Reverb vs Sweetwater Gear Exchange

[Iconoclast]

I'm thinning the herd and have listed a bunch of equipment on Reverb, Gear Exchange, and even FB Marketplace.

Sold my Forte 7 on Gear exchange in 1 day. Pretty slick. No fees and discounted shipping. No scam artists. Very happy.

Listed the same stuff on Reverb and I have been bombarded by a ton of scammy offers. Real PITA. 1 out of 5 messages is actual legit buyers, the rest are clear attempts to waste my time and try to scam me in various ways. Always wanting to communicate outside of Reverb via text or e-mail.

Listed something on Facebook marketplace. What a scam-fest.  One lady said she'd paid me on Paypal and would send her son to pickup. Then I got an obvious bullshit email from an address called paypalserviceproblems@GMAIL.COM saying there was a problem with the transaction and I needed to send her $100 to verify accounts.  Nigerian prince level bullcrap.  Nice copied graphics in the e-mail though, maybe it could trick someone who's naive.

I still have faith in people in general, but the internet has certainly provided an amplifier to the worst of humanity.

Anyway, if you're interested I have a Nord Stage 3 with DB-1 drawbars and a Gator semi rigid case on both Reverb and Gear Exchange. If you're interested I clearly prefer Gear Exchange.  Not willing to sell the DB-1 separately just yet.

[CHarrell]

This is very timely for me, thank you for the write-up! I've used Reverb for years, but have never sold anything on GX. I recently listed a CP88 on Reverb because frankly I spent beyond my means and need to recoup as much as I feel is fair for a used keyboard. I explain this on the listing to be as transparent as possible...and of course beyond the scam offers ("my dad is very interested, please message him at xxxxxx@gmail.com"), I've gotten offers for hundreds of dollars less than my asking price.

 

Your post inspired me to make a listing on GX and see how that fares!

[wd8dky]

I've had the exact experiences described on both platforms as well. 

[The Real MC]

Many discussion forums are echoing the same frustrations about Reverb and Fakebook marketplace.

[KuruPrionz]

I'm glad to read this now. Depending on how things go locally on craigslist, I may be listing some items online. It sounds like Gear Exchange is the way to go. I gave up on eBay many years ago after racking up 975 positive feedback. They raised their rates to an absurd level.

I've done pretty well on craigslist but it is location and sometimes timing dependant (Bellingham is a college town, when students get their aid money they will spend). 

 

[CHarrell]

1 hour ago, KuruPrionz said:

I'm glad to read this now. Depending on how things go locally on craigslist, I may be listing some items online. It sounds like Gear Exchange is the way to go. I gave up on eBay many years ago after racking up 975 positive feedback. They raised their rates to an absurd level.

I've done pretty well on craigslist but it is location and sometimes timing dependant (Bellingham is a college town, when students get their aid money they will spend). 

 

 

Oh snap you're in WA too!? I haven't sold gear on eBay in 6 years, not a single moment I miss it.

[KuruPrionz]

Yes, Bellingham. I moved here from Fresno CA in 2005 and I love it here!!!!

 

It's been at least 6 years for me, no eBay. When it was good it was good. I sold a LOT of stuff on there. 

 

[Mark Schmieder]

Good timing as I was wondering if I should start using Reverb to sell things as I'm not even getting watchers on Gear Exchange even after dropping prices and of course setting low "make an offer" bottoms. I don't think many people know about Gear Exchange yet, and as with this forum, I think it attracts the sort of people who are afraid to make offers.

 

So I'm stuck with CL, which sometimes is a bit of good luck on specialty stuff and expensive stuff moving, even without price negotiation, as shipping charges have gone through the roof and Gear Exchange requires a set price in advance. With shipping costs varying by more than $100 between the coasts, it's too risky to place a cheap item as one could lose a bundle. But eBay isn't getting watchers, offers, or bites either.

 

I think maybe everyone's just scared about the economy due to inflation.

 

As for the actual experience as a seller, Gear Exchange winds hands down, by a country mile, except for that one caveat regarding shipping. And I have sold some stuff on there, it's just the specialty stuff, and oddly my Hammond XL-1c that I expected to sell in a day and hasn't had any watchers or inquiries on ANY of the four places it is posted! Maybe people are waiting for NAMM thinking there might be an XK-1d announced (unlikely).

