Reverb Rates Increasing

Currently EBay has a 3.5% seller fee for musical instruments. I think they had to match Reverb. I wonder if they will increase fees also. My guess is they will.
 
Ebay should keep theirs low, which would encourage people to sell there. I know people who moved to Reverb solely to have the lower rate.
 
Mim mentioned on her FB page that she's going to have to move off Reverb and on to a dedicated, stand-alone online store. I would imagine there are a lot of other merchants that are reviewing their options right now.
 
5.0% Reverb, plus Credit Card or PayPal fees is pretty steep. Margins aren't that great to begin with. Add shipping, insurance and other overhead and CODB and it's a major issue. Let alone paying yourself and any staff.
 
Mim mentioned on her FB page that she's going to have to move off Reverb and on to a dedicated, stand-alone online store. I would imagine there are a lot of other merchants that are reviewing their options right now.

Hopefully that should work out better for her to be able to have a weekly cap and still display her stock. I thought Reverb's shipping rates to Canada were a little pricey anyway.
 
Is Etsy a sales platform?

In my mind it is some kind of malicious website like Pinterest, where you find nice pictures in your Google search, but cannot view where it came from without creating an account. One thing is web shops that will have you create an account for buying stuff, but when they want you to create one just to view the item for sale - forget about it.

On subject, thankfully Denmark has a local websit, that, all thought Ebay bought it, is still free to use for selling stuff - unless you want priority adds etc.
It is only for a local market, but that saves shipping.
 
Mim mentioned on her FB page that she's going to have to move off Reverb and on to a dedicated, stand-alone online store. I would imagine there are a lot of other merchants that are reviewing their options right now.

That's a very good idea. The buyer pays 5%, and you know the seller must also pay.
 
Is Etsy a sales platform?

In my mind it is some kind of malicious website like Pinterest, where you find nice pictures in your Google search, but cannot view where it came from without creating an account. One thing is web shops that will have you create an account for buying stuff, but when they want you to create one just to view the item for sale - forget about it.

On subject, thankfully Denmark has a local websit, that, all thought Ebay bought it, is still free to use for selling stuff - unless you want priority adds etc.
It is only for a local market, but that saves shipping.

Popular with folk artists, crafters and custom made at home stuff. I ordered a custom camera bag insert and the Etsy bag insert woman sewed my special order well and delivered it promptly. The nice thing is they can make it to your specs.
 
Hopefully that should work out better for her to be able to have a weekly cap and still display her stock. I thought Reverb's shipping rates to Canada were a little pricey anyway.

She used to manage her own website, but it took a lot of effort and ate up a lot of her time to do so.

Don't forget she photographs each and every item she sells. And does all of her setup work. Add to that maintaining a website and it becomes a huge time sinkhole.

She'll have to pay for a site name and a host. And site security. Unless she plans to host it herself. (Bigger time suck.) Then there's shopping cart, managing transactions and fees, and updating her equipment and software regularly. And updating her listings and descriptions.
 
Is Etsy a sales platform?

In my mind it is some kind of malicious website like Pinterest, where you find nice pictures in your Google search, but cannot view where it came from without creating an account. One thing is web shops that will have you create an account for buying stuff, but when they want you to create one just to view the item for sale - forget about it.

On subject, thankfully Denmark has a local websit, that, all thought Ebay bought it, is still free to use for selling stuff - unless you want priority adds etc.
It is only for a local market, but that saves shipping.

My understanding is that Etsy bought out Reverb, and is now raising the price to match Etsy.
 
She used to manage her own website, but it took a lot of effort and ate up a lot of her time to do so.

Don't forget she photographs each and every item she sells. And does all of her setup work. Add to that maintaining a website and it becomes a huge time sinkhole.

She'll have to pay for a site name and a host. And site security. Unless she plans to host it herself. (Bigger time suck.) Then there's shopping cart, managing transactions and fees, and updating her equipment and software regularly. And updating her listings and descriptions.

Yeah, I can imagine. I only remember her being on eBay. It's probably easier now with improved software, otherwise why would she consider it over a 5% commission? If it takes up more than 5% of your time, it's maybe not worth it.
 
I'm curious what is going to happen down the road from the consumer side of it. Will the fees get passed to the consumer? I'm sure they will eventually, with the markets the way they are I would guess there isn't much margin to play with, but I'm pretty sure they will make it work, one way or the other. Mostly though I wonder about private sales. What will happen there? I mean, some people are going through ukuleles pretty fast and furious. I would imagine that there are more people taking a loss than making a profit to peddle their ukes in order to make enough money to pay for the next one on the way. I wonder how this rate change will hit them. Hard to play with that profit margin when there isn't one.
 
