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Reverb.com browsing has become insufferable

IngloriousOz

IngloriousOz

Supporting Member
Jun 1, 2006
2,261
5,261
SLC, Utah
#1
Just needing to vent, but also hoping someone from the mothership actually sees this. We all know Reverb has been sliding since the acquisition, but 2026 has been a total nosedive.

I usually scroll through Bass Guitars, Amps, and Pedals on my work breaks, but lately, it’s a chore. The "Bump" feature has turned the feed into a landfill. Nearly half of every page is just low-effort, hot garbage listings. To make it worse, it’s the same handful of sellers dumping redundant, duplicate ads with massive bump percentages to stay at the top.

We desperately need a "Mute Seller" or "Hide Duplicates" feature. I’m tired of digging through a mountain of trash just to find some cool listings.

Anyone else experiencing this on your non-curated feeds?

Screenshot 2026-02-22 164935.png
Screenshot 2026-02-22 165038.png
 
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#4
Plake said:
Noticed a weird glitch. Search 4003s and get say 170 results. Then sort by most recent and get 200+ results. Pretty much happens with anything that I'm looking for.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, here's another one - someone will send me a link for a specific ad and then if I try to search for the same exact item it will not come up in a search even if I just type in one word IE Hiwatt
 
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#5
I wish it was easier to block buyers on reverb. If someone lowballs me and is annoyong on eBay, they are gone with one click. Because lowballers are so rampant i have list with no offers allowed. But of course they still message me. I dont want to sell to a lowballer because I feel like they will make up some wild excuse to return the item. Thats happened to me a few times before.
 
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#7
AngelCrusher said:
I wish it was easier to block buyers on reverb. If someone lowballs me and is annoyong on eBay, they are gone with one click. Because lowballers are so rampant i have list with no offers allowed. But of course they still message me. I dont want to sell to a lowballer because I feel like they will make up some wild excuse to return the item. Thats happened to me a few times before.
Click to expand...
I get those too, $950 offers on $2k instruments priced aggressively to sell quickly. I usually respond with "The Poors are at it again!"
I think a lot of dreamers and tirekickers hope someone will bite on an insane lowball.. Some keep coming back just to be annoying raising the offer by a dollar. etc. Not to mention most of the prices for sale are crack rock high.. $10-20 bucks below buying new etc.. its a Joke.
 
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#11
Totally agree with them needing to get rid of all the garbage listings (REVERB BUMP). The only thing that does is BUMP all the new customers off the main page sooner. I don't see the appeal for anybody to keep piling your trash on the front porch

And the way they show the historical pricing..... I dunno..... that is a double edge sword there. So if one desperate individual sells his bass for $500 less than market value it drives down the value. And they show everybody. That drives the next sale low..... again and again..... once it happens a couple times the market value is way down. Good for buyers - not for sellers.......

Kinda..... when I'm buying a bass $500 low. Am I getting a great price or is this sold low cause it has "issues". There's no way to tell now till you're holding it. (Oh yeah, sold "as is" happens to be the norm there).

So REVERB makes a profit off both these approaches - the seller does not. Ya should probably sell on T.B. and avoid all dat.
 
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#12
The Reverb bump and % options are very misleading to people who are not familiar with the platform as well and could cost people a LOT of $$$ if they unknowingly click through when posting a new ad.. This is sketchy and unscrupulous as hell. Then if you run into any issues, good luck getting ahold of anyone other than a bot or some off-shore resource who is useless and has zero training etc. my last return held up my money for almost 6 weeks when a bass was listed as "excellent" when it was junk and it took my countless hours to get them to make it right... Unless you live in Chicago and can go down there and knock on the door your beat.
 
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#13
I have a bunch of saved searches that I click through and those still seem to work fine.

Reverb is a double edged sword. I always list on Facebook marketplace first. Smaller audience but prefer local sells and the local bass community has been great to deal with. I'll on Craigslist too but it's mainly a ghost town except for a few older players who will message me when I have something cool posted.

TalkBass I pretty much only list if I'm willing to trade. Even if I say no trades it will sit forever and someone will eventually offer something that piques my interest.

Reverb is the most trafficked online music gear marketplace. They take a big cut because they bring the audience. Everything everyone is saying is also true. There are scammers, tire kickers, high maintenance buyers that try to return over a single unphotographed smudge, etc. The fees/taxes suck on both buying and selling side. But if you want to move something it has a better change there than anywhere else.

I continue to use all those marketplaces, I just know what I'm dealing with on each one.
 
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#14
IngloriousOz said:
Just needing to vent, but also hoping someone from the mothership actually sees this. We all know Reverb has been sliding since the acquisition, but 2026 has been a total nosedive.

I usually scroll through Bass Guitars, Amps, and Pedals on my work breaks, but lately, it’s a chore. The "Bump" feature has turned the feed into a landfill. Nearly half of every page is just low-effort, hot garbage listings. To make it worse, it’s the same handful of sellers dumping redundant, duplicate ads with massive bump percentages to stay at the top.

We desperately need a "Mute Seller" or "Hide Duplicates" feature. I’m tired of digging through a mountain of trash just to find some cool listings.

Anyone else experiencing this on your non-curated feeds?

View attachment 7438695View attachment 7438696
Click to expand...
I agree.

As a web designer, this intrigues me: how is it possible that ruining the customer experience could be commercially effective?

They wouldn't do it if it didn't increase their sales, right?
Some idiots must clic on these damn links, or they wouldn't do it.

Sad.
 
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#15
CrimsonGhost said:
Not to mention most of the prices for sale are crack rock high.. $10-20 bucks below buying new etc.. its a Joke.
Click to expand...

I love the listings that cost more than retail, and then add shipping, Like really?

Example: Yamaha BB734A is $899 list all day long at Sweetwater, Musician's Friend, Etc.

Recently I saw a used one for $800 with $90 shipping. What is this seller thinking? For $9 more, I'll take brand new with warranty.

GTFO!
 
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#16
I've done something like 80 transactions on Reverb, split about evenly between buying and selling. Amazingly, the only issues I've had are with the US Postal service losing things (UPS has been perfect). Never an issue with Reverb, or even a buyer or seller. I must be on an elite level luck streak (knock on wood). As far as fees is concerned, it's worth it to avoid the alternatives. My local consignment shops are worse in terms of skimming off the top, Facebook marketplace is filled with tire kickers looking to lowball and waste time. Plus on Reverb I have access to the whole US market so can adjust my prices accordingly to make up for fees, to a large extent. Also if you are a seller and insure through Reverb, their customer service is actually responsive and helpful, in my experience. Just my two cents.

IMO the biggest downside of Reverb is that it plays a large role in killing the local used gear economy at music shops and in the classifieds. The classic experience of walking into a music shop and falling in love with a used instrument by surprise is becoming more rare.
 
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#17
Reverb, as bad as it is, is as good as it gets...like most things, lol. There are some annoying things about it such as constantly re-displaying items you have already seen, but Amazon does that too. There must be some marketing reason for it...

That said, I was able to turn a lot of gear in a 2-3 month period that I could not have done with the site, and am very happy about that.
 
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#19
mpdd said:
i've been going to local stores more recently or directly to builders, because I know that buying a pedal from them will go toward keeping the lights on

and hopefully those sales will help fuzzrocious and eqd stay afloat while the tariff situation plays out
Click to expand...

Our local shop recently closed thanks to Tariffs, all we have left here are pawn shops & Guitar Center :thumbsdown:
 
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