Reverb - best thing ever?

[Indiana Mike]

One of our local stores beats online everyday.

I purchased a fender mexi 75 anniversary in January 21 for $745 before tax.

Everything is usually 10% or more less than online.

Used items as well.

It comes down to do they have what you want or can they get it.

Sellers can ask what they want ,buyers can pass.

 

[TTA]

Had a look at alembic. Never my thing but the craftsmanship is out of this world. Over 30k for a base 12 string alembic.

Check this out: (not a 12 but caught my eye).

 

[bonin in the boneyard]

As a lefty, Reverb is great for me because I need an audience 10x bigger than a righty to get the same interest in a bass. And the converse is true when I'm shopping.

But there are different kinds of Reverb sellers (for example, and not mutually exclusive):

• I'm the kind who lists gear to sell. I will adjust prices regularly with a goal of selling within 2-4 weeks.
• Stores who know what kind of margin they need to justify the sale, and don't mind holding inventory. They will set a relatively high but not reasonable price and leave it.
• Collectors who just want to flaunt their stuff: Albert's Collection / Bass Guitars

 

[muggsy]

I stopped selling on eBay years ago because the fees got too high and I had to raise prices to cover. I still buy stuff there occasionally, but typically not bass-related. Reverb is the same. I am (fortunately) very happy with what I have, but I’ve bought a bass and sold a couple in the past few years on the TB classifieds with no issues.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

I guess it cuts both ways. The search engine tech allows buyers to compare prices from a hundreds of vendors, but sellers can do the same searches to make sure they are pricing to what the market will bear, which tends to flatten out pricing. Finding a "deal" is limited to your patience and persistance. Somebody is always going to shave a little off the going rate if they need the sale. Having lived through those dim prehistoric pre-internet days, i would say count your blessings. Back in the Dark Ages, what you could find was pretty much limited to what your local guitar store had on hand, could order, or the random classified ad in the paper. I shop the snot out of any purchase over around $200. You can still find some deals on Ebay on a random basis, but I havent had much luck on Reverb. I was able to buy a Warwick bridge and tailpiece from a German vendor for 1/2 (including the shipping!) the "going rate" on Reverb.

 

[Relayer71]

Well it happened to ebay to a degree also. Do common people even sell on ebay now? Or is it just professional sellers now?

Basses and reverb aside, the trend i am seeing is that online shopping is no longer a way to get a better deal, or a product faster. It is a place to pay a premium to get something faster.

Online used to be “faster cheaper.” Now it is faster but be ready to pay the premium.

That premium is due to more volume. More volume = more inventory to stock (more storage and shipping costs), more possible returns (more shipping and restocking costs), plus increased shipping costs and the price of everything going up in general.

Even then, most item prices seem about the same whether you order them or buy in brick and mortar. And a lot of online shops offer free shipping.

As for Ebay and Reverb, of course their fees would increase in time. It takes money to run a business.

 

[Renegade bass]

One of my favourite games is to check what my gear is going for (or, marked up at) on Reverb. Yeah, if I get my flat turned over I'm using this pricing structure for the insurance to replace my goods...

 

[Deleted member 165050]

Reverb upped their fees. To make up for it, sellers up their prices.

If I'm listing something for sale both here and there, prices will be about $50 less.

I'm waiting for the moment when Reverb follows fleabay and stops sellers leaving feedback for buyers... the sale to Etsy always was going to result in change.

 

[ToneMonkey]

I recently purchased a new Levys strap at 20% off during a sale. It was pretty stoked about that.

I bought my Carr Rambler off Reverb at a great discount. Dealer was discontinuing Carr amplifiers because of increases to minimum buys. No longer being a dealer, he was required to list it as mint instead of new. It was brand new in the box. He needed cash, I wanted the amp. I couldn't be happier and I saved mucho dinero.

Reverb is largely what you make of it.

 

[bassicmike]

Yes!

Oh...wait...I thought you were talking about the effect.

My bad.

 

[Dluxe]

You can always take it to your local mom and pop store and pay a 25% consignment fee.

 

[J-Bass RMR]

All the more reason to use the TB classifieds and support the community!

That said, I’ve had all positive experiences on Reverb, both as buyer and seller.
Reverb provides a larger audience than TB classifieds, and a much better environment than ebay.
Items that haven’t sold for me on TB have sold faster on Reverb, (and at a higher price – at least on the buyer’s side, especially considering the buyer is paying sales tax.)

There is always a cost in doing business. Weigh your options and choose wisely.

 

[Bass4Brkfast]

Supply and demand, I guess.
Mostly demand.
Covid created a big demand surge from people being at home wanting to play music, coupled with disruptions in the supply chain...created unmet demand/scarcity that is jacking up the prices. Some sellers want to squeeze extra marging from the situation too.