If you want to sell a painting in a well known gallery, the commission is often far in excess of 5%, more like 30 - 50%. 5% is a very low commission to be able to access millions of potential customers and the financial platform.

There would be an issue for companies which have spent some effort arranging their profit margin and marketing plan at a given %. Some changes would be required. But its a market, selling for a good profit is a very hard job to do, if you can't do the work yourself, then it is worth paying an expert or good platform to help you.

In the ukulele market, buyers have come to expect certain price points, which have been possible because the selling platforms have very low commissions. Now the platforms are increasing the commissions so buyers will either have to pay more, or look harder to access ukuleles. If the commissions go beyond a threshold, then the platform will die and even the big sellers will leave. So I suppose the platform owners will mess with the price to find the thresholds, and they will keep the commissions just below a threshold where you will not post as a seller.

UU has a marketplace, which has no commission and easy rules and a few risks. FaceBook has similar marketplace pages. Yet UU members continue to promote Reverb and Amazon and eBay all the time. The Reverb owners know they can depend on you for free promotion. I think they also probably think that you will spend more of your money to pay the increased commissions. Will you prove them right?

What if you just stopped posting about Reverb, Amazon and eBay and started to take a bigger interest in selling platforms which are much more seller friendly? What if this is the last post in this thread and we never mention Reverb again?

Mim's shop is the only reason I go to Reverb. I never considered using it to sell my stuff, but now that you mention it, 5% isn't much to pay if it's not moving on Craigslist or UU Marketplace. But I don't have anything I need to move that badly. eBay is good for drooling over Ken Timm's ukes that I never actually bid on. Amazon? It's the simplest way to fill your house with useless crap. Yeah, time to find something better.
 
UU has a marketplace, which has no commission and easy rules and a few risks. FaceBook has similar marketplace pages. Yet UU members continue to promote Reverb and Amazon and eBay all the time. The Reverb owners know they can depend on you for free promotion. I think they also probably think that you will spend more of your money to pay the increased commissions. Will you prove them right?

What if you just stopped posting about Reverb, Amazon and eBay and started to take a bigger interest in selling platforms which are much more seller friendly? What if this is the last post in this thread and we never mention Reverb again?
If talking about something is promoting it, we promote all kinds of stuff here. I mean, that's why we exist, to talk about stuff. You talk a lot. So do I. I mean, "let's not talk about Reverb, Amazon, or eBay," why is that? Let's not talk about Watermans anymore because I don't like them and I don't think that we should be promoting them to people. It makes about as much sense. Let's not talk about anything anymore. Come on. This is why we are here. We socialize here.
 
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If you want to sell a painting in a well known gallery, the commission is often far in excess of 5%, more like 30 - 50%. 5% is a very low commission to be able to access millions of potential customers and the financial platform.

There would be an issue for companies which have spent some effort arranging their profit margin and marketing plan at a given %. Some changes would be required. But its a market, selling for a good profit is a very hard job to do, if you can't do the work yourself, then it is worth paying an expert or good platform to help you.

In the ukulele market, buyers have come to expect certain price points, which have been possible because the selling platforms have very low commissions. Now the platforms are increasing the commissions so buyers will either have to pay more, or look harder to access ukuleles. If the commissions go beyond a threshold, then the platform will die and even the big sellers will leave. So I suppose the platform owners will mess with the price to find the thresholds, and they will keep the commissions just below a threshold where you will not post as a seller.

UU has a marketplace, which has no commission and easy rules and a few risks. FaceBook has similar marketplace pages. Yet UU members continue to promote Reverb and Amazon and eBay all the time. The Reverb owners know they can depend on you for free promotion. I think they also probably think that you will spend more of your money to pay the increased commissions. Will you prove them right?

What if you just stopped posting about Reverb, Amazon and eBay and started to take a bigger interest in selling platforms which are much more seller friendly? What if this is the last post in this thread and we never mention Reverb again?

The difference is that the artist with the work in the gallery is the manufacturer, sets the price of their work, and is basically the wholesaler. In retailers' cases, they are NOT the manufacturer, do NOT set the prices and are operating on margins dependent on the wholesale price they pay the manufacturer, which is the 50% you mentioned. A realistic comparison is that the 5% can be lower than rent at multiple locations, which is what would be necessary for the reach. Unfortunately, that 5% may be onerous when margins are too tight.
Additionally, buyers feel safer with the extra layer that a site as Reverb can supply, not to mention that sellers have reviews, which UU Marketplace doesn't.
 
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Reverb used to tout itself as "For musicians, by musicians". Now it's just another corporate-driven moneymaker. The Etsy takeover is just another example of this trend. Also, if you sell on "Etsyverb", you MUST get your funds by signing up for "Reverb Bucks", rather than using a previous preferred payment method. Corporate-driven, rather than customer-driven rules. That's progress......................
 
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