Flipping basses for profit – fair game or not cool?

[chris_b]

If someone manages to sell a bass for more than I sold it to them, then more fool me. If I didn't get the market price right and someone else did then I have no issue with that.

[tauzero]

4 hours ago, synthaside said:

I think there are two distinct differences scenarios that are being confused a little 

And both do need to be thought of differently

 

Option A. 

 

Bass was advertised on basschat sold , and is now back on basschat for a higher price , for whatever reason.

 

Option B

 

Bass was bought locally in a smaller market for a different price and is now being sold on basschat for a higher or perhaps /more realistic price.

 

Option C - bass was bought on Basschat and then gets sold elsewhere. Which is something I think I've done, but not for profit, it was so I'd be pretty certain that whatever it was I wanted to get shot of would be gone in a week.

[jonnybass]

Its a tough one, if I sold a bass at around market value and for some reason the market changed and it was worth 10 times more and it was resold at the new price I'd curse my bad timing but not the other seller.

 

If someone gave me a sob story and convinced me to sell under value then the next day had it on at market value id not be best pleased and be unlikely to deal with that person again.

 

However, we've all dreamed of or managed to snap up that 59 les paul at a car boot for £10.  if you did and sold it would you go looking for the seller to give them a share?  or would you pocket it?  Or if they had a 54 p bass for £20 would you offer them market value or buy it at the bargain price?

 

 

Jonny

[dave_bass5]

I dont have a problem with flipping per say, but I know for a fact two of my basses have been resold on here over the years, at a higher cost that I sold them for (no issue), but as immaculate/no issues etc. 

When I sell something im pretty up front with any issues, and I price my gear to reflect this. It bothers me that someone has read my post, brought the item and then listed it with no mention of the issues and priced it higher. That to me is not on, but its also frowned on if mentioning these issues in someone else's sale, which I find frustrating.

 

Edited 3 hours ago by dave_bass5

[TimR]

Morally it is wrong. Selling on BassChat means you're selling the bass to a fellow bass player in the (mistaken) idea that they're buying it to play. In a lot of cases you're prepared to let it go for a lower price as you're fairly confident in the above.

 

If the market place begins to get inhabited by people flipping basses then the bargains will disappear and as a community we will be worse off for it.

 

Name and shame and don't sell them anything again. 

 

However, if you've said it needs work and have lowered the price to reflect that, the buyer spends a morning sorting electrics, neck relief, action, cleans it, sticks new strings on it and then sells, where anyone else may not have the skills or time (like you didn't) to fix those things, then there's no issue.

 

In summary, it depends why you let it go for less than the market value. 

[tegs07]

I guess I would fall into the ambivalent camp on this topic. Buying and selling anything involves a bit of risk and a bit of effort. If that leads someone to making a bit of profit then I am probably OK with it. If someone profits from something I sell, I don’t particularly care as it’s being sold for a reason.

[Burns-bass]

14 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

I guess I would fall into the ambivalent camp on this topic. Buying and selling anything involves a bit of risk and a bit of effort. If that leads someone to making a bit of profit then I am probably OK with it. If someone profits from something I sell, I don’t particularly care as it’s being sold for a reason.

There’s a guy in Bristol who runs an online guitar shop in Easton. His business model involves scouring Gumtree, Facebook and buying cheap stuff at Gardiner Houlgate.

 

He may make a few quid in his job, but even better, he’s taking unloved instruments and making them playable and used again.

Thats the kind of flipping I respect.
 

 

[knirirr]

13 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

There’s a guy in Bristol who runs an online guitar shop in Easton. 
 

 

Is that String Theory?

[Burns-bass]

Just now, knirirr said:

Is that String Theory?

Yeah, he seems to be doing really well, he’s had some great stuff in stock.

[knirirr]

Just now, Burns-bass said:

Yeah, he seems to be doing really well, he’s had some great stuff in stock.

Indeed - I recently bought something from him. Unfortunately it turned out have a small fault, but he seemed happy for me to return it. Currently it is in the hands of Parcelforce. 
I'm sure it's something he'll be able to fix so it can be re-listed (I spotted something else I'll bag instead). 

[Burns-bass]

6 minutes ago, knirirr said:

Indeed - I recently bought something from him. Unfortunately it turned out have a small fault, but he seemed happy for me to return it. Currently it is in the hands of Parcelforce. 
I'm sure it's something he'll be able to fix so it can be re-listed (I spotted something else I'll bag instead). 

 

Problems always occur in business, it's how you manage them that matters, and he seems to be scoring well. Best of luck to him I say.

[gjones]

There's one guy on Basschat, who I will not name, that makes a career out of flipping basses. He doesn't even play bass, just lurks in the shadows on forums like this waiting for his prey.

 

He's flipped two basses of mine, one on Basschat and one on Facebook. He impersonated someone else to buy my bass on Facebook.... because I'd blocked him.

 

 

[LukeFRC]

I think the days of basschat being a lovely community where people sold on to fellow bass geeks and no one was trying to flip gear have well gone. 
 

