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Archive 2015 · Please advise on selling for newer member

  
 
sharath.umich
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Please advise on selling for newer member


I am new to this FM forum, and I joined primarily to Buy & Sell. I posted couple of my lenses for Sale/Trade. Looked like people were vary of dealing with 0 feedback Sellers. So I went ahead and even made a in person local transaction to establish that I am a real person with real gear. I also requested the other FM member to leave feedback.

My mint condition lens - 85 1.8 I priced it lowest at 255 with shipping and paypal fee included. I did research on reasonable prices, past selling in FM and externally and arrived at this very reasonable price.

Still no one reached out to me. But since I posted my lens, three 85 1.8 lenses have been sold with a much higher price. I gave up and changed back my price to my original intended selling price. It is very disappointing to say the least. Yes, I am in my early 20s and hence I do not have 10-20 years of selling rep. But how do I earn reps if nobody is willing to buy?



Aug 04, 2015 at 03:18 PM
anthonysemone
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Please advise on selling for newer member


Respectfully, I would suggest that you show up here with the intention of making photographic contributions of one sort or another on one or more of the Boards that reflect you photographic expertise. I can tell you, emphatically, you could have the lowest price on the market for an item I desperately wanted, but your attitude of "I joined primarily to Buy and Sell" just flat out turns me off. We are NOT eBay, NOT Craigslist. If you are a photographer, for goodness sake, brag about it!! You have a website? Post it? You have feedback from equivalent dollar sales elsewhere? For crying out loud, post a link (not just a username). Do you have a flickr or 500px account where your photos are on display? link those as well. Otherwise, it's true, the only reason you're here is to sell your stuff, so you'd better be even lower priced than you already are, at least for some of us.


Aug 04, 2015 at 04:19 PM
mitesh
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Please advise on selling for newer member


It may help to post detailed photos of the item you are selling, along with a card or paper with your name and date on it to help substantiate that you do indeed own the item.

FM's Buy/Sell board originated as something of a marketplace where those who shared the hobby of photography bought, sold, and traded gear. Many members knew each other or gained familiarity with one another through their posts and interactions here. That familiarity made dealing on the B/S board here both enjoyable and somewhat safer than more anonymous venues. That has changed somewhat as the popularity of FM has soared and people looking to flip gear have become more prevalent. This high turnover rate of expensive equipment unfortunately also attracted nefarious individuals seeking to take advantage of others, and several well-documented cases have made more than a few members more leery of dealing with relative unknowns — especially those who have little interest in establishing themselves as members of the FM community.

I would suggest a couple of things. First, if you are just looking for the quickest way to unload your gear, there are other avenues to sell stuff that I'm sure you are aware of that you can try while your listing here is still active. The second thing I would suggest is doing a search for threads dealing with new members and selling. There are a plethora of them, and a lot of good advice has been shared in those threads. Good luck with your sales.



Aug 04, 2015 at 04:43 PM
sharath.umich
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Please advise on selling for newer member


Thank you for your suggestions mitesh and anthonysemone, I'll start working on the things you have specified.


Aug 04, 2015 at 05:20 PM
kiddik
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Please advise on selling for newer member


Another way, would be the other way around. Be the first to take the leap of faith, find a reputable buyer that has loads of positive feedback - and offer to send him the product first, prior to receiving payment. It's a dangerous game I know, but I think it's actually better that the person with the feedback gets the benefit of the doubt, not the other way around. I've done this myself as I'm both with little feedback AND I'm geographically located in such a way that few want to do any business with me. Thankfully my sales have gone extremely well. But unfortunately not all of my buys, as a matter of fact I just got burned, I was naive and gullible enough to trust someone with zero feedback who had linked to another perons's eBay feedback and made it his own, and I lost considerable money.



Aug 04, 2015 at 07:29 PM
Etherton
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Please advise on selling for newer member


You're in NJ and could do a local, in person, transaction too.

Welcome to FM!



Aug 04, 2015 at 09:48 PM
CGrindahl
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Please advise on selling for newer member


Another suggestion would be to utilize the Profile available to each user where you can tell us a bit about yourself. Check my profile to get an idea of what I mean. Folks often prefer to maintain their anonymity on websites but where trust is such an important element of doing transactions and one doesn't have a track record, taking a bit of a risk makes some sense. I interpret your username to mean you attended the University of Michigan. Perhaps Sharath is part of your name.

