# Pricing on Reverb website



## Duster (Dec 28, 2007)

Anyone else here looking at gear on Reverb? I only recently started using it, and I wonder if I'm missing something. Pricing seems to be crazy high. 

I'm looking at a Traynor YGL-1, for example, which run $685 brand new at Long and Mcquade. On Reverb they're coming up at over $800 when you take the exchange rate into account.

I'm seeing the same kind of stuff in guitars as well. 

Do people just price things really high on Reverb anticipating they will have to discount it to make a sale? Are buyers supposed to low-ball the sellers just to get to some realistic numbers?

I've been looking at the site for a couple of weeks, and I've seen some things that are of interest, but nowhere near what I would consider good value...

Are people successfully using the site to buy gear? What am I missing?


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## knight_yyz (Mar 14, 2015)

I think it is sort of like kijiji. But reverb gets a cut. So if there is a make me an offer, the price will be negotiable. Some of the stuff I have seen is in a decent price range. Also, i try to only search for stores in Canada so it makes life a bit easier. I bought my used amp there, should be sitting in my music room tomorrow. 
Also I think most of the sellers are store owners trying to unload used gear they got in their stores. I know that's how Mojo Music in Oakville is doing it. Almost everything you see on reverb being sold by Mojo is actually a customer's consignment item. 

Make a few offers and see what happens. I shaved a couple of bills off the asking price of my amp.


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## exhausted (Feb 10, 2006)

Duster said:


> Anyone else here looking at gear on Reverb? I only recently started using it, and I wonder if I'm missing something. Pricing seems to be crazy high.
> 
> I'm looking at a Traynor YGL-1, for example, which run $685 brand new at Long and Mcquade. On Reverb they're coming up at over $800 when you take the exchange rate into account.
> 
> ...


You're looking at a US dealer selling it for full street price in US dollars, with a terrible exchange rate.

Keys to not wasting time on Reverb
- Filter only for used/handmade
- Filter for only those shipping to Canada.


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## Duster (Dec 28, 2007)

I just figured out that at the bottom of the page there is a "browse by country" option. Once I did that, I could set up equipment filters and it's only looking at Canadian sellers. That's much better. Thanks for the tips guys.


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## urko99 (Mar 30, 2009)

I would say that the US Exchange is the main factor affecting sale on Reverb, or any other US site. We've been in the glory of money at Par for too long, but at 35%, hardly is worth looking to buy much of anything stateside.
This will in turn start affecting the escalation of used gear pricing on the Canadian side as well, in favor of the sellers. I'm Pretty content with my gear at the present time, and not really looking to do many purchases at the moment, but GAS can affect us at any given moment I suppose! Lol!


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## Robboman (Oct 14, 2006)

I think it's mostly the exchange rate. Even if your view is set to Canadian dollars, most sellers list in USD. Canadian retail store pricing hasn't increased in lockstep with the fall of the Loonie, but Reverb pricing reflects it in real time.


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## dtsaudio (Apr 15, 2009)

I just finished browsing guitars and amps, and I gotta say some of the pricing is way out there. One case in point is a Gibson EBO from 1968. It caught my eye because it has a dimarzio pup installed. I owned one in the 80's. Paid $185.00 for it from a dealer. This guy on Reverb is asking $1300.00. And it's a wreck. I paid $130.00 for my first Traynor (Bassmaster) with a 6-10 cabinet. Here's a similar one
https://reverb.com/item/46423-traynor-signature-yga-1a-amp-head-1960-s
That's just nuts.
Just for fun compare what you used to own (and sold) to what's available on Reverb now. It will probably make you ill.


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## knight_yyz (Mar 14, 2015)

american pricing always screws me up. Up here a set of rims for my car could cost me 2k, but guys in the US will let that same set go for 500. I'm not sure how it works with guitar stuff, as I haven't been shopping long, but when I see a good price i also double check kijiji , ebay etc to compare. I'll also hit google and see what the going rate is. I thought the reverb prices to be a tad high myself, but I assumed it was exchange rate. When I made my off for my amp I offered in CDN so I knew exactly what I was paying. good old paypal will ding you for a few bucks on exchange no matter which end of the deal you are on


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## pattste (Dec 30, 2007)

I agree that many of the prices are hilarious. I searched for Gibson 335 guitars and most (used ones) came up around $4300. There's a couple of them that have been sitting for weeks on the local Kijiji at $2500.


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

I have a shop on Reverb called Ghuitar Ghear. I purposely price things a bit higher and wait for an offer, meet half way and then make the deal. Selling is awesome on reverb at the moment.

I just bought a 'like new' boss DD-3 for $81CAD shipped (to my folks in Ohio). Not a crazy deal, but still cheaper than around here.

I like it and buy a lot of stuff from there. The key for me is low-balling ridiculous price and getting the deal done. In your counter-offers, you can also widdle down shipping costs.


