Selling Guitars

[riverrick]

Want to sell 2 of my guitars. A Fender Am Std Tele and a Taylor 600 series 12 string. Any one have any luck on selling their gear on the Fret?? Or is ebay the place to go??? Any input would be cool.

[player]

Want to sell 2 of my guitars. A Fender Am Std Tele and a Taylor 600 series 12 string. Any one have any luck on selling their gear on the Fret?? Or is ebay the place to go??? Any input would be cool.under amps there is a for sale forum.I picked up some gear there once.it also helps if you can include pics of what you are selling.

[Jx2]

another option might be craigslist

[Katastrophe]

Craigslist is good, and free, but you have to fend off a bunch of extremely low ball offers, and be willing to negotiate on your price a bit.

Ebay is great, but keep in mind you have to pay them, and adjust your price / minimum bid accordingly.

I haven't bought anything from here. Wouldn't hurt to post your stuff for sale here... I would only sell to well established members in good standing, though. Others have sold some stuff here, maybe they can chime in on how it went.

[sunvalleylaw]

I have bought and sold here. Always to or from members I have known. Has worked out great so far!

[player]

I have bought and sold here. Always to or from members I have known. Has worked out great so far!I can vouch for that Steve

[Eric]

I just sold one on ebay. It's a bit of a pain, and I think craigslist is probably the easiest way to sell stuff since you don't have to ship. It's your call.

I think thefret.net is probably a tough place to sell, since the number of users is so small. Still, depending on what you're selling, it's probably a good place to list it.

EDIT: what I forgot to say about eBay is that you will probably get the best price there of anywhere. The visibility is great, it's just the shipping and other stuff that makes it a little inconvenient.

[hubberjub]

I have only bought pedals and pickups on thefret.net. I would not hesitate to by a guitar. This is a very friendly forum.

[FrankenFretter]

I sold a guitar (the only one I've sold in years, btw) on CL, simply because I didn't want to deal with shipping. For stuff like pedals and smaller stuff, I wouldn't hesitate to try and sell here. Good folks here.

[sunvalleylaw]

I want to clarify my statement that I "knew" the buyers and//or sellers I dealt with here. I mean folks I had known from them being regulars here. Not that I knew them personally. It is a friendly place, and I have not heard of a bad deal yet. Certainly it is a small market to sell in, but I like to try here first, as I will probably know who I am selling to. Reverse is true too.

[mapka]

Tried to sell my Jackson at all three and had no luck. May be the economy, I dont know. Good luck though!

[Heywood Jablomie]

Tried to sell my Jackson at all three and had no luck. May be the economy, I dont know. Good luck though!
The problem I see most often with folks selling guitars is unrealistic price expectations. And if the instrument is one that isn't particularly desireable, saleability declines all the more. Time and time again, I see relisting after relisting of guitars at the wrong price, or guitars that nobody wants at any price.

I've had no problems quickly selling guitars on Craigslist, because they were priced properly. Buying used guitars on Craigslist is a different matter, due to so many sellers thinking they can recover the bulk of their original investment, which is just plain naive. Some may get lucky and find a buyer at the listed price, and good for them, but most of us know that used Asian guitars often sell for about 50-60% of their new street price, and off-brands (like Austin, or SX) even less.

Edit: Sellers can be pretty strange. I once responded to a CL ad for a Seagull S6, after I noticed it being relisted for maybe the third time. Seller was asking for $450, which is totally ridiculous, but I thought I might be able to talk some sense with them at this point, due to their inability to sell it. I offered them what I considered a fair price, and the response was, "I'd rather let it sit in a closet than sell it for less than $450". I assume it's still there.

[Eric]

The problem I see most often with folks selling guitars is unrealistic price expectations. And if the instrument is one that isn't particularly desireable, saleability declines all the more. Time and time again, I see relisting after relisting of guitars at the wrong price, or guitars that nobody wants at any price.

I've had no problems quickly selling guitars on Craigslist, because they were priced properly. Buying used guitars on Craigslist is a different matter, due to so many sellers thinking they can recover the bulk of their original investment, which is just plain naive. Some may get lucky and find a buyer at the listed price, and good for them, but most of us know that used Asian guitars often sell for about 50-60% of their new street price, and off-brands (like Austin, or SX) even less.

Edit: Sellers can be pretty strange. I once responded to a CL ad for a Seagull S6, after I noticed it being relisted for maybe the third time. Seller was asking for $450, which is totally ridiculous, but I thought I might be able to talk some sense with them at this point, due to their inability to sell it. I offered them what I considered a fair price, and the response was, "I'd rather let it sit in a closet than sell it for less than $450". I assume it's still there.
+1 on all of this.

