PSA: Reverb Fees - Info for Buyers

As of this Tuesday at 11AM our time, Reverb will be increasing their fees from 3.5% to 5%. This is in addition to their existing transaction fees. This is in efforts to "invest more in growth."

From the email sent to site users:

We are modifying our selling fee to help us invest more to sustain our community’s continued growth. This year alone, we plan to increase our investment from 2019 by: 

• Investing over 30% more in marketing initiatives—including SEO, online video advertising, and other digital advertising—to get your inventory in front of more buyers from around the world.
• Expanding by more than 25% the capacity of our global customer support team focused on assisting you and your buyers as we grow.
• Increasing by more than 40% the capacity of our product team focused on creating and enhancing seller tools and services to increase the visibility of your shop and inventory.

Coincidentally, or maybe not, this also comes almost exactly a year after their acquisition by Etsy. With this new change, many sellers already considering alternatives might jump ship and make their way back to eBay, as the fees on guitars and basses will officially be lower there.

While it may not seem like a huge jump, we expect to see a bit of an increase in site prices across the board while those sellers who continue to use the site attempt to recoup these fees. Accordingly, sold prices will likely gradually make an increase over time, and as we use the site as a estimation tool on a regular basis for our consignments needing evaluation, trade in values, and purchase values, this change may be reflected in store as well as online.

But please consider this: They have chosen to increase these fees at a time when small businesses are shuttering at a record pace due to financial impacts from COVID-19 closures when their parent company's shares have been on a steady increase since mid March.

To be clear, for a shop as small as ours, Reverb is extremely valuable, and we are grateful for the platform. We would not be able to maintain a comparable eCommerce presence on our own, especially not one with the foundation we've established over the years, so we will be maintaining our Reverb store as we have been and adjusting accordingly. With that said, we have been extremely lucky with our bounce back from a 2ish month closure during what is normally the most lucrative time of the year, but not all businesses have been so lucky, and many still struggle.

We encourage you to seek out shops that use the site the way we do (as a promotional tool as well as a selling tool) and make purchases directly via website or phone, in an effort to further support small business during these unprecedented times.

Thanks for reading!