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## knight_yyz (Mar 14, 2015)

I found that most US dealers on Reverb won't even email you back if you ask about shipping price. So now I just shop the Canadian part


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## Tone Chaser (Mar 2, 2014)

I have recently bought on Reverb and Ebay. When the price is right, I buy.

I also bought USD when they were at par and invested them in USD generating income. I found a 6 to 8% return monthly investment, in Canada, with a Canadian investment firm. I still pay the Canadian taxman; so it comes out to be a little less in the long run. It is enough to save up and spend stateside.


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## aC2rs (Jul 9, 2007)

I was just having my first look through the ads, and I didn't see any prices that would make me consider buying.
I would just buy new or used locally.


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## vadsy (Dec 2, 2010)

aC2rs said:


> I was just having my first look through the ads, and I didn't see any prices that would make me consider buying.
> I would just buy new or used locally.


Ideally I think everybody would love to keep the deals local but this is another option where you're covering a huge range of gear availability. For the most part prices are high especially with the dollar being the way it is but I still see deals on stuff. I've actually never bought anything but selling is very good currently and easy to do on Reverb. When I price an item I'm usually working in a little extra because I know people are going to haggle and that could be par for the course and why you see some prices that appear to be inflated. It also could be because people just value it way higher than they should.


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## BMW-KTM (Apr 7, 2015)

When I am in the market for used gear I try to stay away, if at all possible, from eBay, Reverb or any other site that makes profit from the sale. Sometimes it's not at all possible when what you seek is rare or difficult to find. I've had decent luck with KiJiJi. Both buying and selling.


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## [email protected] (Sep 24, 2015)

Hey Guys, Kevin here from Reverb. Just came across this thread so wanted to weigh in. As many pointed out, while we have thousands of sellers from Canada, the majority are based in the US. The US dollar has been steadily strengthening against the Canadian dollar, so some US items may look expensive in Canada. They'll also look lower when/if rates move back down. The most popular feature of our site is the "make an offer" function so many sellers will intentionally set the price high, expecting that buyers will try to negotiate. 

On the flip side, if you're looking to sell something, you could post it on Reverb and potentially sell it to US buyers and benefit from that same exchange rate difference. Over the last year, you could make 25% more for selling the same guitar at the same price, just because of the exchange rate difference. At the very least, it will help get more local Canadian items on the site that your countrymen can buy without the FX difference. It's free to list as much as you like for as long as you like, there's just a small 3.5% sales fee when/if something sells.

If anyone has any questions on utilizing Reverb in Canada, please feel free to email me kevin.drost (at) reverb.com

Thanks!


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2015)

Duster said:


> Anyone else here looking at gear on Reverb? I only recently started using it, and I wonder if I'm missing something. Pricing seems to be crazy high.


I believe you can always "make an offer" there -- most people price high, expecting to be "offered" what they really hope to get for the gear I suspect. Head games. Plus, Reverb takes a pretty significant chunk of the sale.



> I'm looking at a Traynor YGL-1, for example, which run $685 brand new at Long and Mcquade. On Reverb they're coming up at over $800 when you take the exchange rate into account.


This amp is _impossible_ to get the USA any other way. Full Compass is the only US-based retailer right now and they're $629 there and availability is spotty. There is one on Reverb right now $400: https://reverb.com/item/930312-traynor-ygl-1-limited-edition-white -- but only one.



> Do people just price things really high on Reverb anticipating they will have to discount it to make a sale? Are buyers supposed to low-ball the sellers just to get to some realistic numbers?


Pretty much. It's a barter market.



> Are people successfully using the site to buy gear? What am I missing?


I sold an Axe-Fx II there about a month back. It sucked. The bartering thing isn't my bag. I had a sale pending for a PT-2 + hard case + PP2+ and ended up canceling it and just waiting until I could sell it locally. Was going to lose too much in the fees to make it worth my while. Ended up trading it with a local store for a set of Duncans and installation in to my hollowbody PRS -- so totally a good move on my part.

It is what it is.


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## Duster (Dec 28, 2007)

[email protected] said:


> Hey Guys, Kevin here from Reverb. Just came across this thread so wanted to weigh in. As many pointed out, while we have thousands of sellers from Canada, the majority are based in the US. The US dollar has been steadily strengthening against the Canadian dollar, so some US items may look expensive in Canada. They'll also look lower when/if rates move back down. The most popular feature of our site is the "make an offer" function so many sellers will intentionally set the price high, expecting that buyers will try to negotiate.
> 
> On the flip side, if you're looking to sell something, you could post it on Reverb and potentially sell it to US buyers and benefit from that same exchange rate difference. Over the last year, you could make 25% more for selling the same guitar at the same price, just because of the exchange rate difference. At the very least, it will help get more local Canadian items on the site that your countrymen can buy without the FX difference. It's free to list as much as you like for as long as you like, there's just a small 3.5% sales fee when/if something sells.
> 
> ...


