Can’t Join ‘Em, Beat ‘Em—A Better Way To Buy and Sell Used Gear
@MusicGearSwap is a new IG account that allows followers to buy sell trade their used gear without worrying about inflation or price archiving.
Jake Supple is fed up with watching prices hike in used gear marketplaces, and you should be too.
If you’re a musician, you’re aware of websites like Reverb that serve as a one-stop-shop for most anything a musician could be looking for. It can be convenient, but inflation in the cost of used gear is unavoidable.
Jake and his friend Ian (founder of Love Magnet Electronics) had gotten into restoring and repairing analogue recording gear. As they began looking at more consoles, microphones, etc., they began noticing the prices were rising.
“Someone will post something on Reverb worth $2k and sell it for $5k and it might sit there for a year, and then someone who’s in a pinch will buy it, and the price gets archived and it pushes up the price exponentially,” explained Jake.
Turns out, lots of independant music shops are upset about this too.
“It’s hurting the music equipment economy,” Jake said. “I thought, ‘there must be a better way to connect people to be able to bypass Reverb.’ Of course there’s Craigslist but there’s a lot of searching involved. People don’t have to do too much work to see what’s being sold [on IG.]”
And so, @MusicGearSwap was born.
Jake Supple
Jake hopes that by providing a space for people to connect and buy/sell their used gear, it’ll be easier to avoid the rising prices in the mainstream market. So far, the account has been a success.
The plan is to eventually expand to several accounts that will cater to specific categories and regions, but for now anything in the used gear ballpark is fair game as far as what can be sold on the Music Gear Swap IG account.
“The convenience of having it on IG seems like the easiest thing,” Jake said. “I’d like to keep it that way.”
As the account grows, so does the potential of finding your next prized possession for a fair price. So give @MusicGearSwap a follow and be sure and read the community guidelines, and send Jake some virtual kudos for hatching the idea for this new community.
Helpful story highlights describe the process of buying, selling and trading.
