That's a big hike. Wonder how Etsy is doing in this new world?And... they're increasing fees to 5%. Surprised it took this long.
That's a big hike. Wonder how Etsy is doing in this new world?And... they're increasing fees to 5%. Surprised it took this long.
And they did. A full 2/3 of the listings are now "Reverb Bumps".
Thinly veiled excuses for corporate greed.
Same thing on Reverb with payment processing fee. It's currently 6.2%, but with the announcement it'll become 7.7%.
Maybe I don't buy or sell enough to have gotten that email. Too bad, I could use a good laughThe e-mail's list of "reasons" claiming increased service to their customers was laughable.
I had the exact same thing happen on eBay. Guy bought a piece of recording gear from me and returned the exact type of preamp with a different serial number that was DOA and that his kid had drawn all over with an orange crayon. I even had before and after photos and eBay still sided with the buyer. I had to refund the entire amount including shipping both ways. I was out about $250. I still haven’t gotten over that.On eBay if you add up to eBay fees plus the Paypal fees it's around 6.5% of the final value (for musical instruments). I rarely use eBay anymore after getting burned by a couple buyers. One guy even sent me the same item back but with a different serial number and it was broken. And eBay usually sides with the buyer.
Here's what I got:Maybe I don't buy or sell enough to have gotten that email. Too bad, I could use a good laugh
Unfortunately they know they can do almost whatever they want with their pricing. Lots of people use them, and not many other options.
To Our Community,
I’m writing to share upcoming changes that will enable us to significantly grow our marketplace so that we can help you reach even more buyers all over the world. Beginning on August 4, 2020, we are increasing our selling fee for the first time ever— from 3.5 % to 5%.
When Reverb launched in 2013, the idea was simple—an online marketplace built specifically for the musical instrument community by a team of musicians. Our team thought about everything that we, as music makers, wanted in a site for selling gear and put it into Reverb: A live support team staffed with musicians, tailored tools to make things like price negotiation easier, a personalizable feed and useful content to help buyers find exactly what they want, and more.
Today, Reverb is the largest online marketplace dedicated to buying and selling musical instruments. In the past year alone, our community has achieved tremendous growth. More consumers are buying instruments than ever before, and players of all levels increasingly are buying gear online. As more buyers move online, we’ve heard you loud and clear: You want more support and more tools to help you get your gear in front of Reverb’s expanding audience of high-quality buyers and grow your sales.
We take the role that we play in supporting your business very seriously. Over the past seven years, our team has worked tirelessly to improve our marketplace to support your business and to find new ways to help you grow your sales. Now is the time to deepen our commitment to these efforts. We are modifying our selling fee to help us invest more to sustain our community’s continued growth. This year alone, we plan to increase our investment from 2019 by:
Our team comes to work each day to ensure the success of our sellers—our marketplace simply doesn’t exist without the independent shops, makers, artists, experts, and individuals that form our vibrant seller community. These changes will enable us to bring more buyers to Reverb on your behalf, support the long-term health of your online business, and continue growing together.
- Investing over 30% more in marketing initiatives—including SEO, online video advertising, and other digital advertising—to get your inventory in front of more buyers from around the world.
- Expanding by more than 25% the capacity of our global customer support team focused on assisting you and your buyers as we grow.
- Increasing by more than 40% the capacity of our product team focused on creating and enhancing seller tools and services to increase the visibility of your shop and inventory.
Sincerely,
David Mandelbrot
CEO, Reverb
Well, that all sounds great. But bottom line, the proof is in the follow through. Everybody can say the right thing. And I'm in marketing, so I've written a few of these corporatespeak letters myselfTo Our Community:
The e-mail's list of "reasons" claiming increased service to their customers was laughable.
I'd avoid ebay. I have been burnt by a few buyers. They give the buyers incredible power over the sellers.
If you show Reverb your correspondance that has him saying, "It's not what I expected" and you replying "All sales final" does that not CYA?It's no different on Reverb. I actually just had my first bad sale on there. A guy wants this rather expensive pedal, and fast, so I make sure I ship it next day. He immediately calls me the day he gets it, and says it's not really what he's looking for, and wants a refund. I tell him this isn't really a test drive situation. He issues a "damaged" refund request with Reverb. I haven't got the pedal back yet, but I'm half wondering if I'm going to get back something with the guts swapped, or who knows.
If you show Reverb your correspondance that has him saying, "It's not what I expected" and you replying "All sales final" does that not CYA?
It's no different on Reverb. I actually just had my first bad sale on there. A guy wants this rather expensive pedal, and fast, so I make sure I ship it next day. He immediately calls me the day he gets it, and says it's not really what he's looking for, and wants a refund. I tell him this isn't really a test drive situation. He issues a "damaged" refund request with Reverb. I haven't got the pedal back yet, but I'm half wondering if I'm going to get back something with the guts swapped, or who knows.