Kristjan also offers an intriguing possibility. As he says, it is important to attempt such a thing only with someone with outstanding feedback. I know from experience here, that there are a great many trustworthy folks who do deals. I've both bought and sold thousand dollar lenses shipped on the promise of payment. Of course, you have to be offering something that tickles an established photographer's tastes. I wouldn't buy an AF lens regardless of price...

Good luck. And you might want to take Tony's suggestion and do a bit of browsing around this website. I did that a few years ago after many years simply fixated on the Buy and Sell board and have made a great many friends from around the world. Check the WWW at the bottom of my post and you'll find a blog we used to share photos taken with a $400, forty year old manual focus lens we shipped around the world. Each person had the lens for two weeks, then was responsible to ship it to the next person on the itinerary. Twenty folks participated over 11 months. It was a great success.



Aug 04, 2015 at 10:05 PM
nolaguy
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Please advise on selling for newer member


Sharath, this is just my story and I can't say it was smart but I basically bought my way into acceptance. Granted I had been here a while and had a couple of hundred posts but my first transaction was purchasing a D700 and I sent the seller a cashier's check - $1700, I think it was - prior to shipment. All risk on me and while it was a pretty dumb thing to do, I was comfortable with the exposure and knew I probably needed some creds via buying before I ever tried to sell anything.



Aug 05, 2015 at 01:35 AM
TMaG82
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Please advise on selling for newer member


Post many pictures, again maybe take a picture with your user name and date. Fill out your profile. And if you're in NJ, sell me something that I can use and I'll pick it up for you.




Aug 05, 2015 at 04:03 PM
TMaG82
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Please advise on selling for newer member


Post many pictures, again maybe take a picture with your user name and date. Fill out your profile. And if you're in NJ, sell me something that I can use and I'll pick it up for you.




Aug 05, 2015 at 04:03 PM
Heavenhated
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Please advise on selling for newer member


Sharath,

Its ok to be here for just buy and sell. To build a history i started with buying. Not just here, in any forums establishing a history requires genuinity in buying which makes it safer for sellers.

Once you establish a good feedback buying some gears, people will know you are legit and will start taking risks.

Also the forum is not exactly as it was 5 years back. The scammers actually didnt bother to disturb the forum as much as they do now.

Being local to NJ, meet fellow fotographers and create reference. I have met few in NY and NJ and have had great deal selling and buying items. THey have not even left a feedback but the experience is enough in case i have to provide reference.

I joined here so early and my contribution is mainly around buy and sell with some reviews here and there on some gears.

I like to share pictures, unfortunately my 99.9% of all pictures are of my 2 year old and i am not comfortable bringing them online.

If you can find someone to refer you who has good feedback, that helps a lot for many buyers including me.

And secondly your strategy to sell at lower price will always work against you if you are new simply because, thats the standard OP of these scammers. They post attractive price to bait and basically switch.

Hence be honest in pricing, show lots of pictures, provide reference, and be ready to chase the local buyer to provide a feedback.

Get more interactive in forums by sharing pictures, reviews of your own gears and creating a forum trust.

I dont know many here, and i always ensure i provide as much detail as possible and even follow up multiple times to ensure they are happy with the product. I dont haggle much and i am firm on my prices. Good luck with your sale and if in NJ we can meet up as a group here with few others over a saturday shoot and build your reference.



Aug 05, 2015 at 10:14 PM
anthonysemone
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Please advise on selling for newer member


@Heavenhated,

and I would wager that one the factors that may well play a role in the intrusion of scammers has to do precisely with the attitude that "it's okay to be here for just buy and sell." That provides an opportunity for a scammer to "just show up" and even with the recommendation of another (fellow scammer?) person, unless that person is one who is well-vetted here, the NOOB is still a NOOB. YMMV.



Aug 06, 2015 at 10:37 AM
sharath.umich
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Please advise on selling for newer member


Thanks everyone for your valuable inputs. CGrindahl, I have updated my profile as per your suggestion. Working on getting some of work on here and staying active on the forums as per several suggestions. Have also made 2 transactions successfully. Looking forward to interacting with some of you in the future.


Aug 20, 2015 at 01:54 PM





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