 

It's great to have a no-fee option on Gear Exchange, and it is by far the safest place to sell and to buy. Lots of protections for everyone involved, and immediate intervention by real human beings -- namely your own sales agent -- if any issues come up, bottlenecks, questions, etc.

[Mark Schmieder]

Ah, Facebook Marketplace, which for some reason people keep recommending to me and telling me is safer than Craigslist. I have had no trouble at all with CL people, but I tried FB Marketplace after buying this house a couple of years ago and almost everyone was a no-show or clearly casing places to rob at a future date.

[Jim Alfredson]

I have a bunch of stuff to sell. My plan is to offer locally first among friends, then here, then Gear Exchange. Reverb is the last resort. Never on eBay. I've been an eBay member since 1999 and it's poop now. I only buy stuff there (usually hard to find electronic components), never sell anymore.

[Nathanael_I]

I tried selling my Nord Grand a month ago on Reverb. Only had scammers, and multiple a day.  I took it down and decided I’d just keep it as backline for live sound company. It just wasn’t worth it, and shipping was going to be ludicrous. 
 

I did sell four Rupert Neve 500 series preamps around the same time on Reverb and all was well, and a professional trombone to a pro player in Vegas. So there are still good humans there.  But expensive keyboards seem to be a trigger for scammers. 
 

I stopped using Craigslist years ago. Nothing but sketchy people looking to shortchange the money by a few $$ at the last minute. Never met anyone I’d want near my house.  Wrote that off early. 
 

I have not sold on EBay since Reverb came up.  But Reverb is not the place it used to be for sure. I still buy things there as there are deals on things I need from time to time. 

[CHarrell]

7 hours ago, Mark Schmieder said:

Good timing as I was wondering if I should start using Reverb to sell things as I'm not even getting watchers on Gear Exchange even after dropping prices and of course setting low "make an offer" bottoms. I don't think many people know about Gear Exchange yet, and as with this forum, I think it attracts the sort of people who are afraid to make offers.

 

So I'm stuck with CL, which sometimes is a bit of good luck on specialty stuff and expensive stuff moving, even without price negotiation, as shipping charges have gone through the roof and Gear Exchange requires a set price in advance. With shipping costs varying by more than $100 between the coasts, it's too risky to place a cheap item as one could lose a bundle. But eBay isn't getting watchers, offers, or bites either.

 

I think maybe everyone's just scared about the economy due to inflation.

 

As for the actual experience as a seller, Gear Exchange winds hands down, by a country mile, except for that one caveat regarding shipping. And I have sold some stuff on there, it's just the specialty stuff, and oddly my Hammond XL-1c that I expected to sell in a day and hasn't had any watchers or inquiries on ANY of the four places it is posted! Maybe people are waiting for NAMM thinking there might be an XK-1d announced (unlikely).

 

It's great to have a no-fee option on Gear Exchange, and it is by far the safest place to sell and to buy. Lots of protections for everyone involved, and immediate intervention by real human beings -- namely your own sales agent -- if any issues come up, bottlenecks, questions, etc.

 

In this situation, frankly, Reverb is probably the best alternative route. I diss Reverb above, but though the transparently fake offers and lowballing can get annoying (nowhere near eBay levels), the user base is so large and active that it's consistently been the easiest way to sell gear for me since 2019. 

 

When I created my CP88 listing on GX yesterday, I saw that the selling fee is roughly a percent lower than Reverb, so not as large a margin as I'd hope in exchange (ahem) for the smaller user base and more "segmented" access (it takes more effort to hop onto GX than it does Reverb, and the options tend to be way more limited). It's nice they offer 100% credit with Sweetwater, but I prefer direct payout so I have options.

[AnotherScott]

7 hours ago, Mark Schmieder said:

Ah, Facebook Marketplace, which for some reason people keep recommending to me and telling me is safer than Craigslist. I have had no trouble at all with CL people, but I tried FB Marketplace after buying this house a couple of years ago and almost everyone was a no-show or clearly casing places to rob at a future date.

I think the thing that *can* make FB safer than average is that you can see people's info/histories. If a profile was created in the last few weeks,  has no posts (or just a handful of generic ones), etc., that's a riskier person to deal with than someone who has been on FB for 5 or 10 years and has a history of what looks like real-person posting. That kind of thing. The intentional anonymity of craigslist inherently adds another element of risk.