I need/want a delay pedal at the moment, buying it from the local shop seems more and more appealing than paying 10% less than new price for a used one.

 

[Spidey2112]

But are we talking about the wester beaver, or the softer northern beaver?

Yes.

 

[two fingers]

Or just a bunch of stores posting stock at inflated prices to cover the reverb “profit grab” on every sale? And then private sellers mostly matching those prices cause they hope they can.

I dont seem to see many good deals on the basses i am interested in. Either i have amazing taste and basses i want are all in high demand (high prices) or reverb is a bit crap.

My apologies if i state the obvious. I was out of the scene for 10+ years.

The name of the game these days is patience. Sure, at one time a bass could pop in your head, and by next Tuesday it's at your door for a screaming deal from ebay or Reverb. But, these days, not only have those platforms changed, but the economy of the entire planet has as well.

In my view, finding a deal requires one of two plans.

1) The easy way is to be patient. In the next few months you will stumble upon that sheep that has strayed from the herd. Then you pounce. Just lay on a rock and keep watching.

2) The hard way is to CONSTANTLY update your feed and search Craigslist and TalkBass classifieds.... like, multiple times a day. On the hour every hour.

 

[bassballs27]

Remember the internet is slowly turning everything into a Global Market!

Reverb adds 5% on top of their version of PayPal (or you can opt to choose PayPal as payment method too).
It also offers deferred payment methods where on this site, that’s usually not an option unless there’s an agreement between the buyer and seller.
Sellers can accept offers as an option to sell their stuff. On this site, it’s pretty easy to ask the seller if they’d take less.
Another caveat, the buyer has to pay State tax. This doesn’t happen for international transactions.

My personal experience has led me to believe a lot of dealers use Reverb.

 

[Evanforbass]

You can get steals, especially with "make an offer' feature. Someone listed a set of pickups for $250, I offered $190 expecting a counter, instead he just accepted my offer. It just depends on what the item is and how much the seller wants to move it. Surprisingly, I listed my very cool Burgundy Mist Jaguar bass on TB and it sold on Reverb.

 

[40Hz]

Like most things these days, it all comes down to information access and basic economics.

Getting a “good deal” is often dependent on what economists refer to as “imperfect information” in a given marketplace. Fancy way of saying one party in the transaction (i.e either the buyer OR the seller) knows more than the other about what the going price of something currently is.

Time was that good pricing information was only available from paid subscription services catering to specific business abd industry segments. Similar to the multi-listing services used by realtors and rental agencies. Pawn shops had networked pricing database very early on as well. Notice how finding super deals on music gear in pawnshops has dried up compared to what you could find 10-20 years ago?

Here’s what happened: the Internet.

There’s a huge amount of price information readily available to anyone who bothers to look. And it’s also free. So comparison price shopping - and price setting - has drastically cut down on the number of totally clueless buyers and sellers out there.

As a result, the opportunity to get someone to pay more than the average going price of something -or- the opportunity to find someone selling something for significantly less (as in: getting a “really good deal” or a “steal”) is pretty much becoming a thing of the past. Because everyone now has access to the same “good” information to bargain from.

Reverb makes it even easier to check because they provide price trend information on their website.

This is what’s called economic “efficiency” where the bid price and the asking price are essentially equal. It’s extremely easy to buy and sell when the buyer and seller are in close to immediate agreement about the price. And as long as goods and services (and money) flow freely through the system it’s good (“efficient”) for the economy - even if it’s not so good for deal hunters anymore.

 

[Moon Fetus]

Like anything else, good deals usually require some kind of effort either to search for them or to make them happen. Reverb flies completely on the convenience of a centralized marketplace, and you pay heavily for that. IME, deals on Reverb either come from finding someone locally and working something out or waiting until someone's had something on the market so long they're willing to slash the price deeply. Most sellers seem to think their use of a pedal has increased its value for some reason. I've overall stopped buying on there, but I always list something I'm selling on Reverb simply because of the exposure. The fees are my "impatience penalty" if I'm itching to move something.

Sometimes I milk the market and wait for someone who's willing to pay a ridiculous amount for a 20yo piece of equipment because realistically those people have more money than I do and they're less patient. I will say I REALLY like the sales trends graphs when they're available because it gives you some data to work with when you're haggling with someone who's listed a used pedal at twice retail value but it's only ever sold for $150 less than what they're asking.

 

[Bass Man Dan]

I've recently been browsing and I agree. I can find direct sites selling similar basses for way less than Reverb. If I'm looking for a brand new bass, I ain't going to be browsing Reverb.