Kevin, thanks for joining the conversation. Always good to get direct to the source so we're not just talking crap.

I've been enjoying the site a lot more now that I filtered for only Canadian stuff. I still don't see any screaming deals, but I suppose in a well-run market there shouldn't be any. You might want to make it easier to filter by location - I had to find the link at the bottom of the page, and it was a little tricky to set up the filters. For example, you have to choose the country first. I haven't seen how you can do a search, and subsequently filter by Country. You can filter by "ship-to country", but you'll still end up with American sellers who are willing to ship to Canada. It only makes sense if you can restrict to actual Canadian sellers.

That being said, these sites only work if lots of people use them. Hopefully you can keep adding Canadian sellers, because that's what will bring the Canadian buyers.

I'm checking it regularly now. I tell my wife it's like Pinterest, but for guitarists. Haven't pulled the trigger on anything yet. I've got some gear to sell. I'll still put it up for sale on this forum first, and if that doesn't work, then probably give your site a try at the same time as Kijiji, and see what happens.

In principle it's a great idea and I hope it keeps going well. Should be good for both buyers and sellers.


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## soldierscry (Jan 20, 2008)

Thanks for chiming in. I recently joined reverb and in the last month had made 3 sales. 2 of which were in Canada. 

I will note that I had the Item's listed here as well so it has helped be reach other potential Canadian buyers.



[email protected] said:


> Hey Guys, Kevin here from Reverb. Just came across this thread so wanted to weigh in. As many pointed out, while we have thousands of sellers from Canada, the majority are based in the US. The US dollar has been steadily strengthening against the Canadian dollar, so some US items may look expensive in Canada. They'll also look lower when/if rates move back down. The most popular feature of our site is the "make an offer" function so many sellers will intentionally set the price high, expecting that buyers will try to negotiate.
> 
> On the flip side, if you're looking to sell something, you could post it on Reverb and potentially sell it to US buyers and benefit from that same exchange rate difference. Over the last year, you could make 25% more for selling the same guitar at the same price, just because of the exchange rate difference. At the very least, it will help get more local Canadian items on the site that your countrymen can buy without the FX difference. It's free to list as much as you like for as long as you like, there's just a small 3.5% sales fee when/if something sells.
> 
> ...


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## knight_yyz (Mar 14, 2015)

To search a particular item by country. Let's say you want to see all the telecasters in Canada. Type "telecaster country:CA" without the quotes. Then you can add a price range with the buttons say 500 to 1500. Easy peasy


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

Inspired by this thread, I switched to "Canada only" and checked a bunch of stuff out. Found something I was interested in, made an offer, and it was accepted! Cool right? However . . . 


Although I had switched to Cdn currency my offer used USD. Long story short, the buyer accepted my offer but it is actually way more than I intended or am willing to pay. ARGH! I will risk negative feedback because I am not over paying for something because the site switched currencies on me. 

Thanks reverb


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Ouch. With the buck at 0.75, that's a not an insignificant difference.

Thanks for the heads-up. That could happen to anyone.


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

traynor_garnet said:


> Inspired by this thread, I switched to "Canada only" and checked a bunch of stuff out. Found something I was interested in, made an offer, and it was accepted! Cool right? However . . .
> 
> 
> Although I had switched to Cdn currency my offer used USD. Long story short, the buyer accepted my offer but it is actually way more than I intended or am willing to pay. ARGH! I will risk negative feedback because I am not over paying for something because the site switched currencies on me.
> ...


I would at least speak with the seller - you never know.


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## knight_yyz (Mar 14, 2015)

Not sure how you managed to do that. I've made a few offers and it clearly shows CAD in the offer box. if it doesn't say CAD it is USD









If you scroll down you will see another box that looks like this and it shows where the dealers ship and currency. In this case ships to everywhere and US dollars









In this case ships everywhere in CDN dollars.


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

Just checked the sight again given the above. Upon opening reverb a box popped up saying "based on your location we have switched you to Cdn dollars and Canada" (or something to that effect). I then selected "Canada only" for a search filter and all the listings are in Cdn dollars and located in Canada.

when I hit "make an offer", however, the screen switches like above but no currency is listed. Since I was searching in Canada in Canadian funds, why on earth would the site switch to USD without telling me. This makes no sense and there is no indication that you are now suddenly dealing with another currency.

Now that I have confirmed I didn't do anything stupid, I am not going to pay. Hopefully the seller understands. 

TG


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## King Loudness (May 3, 2010)

I use Reverb as a seller and benefit greatly by selling to the U.S. It's hard to justify buying much of anything online these days from my perspective, so I tend to keep my purchases local, or from online dealers within Canada.