That's one reason I like Ebay, despite its many shortcomings: it's a pretty good litmus test of what something is worth, particular the successful completed auctions. I mean, the market will be whatever it will be; it's the seller's job to be aware of it if they expect to sell.

The thing about Ebay is that, hard-to-ship items excepted, there's very little in the way of special circumstances, etc., so it's not so dependent on who's looking at a given time. It's a huge audience, and everybody knows about it.

Your story about the Seagull sounds all too familiar. At this point, I just put those people in the not-yet-ready-to-sell category. In a way, the seller was right: it's worth more to him/her to hang on to it and not play it than it was to sell it for too little. Maybe he or she paid way too much for it and can't reconcile the embarrassment from letting it go for a low price.

Though it sounds ridiculous, sometimes items need to age. That dilutes the sting of a bad purchase, to the point where you can just view a guitar as a guitar you don't need, without the pang of regret.

When people ask outrageous prices for things, I just say to myself that they're not ready to sell it and I move on. It's a good reminder for me as a seller to try not to be like that.

[mapka]

The problem I see most often with folks selling guitars is unrealistic price expectations. And if the instrument is one that isn't particularly desireable, saleability declines all the more. Time and time again, I see relisting after relisting of guitars at the wrong price, or guitars that nobody wants at any price.

Edit: Sellers can be pretty strange. I once responded to a CL ad for a Seagull S6, after I noticed it being relisted for maybe the third time. Seller was asking for $450, which is totally ridiculous, but I thought I might be able to talk some sense with them at this point, due to their inability to sell it. I offered them what I considered a fair price, and the response was, "I'd rather let it sit in a closet than sell it for less than $450". I assume it's still there.

I really don't think the price I was asking was out of line (based it on Ebay prices and what I thought was fair market value). The price was negotiable and I started the bidding low on the Ebay sale. It may very well be that the guitar is not very desirable. I think it is a beautiful guitar and am only selling it because it doesn't get used. The only bites I got on it were two people asked about trades on CL when the ad said nothing about trades!

[Heywood Jablomie]

I really don't think the price I was asking was out of line (based it on Ebay prices and what I thought was fair market value). The price was negotiable and I started the bidding low on the Ebay sale. It may very well be that the guitar is not very desirable. I think it is a beautiful guitar and am only selling it because it doesn't get used. The only bites I got on it were two people asked about trades on CL when the ad said nothing about trades!
OK, for arguments sake, what are the particulars of the Jackson you want to sell?

[mapka]

OK, for arguments sake, what are the particulars of the Jackson you want to sell?

The guitar is like brand new. I am the second owner. I played it maybe 4 times at home, gigged once, and the original owner bought it and had it hanging on the wall in their hourse. It is a color I have not seen very often. It is a great playing guitar, I simply do not play enough of the kind of music it is suited for. My ad is still listed on the forum "2007 Jackson DKMG"

[Heywood Jablomie]

The guitar is like brand new. I am the second owner. I played it maybe 4 times at home, gigged once, and the original owner bought it and had it hanging on the wall in their hourse. It is a color I have not seen very often. It is a great playing guitar, I simply do not play enough of the kind of music it is suited for. My ad is still listed on the forum "2007 Jackson DKMG"
I'd say that desireability is probably the problem, and usually, the only way to overcome that is to drop the price to a point where it becomes desireable. It's the same way with selling virtually anything, whether it be a guitar, house, car, etc..

When I've been in that situation, I usually decided I'd get what cash I could get, rather than have it sit in a closet, and simply chalk it off to "sometimes you eat the bear.......".

[Eric]

From a brief scan of eBay sales, I'd say that if you're asking more than $350, it's unlikely that you would sell it.

The problem I have in either direction (i.e. as buyer or seller) is that I'm usually too optimistic. I'll see something for really cheap and figure I can buy it for that much, or will see a sale for more than average and figure I can do that. It doesn't pay to be overly optimistic when buying or selling -- being realistic serves me much better.

[Eric]

When I've been in that situation, I usually decided I'd get what cash I could get, rather than have it sit in a closet, and simply chalk it off to "sometimes you eat the bear.......".
That's a good attitude, methinks.

I will say, however, that I think we're in a buyer's market these days. It's just a question of whether you want to wait it out (if there is in fact an end).

[Heywood Jablomie]

[QUOTE=Eric]From a brief scan of eBay sales, I'd say that if you're asking more than $350, it's unlikely that you would sell it.

After a second look at new prices, I found that Sam Ash is selling them for $649, making $450 look like a pretty high price. I have to agree with you, Eric - $350 max.