Though I think we have to be careful with the why, not everything is people selling for profit, sometimes time passes and prices change, sometimes things get more desirable quickly - or other times people are having to sell gear for cash very quickly... I have a Lakland which I tried out and liked but was swithering to buy it or not, the guy was like "I need the cash for a car, it's a good price, please buy it" and came around my house to sell it to be en-route to the car dealers... 

 

What I normally do when selling is have two prices in mind. My mates-rate basschat price, and the advertised price, you know what - there's a big chunk of basschatters who will get it at the lower price, but the asking price hopefully scares off any flippers.

[Beedster]

1 hour ago, LukeFRC said:

I think the days of basschat being a lovely community where people sold on to fellow bass geeks and no one was trying to flip gear have well gone

Interesting @LukeFRC, I was pondering this earlier and while initially coming to the same conclusion, I remembered some of the rather dodgy geezers around here back in the noughties, I could name a few who made your average antique dealer look like a charity volunteer. The problem then was that they were working very much below the radar, or perhaps more accurately, there wasn't a radar. I think the forum is collectively wiser and as the result the guys who deal, most them honestly and legitimately, do so in the open. I've two stories form around 2010 - that I won't repeat as they've done the rounds on here a few times - that simply wouldn't happen today, both in a Minder meets Smiley's People meets Crimewatch kinda way  

[LukeFRC]

6 minutes ago, Beedster said:

that simply wouldn't happen today, both in a Minder meets Smiley's People meets Crimewatch kinda way

I think I may have missed those stories, and am too young to pick up the pop culture references! Apart from crime watch  

[fretmeister]

If I buy something it is mine and I can do what I like with it and that includes selling it for double or burning it in the garden for BBQ fuel - but I am not a hypocrite so that must be the other way as well: if I sell a thing and the next person manages to sell it for double - that is their good fortune and I am pleased for them. I'm an adult and I did a deal I was happy with at the time. Hindsight is a waste of energy.

 

Once I've sold a thing I no longer care about it.

Perhaps the next owner will sell it for a loss, or maybe for a profit. Either way it is not mine anymore and it leaves my mind.

 

It's not an "anti-community" stance, it's a really "Why on earth should I get a say when it's not mine?" Stance. What next? Should I be upset if the 3rd owner after me makes a profit? Or only if it's the next owner?

 

Advertising something at a higher price does not mean it will sell, and if it does, good luck to them. 

 

There are many reasons for a bass selling for more and for less. Perhaps the market improved / got worse. Perhaps there was a bidding war by people who only just discovered the item was available. Perhaps the model has somehow been associated with a recently exposed nonce and now nobody wants them so the value tanked. 

 

Perhaps the original seller really needed money and had made the decision to sell undervalue for a quick sale. Irrespective of the reasons why the buyer bought it they assisted the seller. They cannot be expected to offer a higher sum "just because" and they shouldn't be expected to sell at an undervalue themselves. Even if they bought it with the intention to sell at normal market value (or higher) they still did a deal with another adult who made the decision to sell in a way that suited them at the time. Slagging someone for later selling at a higher price is no more or less silly than slagging the original seller for selling at an undervalue and making others of the same model harder to shift at market value. Inflation and depreciation and simple desirability can change quickly.

 

 

 

Several years ago I sold / part-x a very nice bass on here and the person buying it gigged it extensively and then decided to get a new one built with slightly different specs so he put "my" one up for sale.

 

Another member of this "community" sent me multiple messages demanding to know exactly what I had sold it for (with the part-x value etc) and seemed to be demanding that I feel outraged that it was for sale at a price that might have been higher than I got. I pretty much got a lecture that me not caring about something that I no longer owned was a problem and that my refusal to tell him the details of a private transaction was against the community. It was a level of pathetic entitlement unworthy of anything claiming to be a community. Most amusingly that member has advertised many items way above market value / used sales on here and ebay etc.

 

This happened again when I sold a pair of Mark Bass cabs donkeys ago and a different member actually had the balls to ask me for a breakdown including the shipping as I had sent them to mainland europe. He wanted to work out the cab price from the postage included price.

 

I promise: if you buy a £100 pedal from me and manage to sell it for £300 I will be thrilled for you. Me being happy with the sale at £100 will not be affected by you managing to sell for £300.

 

 

 

 

[lemmywinks]

8 hours ago, Paul S said:

I sold a rare bass on here for under the market price as I no longer had a use for it.  It's what I do because I hate stuff hanging around when I no longer use it.  Saw it for sale on another resale site - might have been Reverb - for around twice what I sold it for.  Fair play.  But using my pictures?  Not so much.  

 

There's currently a bass I sold on FB Marketplace (that old charity shop Hondo, think you had one) being flipped for double what I listed it for, not only has he used my pictures but also copy/pasted the description, right down to the bits where I detailed the work I'd done on it and the new parts I'd fitted, all recounted in first person. Wouldn't even mind but the pictures I took were awful as my phone at the time had a rubbish camera!

 

It's been on there for ages probably because my original price was the market value and the flipped price is about £100 too much.