Dream On, Dreamer bassist launches equipment auction website

Buying, selling and trading musical equipment is something every musician deals with at least once in their musical career. At times it can prove daunting for first timers or even experienced sellers to use auction websites and deal with people overseas, take postage pricing into account all the while having the medium you buy or sell on take a large cut.

Chris Shaw, formerly of Australian band House Vs Hurricane, now a memberof Dream On Dreamer, understands the struggles of dealing with eBay, Gumtree and even Facebook buy and sell groups like anyone else, only he’s decided to create an alternative, tailored specifically to Australian musicians. Gearflip is the result.

“I’ve been buying and selling gear for a while and I found it pretty difficult to find somewhere that had a good community of members to sell to and buy off as well,” founder Chris Shaw explained to TMN earlier this week. “I have a lot of friends that sell on there and have been scammed, or bought something and the item hasn’t arrived. It’s pretty hard to chase up. I was just sort of brainstorming one day and thought why not try something myself, set up something for everyone else and that's how the idea started.”

It washis experience with being burned by international retailers and sites that pushed Shaw to make Gearflip exclusive to Australian musos.

“With Gearflip, the good thing is it's only for Australians so all pricing is in AUD, you’re not going to get your item shipped from HongKong […] We don’t allow drop shipping so it's just people in Australia buying and selling items with other people from Australia.”

The decision to keep it exclusive to Australians was something Chris has been running with from inception.The ability to add a sense of reassurance and security to the people doing the transaction is something he strived for:“I feel like a lot of people are still skeptical of buying and selling overseas, I do know people who have bought and sold items overseas and they’ve had PayPal disputes and lost their money.It just gets difficult dealing internationally when you don’t know the person […] It can be daunting buying internationally if you don't have experience.”

Though Australians can take their pick when it comes toauction websites, none have ever specifically focused on music equipment outside of Facebook. “eBay, it’s a worldwide business that doesn’t really specialise in any category, they sell everything across the board and one thing I found was Australian retailers getting hurt a lot on eBay because of the 10% cut they take as well at 3% for PayPal on top,but also because people having to compete with international pricing.”

Gearflip's current cut is a competitive2.5% of the commission, and that doesn't kick in until May 30. It is currently free to join as well as to buy and sell items on the site until that date. "That will cover server hosting as well as any fees for me because at the moment its just me running it," says Shaw."I’m able to keep costs pretty damn low."

Additional options such as a bolded or highlighted listing are available andthey range from between $1-3.

Shaw hopes Australian retailers will comeon board and use Gearflip as anonline version of their own stores. “I feel like it's a really good tool for retailers to use as a second online store. If they don't have a store already it's a good store for them and they don't have to worry about competing with international pricing that changes its dollar tomorrow.” Shaw has already reached out to certain retailers and received unanimous warm feedback.

The website has already seen its fair share of successful auctions, a Fender Japan Sunburst Telecaster, which had a starting bit of $0.01, sold for $650 with 38 bids. Additionally, all users whosuccessfully buyor sellon the website before May 30 gointo the draw to win an Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini.