I’m noticing a lot of stuff for sale with no bites.
One thing I’m thinking - folks are getting used to buy now pay later schemes - which makes getting something new easier than getting something on the second hand market. It makes me think, well, gap in the market, could there be some kind of BNPL for second hand?
Most folks have $250 a week lying around and not a spare $1000. Especially in todays current financial vibe (heck - that’s why they’re flipping stuff). Even if it just worked the other way, lock in the sale and a good deal, pay the seller in instalments, and you ship once paid off. The intermediary gives you the funds once final payment is made, and if the buyer wants to bail at any time they can for a fee to the seller.
That might sound silly, what’s the difference between that and just saving, but maybe it gives the buyer a way to commit and work towards paying something off, and the satisfaction of knowing they locked in a good deal.
Alternatively are people getting sick of groove boxes? Are we over some kind of excitement around e music gear for now? Or are just too many people trying to flip their stuff right now
It depends really, I do notice stuff locally sitting for much longer than it used to; though I think that might just be what I’m seeing and not the reality of things. Like others mentioned, places like reverb and eBay have installments and frankly the sellers on there often have better prices than the local stuff. At least in my area people are kinda delusional about their pricing on CL and FB and aren’t as open to negotiation as online sellers. Every so often you’ll come across the insane deal locally but it’s not like how it used to be. Most of the really nice deals I see are on places like here, discord servers, stuff like dedicated communities for musicians and less so marketplaces or listings.
I think the market has changed a lot too. I think a lot of gear sales are driven by social media now; so people see a box on Instagram, buy it, then realize it doesn’t work for them and sell it. It’s great if you want to buy like new stuff for a few hundred bucks off, but genuinely decent condition oddities at a fair price feel like a thing of the past as people who have their hands on those are a bit more savvy now, and if anything gets touched by hands with a lot of eyes on them and put to decent use…. well bye bye any chance at a decent deal.
Also, now more than ever gear is a huge luxury. Inflation is crazy and software is better and cheaper than ever. You can produce studio quality tracks on base model laptops now with software that costs next to nothing. Almost no one buys a synth or a drum machine or something out of necessity in 2023.
Been buying and selling plenty of stuff the last few years, to try things out - see what works. So I’ve met many people selling gear and most of them bought these because for example “it has a legendary filter” (or whatever) but then can’t find the power button at the back or find the button to enter the filter page More often than not I can operate the unit I’m buying more fluently than the seller, eventhough it’s the first time I see the unit from up close. Happens time after time. Sometimes these are expensive Elektrons, sometimes cheap Korgs. Only rarely I meet people who are actually making a lot of music. Most of them have a nice and tidy “Instragram looking desk”. Its funny. But Im not complaining (-: More used stuff out there = more stuff to experiment with. Especially now since for example a Digitakt costs 810€ new.
there’s oversaturation of product and people have a “my x is worth x and not a penny less” mentality. of course things are going to sit. you offer someone what is a small fortune to you for what they are overstating the value of exponentially and you are now the enemy of humanity for lowballing.
it makes it uncomfortable to even make offers on things where “make offer” is an option so it comes down to why even bother anymore?
Unless its unobtanium grail type kit, if I’m on eBay I tend not to want to pay more than 60% to 65% of new value, even if gear in perfect condition because (1) buying from a private buyer always carries some risk; (2) even if the warranty is transferable, its shorter than when new, or even run out; (3) it’s been used so isn’t going to be as fresh out of the box, however well cared for.
Having said that, most of what you see on Reverb is the stuff that doesn’t sell, not the stuff that does. Anything priced well shifts quickly which means you don’t see it hanging around for ages with a price tag no-one sensible will bite at.
I’ve had a few things sell quickly, some are still there after a year, because
Which is why I’ve got things down as For Trade. I don’t want make anyone pay $2k or more for a subsequent 37 they don’t need. But if you have shit you don’t want that I do, then yay! No one goes hungry for a month, because the supermarket check-out-chick won’t swap a chase bliss TR-RKM for ice cream and frozen pizza.
yea ive noticed a huge drop off in sales on my local synth classifieds in Ireland. I reckon it’s people have less spare cash / are more reluctant etc in the current climate.
seen some amazing gear for sale with zero bites for weeks. wasn’t the case a year or 2 ago.
quite a lot of people seem to be of the opinion that they are not buying tools but are buying into more money in the future. they expect value to appreciate not depreciate. In essence it is more collection than kit.
If you watch “for sale platforms” you will also see people snag a deal and relist it later that day at twice the paid price. It’s a bit irksome.
Especially when it’s gear that, for example, is hard to come by due to manufacturer limitations in production and someone puts a good deal out there, probably thinking that either A. I need money immediately, or B. there’s no reason to further inflate the market, I just want a portion of what I paid for it back. Then the person who buys it is a reseller who is only buying it to further inflate a bubble market.
Maybe it’s just because I’m a poor person trying to own expensive things but to me the people who don’t care what it is as long as they can make money on it were the same people selling humans as property 200 years ago. sorry if that statement is offensive to the people who like to buy things and turn a profit but that’s how it seems to me.
Actually here’s a thing. I quite fancy buying myself an Erica Zen Delay. The cheapest new price in the UK is £480 from Soundgas (though it’s closer to £500 elsewhere).
I’m not really so enamoured of it that I would want to spend that much. But I do quite fancy one. So I’m looking used.
Using my only pay 60-70% of new rule (which surely isn’t that ridiculous), that might suggest that in a reasonable world it should be selling for £310-£325 used. And yet people seem to be successfully selling them at more like £380-390 on Reverb and Ebay
What is a fair price for a used Erica Zen Delay? 10% off the best new price £432? 15% off the best new price £408? 20% off the best new price at £384? 25% off the best new price at £360?
20%-25% doesn’t seem enough of a discount to warrant buying anything used, as opposed to buying new, or am I completely misunderstanding the economics of gear purchasing. So why are people paying it?
Yep. I’d happily sell my CB tonal recall RKM for what I paid, or less, if I knew the buyer really would use it. But then I remember the buyer of my moogerfoogers buying them cheap as a batch because he convinced me he would use them forever, and I was getting rid of dozens of pedals.
He had each one listed and sold at triple what he paid within a few weeks.
Depends on availability of the item new, used, how many places new with 10% discount, and how long you’re willing to wait.
It’s easier for me to aggregate to lowest cost and just set reminders on anything i catch within a range.
After all, “ridiculous” is what someone’s willing to pay for convenience and now!
Blecch, i’ve sold pedals in bulk to a reseller but he was pretty honest with me about why he was offering me less, and didn’t give the “we both love music” attempt at affinity to justify it.
I was trying to buy a “certain” guitar and was willing to spend more than I was comfortable spending on anything to get it, but they make it so hard to order and so inaccessible to anyone who isn’t an influencer or willing to wait on a 2 year waiting list after paying a large deposit, after they stopped supplying vendors and became the sole distributor of their product, and also dissolved their phone ordering system making an internet order the only way to order their product - pushing back their waiting list for an additional year - and also the general prices were increasing, and they left ordering options on their website that made it look like you could get something sooner or cheaper but were tagged as “out of stock” for over a year - at that point I just became disgusted with their business practices and I gave up.
If my money isn’t good enough for them, that’s fine. I just don’t care about any one thing enough to allow it to own me.
More often than not I can operate the unit I’m buying more fluently than the seller, eventhough it’s the first time I see the unit from up close. Happens time after time. Sometimes these are expensive Elektrons, sometimes cheap Korgs. Only rarely I meet people who are actually making a lot of music. Most of them have a nice and tidy “Instragram looking desk”. Its funny. But Im not complaining (-: More used stuff out there = more stuff to experiment with. Especially now since for example a Digitakt costs 810€ new.