W.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

traynor_garnet said:


> Just checked the sight again given the above. Upon opening reverb a box popped up saying "based on your location we have switched you to Cdn dollars and Canada" (or something to that effect). I then selected "Canada only" for a search filter and all the listings are in Cdn dollars and located in Canada.
> 
> when I hit "make an offer", however, the screen switches like above but no currency is listed. Since I was searching in Canada in Canadian funds, why on earth would the site switch to USD without telling me. This makes no sense and there is no indication that you are now suddenly dealing with another currency.
> 
> ...


did you contact the reverb staff about it?


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

^^ yeah, they're actually pretty good for this kind of stuff. 

I should have been booted off a while back, but they gave me a friendly warning and I'm still making sales. I actually just got an offer on my Klon that I'm going to accept - I started at $2700CAD, hahahaha - the lunacy. You gotta love it.


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## [email protected] (Sep 24, 2015)

Thanks for all the great feedback guys. We're working hard every day to make Reverb a great experience for Canadians.

@traynor_garnet, PM me some details on your order and I'll make sure you don't get dinged with any negative feedback. As another poster mentioned, you can also just hit the chat button directly on the site to talk to customer service, we'll take care of you. That's the first I've heard of anyone having trouble with the currencies on the offer feature. If your seller is in the US, they will see your offer in $USD, but based on the $CAD you entered. 

If anyone else has feedback, please let me know. The more you tell us, the more changes we can make. 

Thanks


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## vadsy (Dec 2, 2010)

Crazy pricing on Reverb! I wonder what the explanation on this 2005 R8 for 700 bucks is? Sold in a few minutes from a brand new just registered shop. 

https://reverb.com/item/1129697-gib...r8-vos-2005-cherry-sunburst?_aid=watcheroffer

Didn't VOS start at or after 2006?


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

Thanks so much Kevin I really appreciate your efforts. I emailed you at the address you provided so please keep an eye out for my email.

For those of you interested, I looked into this a bit more and found something even more strange. On my iphone (IOS 9.1), the "make an offer" stays in Canadian dollars and is marked CDN within the offer box. On my ipad (ISO 8.X), however, the "make an offer" reverts to USD but doesn't list the (new) currency within the offer box. Something strange is happening across platforms on the site.

At any rate, hopefully this all ends up ok for all those involved. Thanks again to Kevin @ Reverb for helping me out and making this right.

TG



[email protected] said:


> @traynor_garnet, PM me some details on your order and I'll make sure you don't get dinged with any negative feedback. As another poster mentioned, you can also just hit the chat button directly on the site to talk to customer service, we'll take care of you. That's the first I've heard of anyone having trouble with the currencies on the offer feature. If your seller is in the US, they will see your offer in $USD, but based on the $CAD you entered.
> 
> If anyone else has feedback, please let me know. The more you tell us, the more changes we can make.
> 
> Thanks


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## [email protected] (Sep 24, 2015)

vadsy said:


> Crazy pricing on Reverb! I wonder what the explanation on this 2005 R8 for 700 bucks is? Sold in a few minutes from a brand new just registered shop.
> 
> https://reverb.com/item/1129697-gib...r8-vos-2005-cherry-sunburst?_aid=watcheroffer
> 
> Didn't VOS start at or after 2006?


It didn't sell. We suspended it to investigate for fraud. We keep a pretty close eye on things like this


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## vadsy (Dec 2, 2010)

[email protected] said:


> It didn't sell. We suspended it to investigate for fraud. We keep a pretty close eye on things like this


Good to know you keep an eye out for that type of thing because this one seemed fishy.


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## soldierscry (Jan 20, 2008)

vadsy said:


> Crazy pricing on Reverb! I wonder what the explanation on this 2005 R8 for 700 bucks is? Sold in a few minutes from a brand new just registered shop.
> 
> https://reverb.com/item/1129697-gib...r8-vos-2005-cherry-sunburst?_aid=watcheroffer
> 
> Didn't VOS start at or after 2006?


What's interesting is when you click on the shop s name you get a page that says .

[h=1]Account Disabled[/h] [h=3]This account is not available at the moment.[/h]
I'm thinking it was a fake account or something.


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## howdo3313 (Jul 14, 2015)

Hi everyone,

Can't say for certain about all these different situations some of you are having at Reverb...I did my first reverb deal about a month or so ago. Got a 1966 mustang body for an awesome rice to begin with...got the price down a bit more by offering a musicmaster body that I had. Brought the price back up, because the seller allowed me to pick through his parts. Ended up spending $300US/shipped.
1966 mustang body, tort guard, wiring and pots, date correct neckplate, trem assembly, and bridge. Traded for cash and a late 70's musicmaster body. Not a bad deal. 

Also, and I could be wrong...but the reason Reverb exists is because of all the yahoos over at ebay, who try to change the market values on junk.

Cheers.


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