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Reverb increasing seller fees
- Thread starter BunchyMutt
- Start date
Let's step back and take some perspective on this. For 5% you get access to a worldwide sales and marketing organization to sell your product. In the old days, you would sell your stuff locally in an add in the local trader, or on consignment at your local music store. Considering what you get, its not a bad deal at all.
And then there are Paypal fees! But its still better than taking a check that might bounce, or trying to work a cash deal somehow.
If your margin is too low to afford the increase, raise your price slightly to cover it. Its the cost of doing business
And then there are Paypal fees! But its still better than taking a check that might bounce, or trying to work a cash deal somehow.
If your margin is too low to afford the increase, raise your price slightly to cover it. Its the cost of doing business
In response to comments about greedy corporations ... Maybe true ... but I wouldn't sell your stuff for a 5% fee
- Jan 23, 2004
- 137
- 502
- 50
- Disclosures
- Artist for Bartolini, BTPA, Gruv Gear and Mission Engineering.
I got that email, too, and wasn't thrilled. I won't sell on Reverb anymore because the one time I did proved to be an expensive hassle. Most of the people selling on there also advertise their items for less elsewhere, like on TB.
Greedy corporate pinheads finding ways to give themselves more bonuses.
Also, the perceived "shipping charges" are obnoxious! I bought a bass from UK and it was $167 to ALASKA FROM UK. I looked at a bass in L.A. and shipping was $200! Fuggetaboutit!
I sent a bass to Hawaii from LA, fully insured, and it cost me $190. So, $200 to Alaska probably isn't too far off. Shipping has gotten crazy expensive recently, and PayPal has gotten expensive as well. Neither are the fault of Reverb. A 5% commission is pretty reasonable. From what I remember from my youth, a local music store would take 10%, and their customer base was proportionately small.
I’ve sold often on reverb and I noticed last year when they started collecting sales tax for states that my sales went down 20-25% then the previous 5 years. I don’t think it’s coincidence. Due to this pandemic online shopping went up drastically, i believe that made reverb think more highly of themselves and raise the seller fee which with increased shipping costs stops me having any haggle room which in turn decreases sales. Hey always have Craigslist though.
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Good point. The sales tax thing really messed things up more than the fees. I’ve seen what some of my buyers have had to pay on top of my asking price and I felt bad if not guilty that they paid so much. Kinda takes all the fun out of buying used gear.
As a CA resident the tax thing certainly adds up.
Makes you kinda glad there’s also the TB classifieds doesn’t it?
They’re free to charge whatever fees they like. It’s their business.
My objection is to the disingenuous way they present it. And I doubt it was accidental. I’ve been in meetings with clients where how to spin things like that were discussed. Banks are notorious for cloaking utterly ridiculous charges and rate increases by presenting things in similar ways.
Reverb joined many if not most of the MI manufacturers in a big social statement some weeks back. On top of it, Reverb are owned by Etsy, and Etsy made a huge hubbub of what they're doing, to the tune of millions of dollars. Look them up for more detail.
True. But oddly enough they succeed in doing just that a good portion of the time in spite of it.
I wouldn’t mind it so much if their customer service wasn’t hot trash at the moment. Haven’t tried since but a few weeks ago there was no option to speak with someone on the phone, and the best option of “instant” chatting received a response three days later.
haha but those millions don't really hit their bottom line. I don't see it as "political," as you said in a previous post. It's financial. Reverb is signaling to folks that they're on board (for now) while simultaneously investing in communities and artists who's artistic products have historically worked their way into the main stream for the last two hundred years. But feel free to keep belaboring your point, there are a slew of effect makers that I guess you'll also not support if you have the decency to at least be consistent. You can have Fulltone, a bunch of us can have everything else.
In a market with a perfectly level playing field with true competition that might be the case. But in real world markets it’s neither that simple nor that cut and dried.
Being a good capitalist, I appreciate profit. However, Reverb and the like are simply middlemen, adding to the cost and diminishing the profit. IMO that middle cost has gotten prohibitive, especially for the little schmucks like us just trying to move one bass to make room for another. But then, that's what TB and Craigslist are for, guys like us.
As for world-wide access to customers, that's a red herring. When the hell am I going to sell a bass to someone overseas? No one can afford the shipping.
Doing deals here on TB I learned a couple of ways to get around some fees, and I was happy to do it.
If one looks at the profit sheets on outfits like eBay, PayPal, Etsy and others, they ain't hurting. I think this is gouging.
And to those who think a $50 fee is reasonable just for using the website, I think that's a lot when it all gets added up. They nickel and dime us to death. The work they do for a sale of $10 to $10K is the same, so why not just a flat fee? No, that wouldn't generate enough.
On a personal note, I got hosed by GroupOn, and PayPal was the antithesis of helpful when it came to resolving it. I got better service from my bank card issuer, whom I use directly for payments now. Again, cut out the middleman's cost, and all the prices go down. I no longer use PayPal.
Like PayPal, I'm in the process of getting rid of Amazon, but they more or less ran a lot of companies out of business, so the options for buying things are fewer. And the Chinese junk on there, oy. Yet sometimes I just have to deal with the devil. But as little as possible.
But back to reverb, it was proven long ago that cutting out middlemen reduced the price for the consumer.
As for world-wide access to customers, that's a red herring. When the hell am I going to sell a bass to someone overseas? No one can afford the shipping.
Doing deals here on TB I learned a couple of ways to get around some fees, and I was happy to do it.
If one looks at the profit sheets on outfits like eBay, PayPal, Etsy and others, they ain't hurting. I think this is gouging.
And to those who think a $50 fee is reasonable just for using the website, I think that's a lot when it all gets added up. They nickel and dime us to death. The work they do for a sale of $10 to $10K is the same, so why not just a flat fee? No, that wouldn't generate enough.
On a personal note, I got hosed by GroupOn, and PayPal was the antithesis of helpful when it came to resolving it. I got better service from my bank card issuer, whom I use directly for payments now. Again, cut out the middleman's cost, and all the prices go down. I no longer use PayPal.
Like PayPal, I'm in the process of getting rid of Amazon, but they more or less ran a lot of companies out of business, so the options for buying things are fewer. And the Chinese junk on there, oy. Yet sometimes I just have to deal with the devil. But as little as possible.
But back to reverb, it was proven long ago that cutting out middlemen reduced the price for the consumer.