[Joe Muscara]

2 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

I think the thing that *can* make FB safer than average is that you can see people's info/histories. If a profile was created in the last few weeks,  has no posts (or just a handful of generic ones), etc., that's a riskier person to deal with than someone who has been on FB for 5 or 10 years and has a history of what looks like real-person posting.

That's the one positive, that you can quickly tell what kind of person you might be dealing with. OTOH, FB is stupid about trying to make it easy. Last I checked, they literally had a button on Marketplace posts that sent the message, "Is this still available?" so you get a ton of those from people who don't even respond when you tell them it is. It gets to a point where there's no reason to respond to people who don't do more than that initially. And I've had so many people who I do get some interest from, but then have to wait until their husband gets home because they don't have a car or something, and then eventually bail on the whole thing.

 

(Note these weren't for musical items, we got rid of a bunch of stuff when we moved a couple of years ago and I was just looking to offload it all and not just throw perfectly good unused or clean stuff in the trash.)

[jazzpiano88]

When you’re dealing with high dollar items, I think the squirrel factor is kind of to be expected (excepting for the true crazies and scammers).  Even normal humans can be torn and have mixed emotions and often have multiple complex decision factors going on (“have I made the right decision?”)   Bailing at the last minute is actually kind of normal.    I can’t imagine how normal retailers don’t go completely nuts dealing with the general public.  

[D. Gauss]

i sell (and buy) tons on FB but also list on Craigs. I don't want to ship anything, nor pay any fees. Here in NYC, seems no one really pays attention to Craigs, as i sell maybe 1 out of 10 things that way vs same listing on FB.  Yes, lots of scammers, but they're really not hard to spot/deal with.  If anyone asks a question already clearly explained in the ad=scam (or at very least dumbass idiot not worth your time).  If anyone immediately asks for/demands your address (and your ad mentions the approx location of where to pickup), just send the address of the police station closest to you. You won't get a reply back  

[Mark Schmieder]

15 hours ago, Nathanael_I said:

I tried selling my Nord Grand a month ago on Reverb. Only had scammers, and multiple a day.  I took it down and decided I’d just keep it as backline for live sound company. It just wasn’t worth it, and shipping was going to be ludicrous. 
 

I did sell four Rupert Neve 500 series preamps around the same time on Reverb and all was well, and a professional trombone to a pro player in Vegas. So there are still good humans there.  But expensive keyboards seem to be a trigger for scammers. 
 

I stopped using Craigslist years ago. Nothing but sketchy people looking to shortchange the money by a few $$ at the last minute. Never met anyone I’d want near my house.  Wrote that off early. 
 

I have not sold on EBay since Reverb came up.  But Reverb is not the place it used to be for sure. I still buy things there as there are deals on things I need from time to time. 

 

Nathaniel, sorry to hear of your Craigslist experience. As I am new to this area and arrived during COVID lockdown, then had a money pit of a house to deal with, atop a wonderful but extremely challenging and demanding job, I have not had the opportunity to build a network of friends yet, but slowly developed a musical circle at least.

 

I have met exclusively wonderful people through Craigslist ads for selling gear, and one of them (for a high-end synth) turned out to be my intern's professor!

 

I think because everything I sell is practically mint, and people don't believe that until they see (and they don't bother making that attempt) unless they are super-serious, I am a self-filter, as my stuff is unusual or high-end. In other words, my ads get little attention, which is both a good thing and a bad thing as scammers aren't attracted.

 

I guess I'll remain patient with my Gear Exchange and CL ads and not try to duplicate more stuff on eBay where it is sitting unnoticed. They take around 20% these days anyway, if I'm not mistaken. I just wish more people knew about Gear Exchange and also that Sweetwater also now deals with band and orchestral instruments.

 

My other option is to finally do my long-delayed visit to Durham NC to connect with the musicians I played with during my half year stint there during COVID, and take stuff like my high-end Strat to Sound Pure, although I need cash due to inflation so I'd rather not trade for more mics quite yet.

[Mark Schmieder]

10 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

I think the thing that *can* make FB safer than average is that you can see people's info/histories. If a profile was created in the last few weeks,  has no posts (or just a handful of generic ones), etc., that's a riskier person to deal with than someone who has been on FB for 5 or 10 years and has a history of what looks like real-person posting. That kind of thing. The intentional anonymity of craigslist inherently adds another element of risk.

