then I'm better off Ebaying things.  I don't always get better prices on Ebay, but I did get £107 on Ebay for a Line6 FBV shortboard that I couldn't sell advertised at £70 on here.

For guitars, it does depend on the model, but if you can afford to be patient then you are better off using a shop that does commission sales for high end instruments.

I tried to sell an early PRS Singlecut (with 10 top) on the old MR site.  I'd probably get around £1100 - 1200 for that from a shop on commission if I'm willing to be patient.  I advertised it on MR with a start price of somewhere around £1400 or £1450 to give myself room to drop the price a few days later, and for people to haggle after that.  I had a number of people derail my thread telling me that I was asking too much and it would never sell unless I dropped it to somewhere around £1000.  I'm not going to do that if I can get £1100 plus elsewhere.

I was probably hoping to sell it on the forum for around £1275 - I make £75 more than the most I would get from the shop, and the buyer saves a couple of hundred as well.  Everyone wins apart from the shop, and George Osbourne who doesn't get any VAT.  The response I got made that completely impossible.

You'd expect forum prices to be a lower than you'd pay in a shop, and a bit lower than you'd pay on Ebay - especially as the seller has no fees to pay on the forum.  However, I don't think it's fair on someone selling to expect them to take a really low price when they can get more elsewhere.

It does depend on how quickly you want to sell things as well.  If you have it advertised at the top end of the market in a shop, then it may take a while to sell, but if it's a good guitar someone will come along and fall in love with it eventually.  If you want to sell it next week then you have to drop the price for a quick sale regardless of whether it's in a shop or online.

guitarfishbay

crunchman said:

I've come to the conclusion that if I don't get any interest at a price I like then I'm better off Ebaying things.  I don't always get better prices on Ebay, but I did get £107 on Ebay for a Line6 FBV shortboard that I couldn't sell advertised at £70 on here.

To some extent that is partly down to market size.

Realistically, ebay is the largest market in the UK for selling second hand musical gear.  More people looking = more chance one of them will buy.  Some items just don't have that many potential buyers, even on a GAS hungry forum like this one.  If nobody wants to buy an item then it doesn't really matter that it is cheaper than an Ebay price.

Whether or not it is worth the hassle of selling on ebay is a separate debate altogether though, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't!  

I do agree with the sentiments of your post overall.

littlethoughts

If there is a bargain to be had and I have the cash I'll normally pounce on it, even if it's something I might not immediately want. I've picked up a couple of things down the years that I love (T-rex tonebug sensewah, TC electronic vintage dual distortion) and have kept, while others I've normally sold on. I'll normally list for more than I paid for it to cover those occasions when things sell for less! Either way I'm normally open to bartering but I'd be rather annoyed if someone made a real effort to barter me down, pleading poverty etc and then immediately resold it. It's a tough one, if you get the amount you want then it's none of your business anymore!

Fusionista

TheGuitarWeasel said:

p90fool said:

I pay 20p in VAT every time I spend a pound, and spend around half my income on fuel and wine, which is taxed at what, 60%?

How and where I earn my money is my affair quite frankly, the cunts still get their cut.

Agreed to the bloody hilt!

Wisdom awarded.  I could give you stats on how much the UK govt takes in tax, but apathy has 

DeeTee

I would absolutely do this if I had the cash. As others have said, purely to increase the GAS fund. I'd love to try starting out with a basic guitar and seeing if I could trade up to a Gibson LP or something! 

That said, I'd feel guilty about flipping something bought here. This feels more like a little group of friendly addicts willing to help each other out, so grabbing something for £200 and immediately selling it for £300 would feel like taking advantage. It would be different if I'd kept it and played it for a while, or just didn't get on with it.

JookyChap

On the ebay/paypal charges you avoid selling in forums, this fee calculator  is useful

e.g. A guitar you flog on Ebay for £999 will cost you £109 in ebay and paypal fees (assuming you get paid by paypal), so the same guitar with a paypal gift (or fees paid) on here - you are better off with anything over £890. Plus of course ebay charge based on your postal cost too now which adds to it further.

kos5150

DeeTee said:

 It would be different if I'd kept it and played it for a while, or just didn't get on with it.

Interesting point. I sold an Ibanez for £650 last year and lo and behold that was another one that wound up on Gumtree for twice the price that I'd sold it to the seller. The funny thing was, outside of the initial thought of 'cheeky bastard' I didn't really bat an eyelid, because I know that the guy had owned it for a while and had actually played it. There is something a bit more jarring when you sell an item and it ends up on eBay within hours. 

Wolftone

I normally buy on Ebay and sell on Gumtree. The logic behind this is that many people don't have the courage/knowledge to buy blind and prefer to come and 'see' the guitar which is where my margin is. They can always walk away but on Ebay, it 'aint so easy.

My best so far was an '89 LP Std bought on Ebay for £1050 and sold via Gumtree for £1500.

Skipped

kos5150 said:

Seems like more and more of these types are cropping up nowadays and I’m wondering what many of you guys think, considering that a lot of you seem to be honest working musicians who use guitars as tools as opposed to investments. I’ve had a couple of run-in’s this past year with these sorts.

The first one was a guy who I sold a guitar to for £750. It was listed at £900 (both on eBay and Gumtree) but the guy pleaded poverty and seemed genuine enough, so I figured a sale was a sale and let it go. 7 or 8 hours later it’s on ebay for twice what I’d sold it to him for! The kicker was that it somehow actually sold, even though I’d listed it myself recently with good pics, description, feedback,  etc.

The second one was this past week, I was looking for a strat and found a nice looking Japanese one on Gumtree for £300. I e-mail the guy asking if it was still for sale and if so I’ll come and pick it up. He says that someone is going that night to have a look so he’ll let me know how it goes. The next day I see the exact same guitar relisted: £450! (Just noticed it’s on ebay too: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1996-Fender-MIJ-50th-Anniversary-Stratocaster-Candy-Apple-Red-FUJI-GEN-/271342856112?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item3f2d4b67b0 )

So what is your take on it? Fair game? Scummy practices? Bit of both?

Personally it makes me glad that the quality of lower end guitars is increasing. I’d rather buy an Epiphone or a Squier and not get involved. I can’t help but feel bad for people (including myself! ) ) when I see it happen though.

:-O
What was the guitar that got the 100% mark-up?