How long will you try to sell something before giving up, or drastically lowering the price?

T

ThinCrappyTone

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Oct 1, 2011
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#1
For ten years, I have been looking at my local craigslist "music-gear-for-sale" listings almost daily.

One thing I have noticed is there are items listed that have been for sale for a very, VERY long time. Literally 5-10 years. Nobody seems to want it, the price is never lowered, yet there it is, every single day, re-listed.

I get so used to seeing certain recurring ads that they're like old friends at this point. Oh, its the "Smoke your troubles away"* guy. Or the "Jon Butcher Axis $70 t-shirt" cat**. Or "Melancon 'strat killer' (With two necks!!)" dude***.

I'm not being critical. It's just the opposite of my mindset. If I decide to sell, it's always "priced to move" because I just want it to be out of my life. If it doesn't sell, I'll drop it even more. If nobody wants it still, I'll keep it or trade it at GC. So I find it intriguing and am curious that there are people who will stick to their guns with long term determination.

Wondering where y'all fall on the spectrum. Do you have the patience and tenacity to hold onto things until you get your price, or are you an impatient seller like me?

*
"Smoke Your Troubles Away" Henry George theme sheet music

**
Barefoot Servants t-shirt Venus de Milo Jon Butcher Axis

***
Melancon Strat Killer!! Comes with Two Necks!!
 
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#2
I'm not patient. Once I decide it's getting sold I want to be done with it.
In the past I would list items at half of what they cost new, no hits, almost never.

Eventually I drop the price to around what GC or SA would give me & then people get interested. I'll drop the price 10% per week & if I get no hits from the GC/SA price I'm likely to get then I just drive the 3 hours to sell it there.

Last time for me was a SR300EB & you guessed it, I ended up selling it for roughly what GC or SA would have given me, it just saved me the 3-hour drive.
Since that I just drive it to GC/SA & be done with it, not to mention I get to check out other gear while I'm there & take a long AYCE spicy wings lunch at hOOters.

It's a long drive, but luckily GC & SA are in the same shopping complex & right next door to one another.
 
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#3
Killed_by_Death said:
I'm not patient. Once I decide it's getting sold I want to be done with it.
In the past I would list items at half of what they cost new, no hits, almost never.

Eventually I drop the price to around what GC or SA would give me & then people get interested. I'll drop the price 10% per week & if I get no hits from the GC/SA price I'm likely to get then I just drive the 3 hours to sell it there.

Last time for me was a SR300EB & you guessed it, I ended up selling it for roughly what GC or SA would have given me, it just saved me the 3-hour drive.
Since that I just drive it to GC/SA & be done with it, not to mention I get to check out other gear while I'm there & take a long AYCE spicy wings lunch at hOOters.

It's a long drive, but luckily GC & SA are in the same shopping complex & right next door to one another.
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We are simililar in this way. Meaning the love for spicy wings and lack of hassle :D GC trade in cost is my "bottom line" as well.
 
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#8
Where I fall depends on what use I have for the item in question and how much effort I am willing to put into selling it.

I recently sold a ton of gear to my local Music Go Round for about half of what their list price will be. It was made up of small low value items and several large (difficult to ship) items. I could have gotten more selling myself. However, I wanted it gone quickly and did not want to deal with shipping most of it.

At the same time, I had two basses listed for sale here. A Peavey Millennium Plus and a fretless Tobias Growler. Peavey moved reasonably quickly at what I feel was a fair price. It would have taken me quite a bit of waiting to go lower on that one, but I eventually would have (to a point... then I would keep it). I felt the Growler was priced fairly. It got quite a bit of attention, but no takers. I was on the fence about selling it anyway, so rather than lower the price farther (lowered it 2 or 3 times), I kept it.
 
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#13
Oh, I forgot to add the other reason I decided to stop selling locally.
People want your stuff for next to nothing!

The SR300EB was already priced low & the guy who bought it asked for a price drop before he'd even seen it.
To top that off, on the drive here he asked for an additional price decrease, still hadn't even seen the instrument! (I did not agree & told him I could get my price for it elsewhere.)

He was quite happy with how light it is & what great shape it was in, so at the time I regretted having reduced the price.

I saved 3 hours of driving & about $15 in gasoline, but denied myself a hOOter's lunch.
(and denied myself the opportunity to check out what's on the racks at GC/SA)
 
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#16
I'm probably a little too patient. I list things a decent price with a little room to negotiate. I'm quite amazed at the stuff that moves quickly vs. the stuff that attracts no interest. I've had a couple of basses running for about 6 months, both fairly priced. One is a little higher end (fretless six string) that I could not find in my local market when I was shopping for it and expected to get some interest - not one serious or legitimate inquiry.

I had been putting off listing a motorcycle that I hadn't ridden in a couple years (ran, but needed some work) - procrastinating because I just wasn't up for all the BS. A severely risen (don't really know why) insurance bill showed up and lit a fire. I listed it a bit under low blue book, prepared to take much less - just wanted it gone at that point - and it sold in less than two days full asking price.

Other much cheaper stuff either attracts a bunch of weird questions from the CL pests or gets no activity whatsoever. Go figure.
 
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#17
mrcbass said:
I'm probably a little too patient. I list things a decent price with a little room to negotiate. I'm quite amazed at the stuff that moves quickly vs. the stuff that attracts no interest. I've had a couple of basses running for about 6 months, both fairly priced. One is a little higher end (fretless six string) that I could not find in my local market when I was shopping for it and expected to get some interest - not one serious or legitimate inquiry.

I had been putting off listing a motorcycle that I hadn't ridden in a couple years (ran, but needed some work) - procrastinating because I just wasn't up for all the BS. A severely risen (don't really know why) insurance bill showed up and lit a fire. I listed it a bit under low blue book, prepared to take much less - just wanted it gone at that point - and it sold in less than two days full asking price.

Other much cheaper stuff either attracts a bunch of weird questions from the CL pests or gets no activity whatsoever. Go figure.
Click to expand...
Hmm I wonder if it hung around because it’s a 6. I have tried to sell instruments with more than the usual number of strings, and those seem the hardest to sell.
 
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#18
Well, all they have to do is push the "relist" button.

Sheet music is nice, and you can't get it online that easily, and printing in that large format is quite expensive. But I think after a few months and no bites, some of those items would be better off donated to schools or programs.

That guitar, sorry, it's not going to happen. Resale value is a harsh lesson, not as bad as "trade-in" value, but still quite harsh. I've never heard of "Melancon". Nice looking axe, but it's just a super-strat.

I do flag ads when they are duplicates in the same day.
 
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#20
ThinCrappyTone said:
Hmm I wonder if it hung around because it’s a 6. I have tried to sell instruments with more than the usual number of strings, and those seem the hardest to sell.
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That and fretless - I'm sure that's part of it, but no real interest seems odd to me. I watched CL steadily for 6 months looking for one of these and finally had to find another source - I figured I'd "flood the market" with mine.....

My 5 string Ibby sold pretty quickly for an appropriate price, so it's not just more than 4...
 
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