 

Craigslist is NEVER anonymous for me. We find out who each other is, right at the outset. I have met some wonderful musicians and have gotten better connecting with playing venues as a result.

 

As for FB accounts, I don't trust them. I've seen too many deep fakes over the years. Nevertheless, it is good advice, although one should remain cautious about truthfulness.

[RayRoberts]

I've bought and sold a lot online.  Less lately.  Craigslist has been mostly great.  Yes, lots of "tire kickers" and phish, but that's the new normal.  It's definitely gotten worse.  FB Marketplace gets more responses, but vast majority are scammers.  I've had mostly great luck on forums strangely.  Reverb has been ok.  Fees are too high as a seller.  Prices too high as a buyer.  I once bought some powered speakers from Reverb.  Seller took them to a USP Store in Jackson, MS where they were stolen sometime after he left and before making it onto the truck.  Seller was cool, and eventually got refunded.  That was a rare decent deal from Reverb that never materialized.  eBay is swamp now.  Used to be great years ago.  I won't sell on eBay anymore and be very wary of buying.

 

Bellingham!  Nice place.  I live (for now) just outside Seattle, but lived in Bellingham's York & Fairhaven neighborhoods back in the 80's & 2Ks.   

[Mark Schmieder]

It's good to hear all the eBay feedback from others who have used the site since its inception as I have. I just assumed I was doing something wrong. I mean, I have some stuff such as 1940's and 1950's comic books that haven't even gotten any views! I keep double-checking the category but it is correct and matches other auctions. Apparently, you have to pay extra now to keep your auctions from not getting lost on page 13 of people's searches.

[CHarrell]

45 minutes ago, Mark Schmieder said:

It's good to hear all the eBay feedback from others who have used the site since its inception as I have. I just assumed I was doing something wrong. I mean, I have some stuff such as 1940's and 1950's comic books that haven't even gotten any views! I keep double-checking the category but it is correct and matches other auctions. Apparently, you have to pay extra now to keep your auctions from not getting lost on page 13 of people's searches.

 

Unfortunate but not surprising. I think with the advent of services such as FB, craigslist, Letgo (or whatever it's called now), eBay is low on priority lists; add their desperate revenue raising practices that repel sellers and thusly buyers...it's more of an Internet historical attraction to me. Of course, it still has its place.

[The Real MC]

I used to buy a lot of gear on eBay.  The last purchase I made was 2019.  No interest in eBay anymore.

[Lou_NC]

Hey for those of you who have sold through Sweetwater, please remind me........is it easy to get the proceeds of sale as cash into your bank account, or is it limited to "sweetwater credits" for use against future purchases?  My recollection is vague but I looked into this a while back and can't remember their business model.   I may be selling a clonewheel in the first half of 2024 and would consider listing on gear exchange if I can get $$ instead of "store credit" only.  

 

Thanks,

Lou

[Stokely]

Good to know.  I hate and dread selling gear but I also need to thin the herd.   Hate shipping heavy keyboards, hate meeting lowballing creeps (assuming they even show up) locally.  Sure not everyone is, but the ratio between the stand-up decent people and the creeps seems very low.

For buying larger items used, I still like Guitar Center for the simple reasons that 1) I have 45 days to try it out and 2) I can return locally.   Sam Ash, same, but their selection is less and their prices generally are not as good (GC can have a wild range for the same gear though to be sure.)

 

[Moonglow]

16 minutes ago, Stokely said:

For buying larger items used, I still like Guitar Center for the simple reasons that 1) I have 45 days to try it out and 2) I can return locally.

 

Those are some nice perks. Question: Is the overall quality of used gear at GC generally lower than the other options? The gear in the used section at my local GC has looked pretty rough. Or sampling error on my behalf?

[Stokely]

I've bought mint gear from GC, and tend to only filter using the "excellent" and "great" settings in their web form.   Their pics tend to suck unfortunately.  I have generally called the store and verified the condition--after all, it benefits nobody if they lie about "excellent" condition and I then return it locally for a full refund   I've never had a bad-quality thing that surprised me, though I have made a number of returns:

- a mint quality pc361 that was horribly damaged during shipping despite double boxing with hard foam between the boxing.  I think a truck drove over the box or something similar.
- a fantastic deal on an American-made custom Schecter bass --that seemed like it was mispriced as an import--only for my investigations to discover it was a fake    I had some questions about what it actually was, and posted the pic on a bass forum.  Those people knew exactly what it was, some music store in Alabama or somewhere had churned out a bunch of fakes years ago and now GC was selling it as legit.   Anyway, back it went and I told them what I discovered.   Hopefully they didn't just sell it again  
- korg cx3 v2 that had such bad double-triggering when set to high position that I couldn't deal with it.

On the negative side, I've bought two Kurzweils from them that seemed mint but developed issues well after the 45 days.    That has led me more recently to frankly buy new most of the time, and from Sweetwater due to their 2-year warranty (which I have used twice and gotten replacements).   I'm a bit gun-shy on gear quality--I baby my gear yet it seems like stuff just is always one step away from problems.   With something like a guitar, I can simply take it to my friend and he can spot any "deep down" issues that I might not.  With keyboards, it's more iffy.
 

[CHarrell]

47 minutes ago, Moonglow said:

Those are some nice perks. Question: Is the overall quality of used gear at GC generally lower than the other options? The gear in the used section at my local GC has looked pretty rough. Or sampling error on my behalf?

 

I've had bad experiences buying used from GC. Got a PX5S used from them last year, listed in very good condition...it arrives, there's chipped keys, orange stains that didn't come out, and the most disgusting sticky layer of dust on the keys. To top it off, it had the firmware issue. I fixed that, cleaned up the keys, and took it back to my local store (which is indeed nice), letting them know that the GC location I bought this from made a huge mistake in labelling the condition. They said sorry for the experience, and out of curiosity, I checked the local inventory online a few days later...there the PX5S was, chipped keys and stained, listed in "Excellent" condition. 

 

This was just one instance, obviously, but it put a taste in my mouth that's hard to remove. The past few months, I've also noticed a huge amount of mislabeled instruments. 

[Stokely]

That actually makes me want to add "good" to my list of filter options...on the chance they mis-labeled something mint as "good"   

I've bought 8-10 things from GC, in every case (I won't count the Kurzweils that developed the issues) they matched the condition.  As I mentioned, it doesn't hurt to call the store and get verification on the condition.

There are definitely some incorrect gear labels though.  Either that, or they have the wrong pic.  One "Fantom 6", with a big Fantom 6 used price, had a pic showing a Fantom-06.  There's a PRS guitar with a great price but looking closely, it has different knobs and odd-looking pickups and a couple other different shaped hardware, and I used the serial num to look up that model for that year (2019)...something was odd there.   That said, I've had it happen where I think they messed up the other way    Those don't tend to last long.

[Outkaster]

Selling Hammond's and Leslie gear is probably the hardest thing to do.  It's a major pain in the ass.

[Mark Schmieder]

7 hours ago, Stokely said:

Good to know.  I hate and dread selling gear but I also need to thin the herd.   Hate shipping heavy keyboards, hate meeting lowballing creeps (assuming they even show up) locally.  Sure not everyone is, but the ratio between the stand-up decent people and the creeps seems very low.

For buying larger items used, I still like Guitar Center for the simple reasons that 1) I have 45 days to try it out and 2) I can return locally.   Sam Ash, same, but their selection is less and their prices generally are not as good (GC can have a wild range for the same gear though to be sure.)

 

 

I have sold to GC before and they are fair, but right now I have super high end stuff (by my standards; stuff that is just under $2K or hovering around $1K :-)), and I should be able to do way better on my own, if only shipping weren't so high and selling locally wasn't so hard (because apparently people don't want top try before they buy :-)).

 

My frustration as a buyer is that their used ads have no info at all and rarely have more than a tiny blurry far-away photo. If you call the store that has the item, they can and will get info for you, but that can be a deal-killer if you are comparing several offerings for a fairly immediate purchase.

 

Having said that, some of my best instruments are ones I bought used at GC. We don't have Sam Ash anywhere I've lived, so I don't know them very well.

 

Locally in the DC area, I still haven't been to Chuck Levin, but have had excellent experience with Victor Litz Music Center in Gaithersberg MD. Good for used and new, for sellers and buyers alike, some very unusual and rare instruments, and it was the only place in the USA that I could find the Ibanez tenor guitar and Guild's 12-string and bari.