GearGoblin is empty...

[Kazrog]

Hey guys,

So I'm in the process of thinking about what to do with GearGoblin, the music gear auction site I started (which I prominently display in my signature - to my potential embarrassment.)

I've gotten rid of all the listings that my (bat shit crazy) friend posted with all the overpriced gear, and voila, now the site is empty!

A couple of months after I launched the site, I decided to make it free (I probably should have done this for everyone to begin with, without requiring people to put in a special Sneap Forum voucher code, but live and learn) - there are no listing fees unless you want to pay for "stand out" features like bolding or home page featured listings. I encouraged everyone on our forum, and on HCAF and GearSlutz to use it, and I had a few enthusiastic early adopters, but over time it seems that the interest has waned, and people are back to using eBay, paying ridiculous fees to list items, or just privately selling stuff on the forums.

GearGoblin is just one of many ventures I've started in the past year or so, and it's so far proven to be mostly unsuccesful. When I launched the site, I saw it filling a void, but I'm starting to think I was mistaken. It's not a big deal because I invested a total of $200 USD and about 20 hours of my time into the project, and if that was all for nothing I'm not going to trip out about it, but I'm still surprised that it hasn't at least had some moderate success, when I consider these facts:

1. GearGoblin is free, international, and provides easy one-click payment buttons and a reputation system that is just as good as eBay's
2. eBay is expensive
3. Craigslist is free but region-specific
4. Forums (such as ours) are free and often have classifieds, but there is no easy pay button, no feedback system, and problems happen all the time (I won't beat up on our own Remy since he at least redeemed himself.)
5. Linking to a GearGoblin listing on forums is easy and makes it so you can manage/edit the listing in one place but link to it from multiple forums.
6. GearGoblin listings can get as much traffic as you want, since you can post the links on virtually any forum without getting harassed about it by overzealous mods.

Is there something I'm missing? If GearGoblin is totally useless in its current form, then I can always use the domain name for something else, but more to the point I want to use it for something the community can actually benefit from. I'm open to all suggestions and I have zero ego investment in this.

 

[Metaltastic]

Dude, IMO it's really quite simple - I sold one thing on geargoblin (woohoo!), but when I tried to sell my Bogner cab, no one bit, despite much forum SPAM here and on HC (the only time I've ever posted there ) - posted it on craigslist and ebay, and sold it within like 3 days. The simple fact is exposure, IMO you've really gotta promote GG beyond just forums, cuz in my case, I honestly just used it cuz I wanted to support you and the service, and it took a lot of restraint for me to wait for the auction for my Bogner cab to end before listing it on ebay. When I wanna sell something, I'd rather pay a little extra for ebay if it's likely I'll get rid of it quicker (or at all, for that matter), that's just the psychology of impatience for me, I suppose, but I don't think I'm alone in it (and I just require very very clearly in my auction description that people pay me with a money order, so I don't get dicked on the paypal fees, which are the only ones that are big enough to make me care). I for one appreciate you doing it and support entrepreneurship, and I encourage you to give it another go man!

 

[nwright]

I agree with Metaltastic. Regardless of the fee aspect, GG tried to fill a void that just wasn't there. I'd be willing to bet all but the diehard anti-ebay people would agree that they'd rather pay fees and have something sell for sure than risk sittingon an item for a long time because no one knew it was for sale.

SPAM'ing gear on forums is one thing, but in the bigger picture, it's barely a drop in the bucket compared to the traffic generated by browsers casually looking for a deal on ebay. In a sense, I'd rather pay the fees and do NO work than spending time setting up spam threads on forums advertising my gear for sale on another auction site. Also for me, I don't have any complaints as far as fees and rules go on ebay...And truly, I don't get why so many people complain. Take it or leave it...But if you leave it, good luck getting the audience ebay does.

There have been a few auction sites specifically for gear over the years, and as far as I know, none of them are around today...For better or worse, the public has spoken.

 

[Kazrog]

Metaltastic,

Great post, I actually had some similar experiences using GearGoblin myself, ironically. I didn't know eBay still supported money orders, I thought they phased that out for some reason. For me the eBay fees are always much higher than the PayPal fees, but that's been my experience...

When it comes to exposure there's no way in hell that I can compete with eBay and Craigslist, they have invested millions into their campaigns and started out going for the broad spectrum of the market, more than a decade ago. With GearGoblin I went for the opposite goal of targeting a niche market, and touting the smallness of the community as an asset, not a liability. I don't think that's proven to be very effective in the auction business, since more exposure = greater chance of fast sales, and even posting a GearGoblin listing to multiple high-traffic musician forums is less exposure by far than what you get on eBay.

Many times, musicians like us are confronted (or self-inflicted) with money situations that force us to sell a particular piece of gear immediately. When it comes down to that, eBay is a much safer bet, and you can lag on paying them their fees until well after your item sells, but that privilege of exposure will never be free.

Thanks for posting, it's helping to confirm my suspicions, although I honestly have no idea what I'll do with the domain name if I close the auction site. For now, I'm going to take the banner out of my signature because I feel silly promoting my 100% FREE, 100% FAIL website.

 

[Kazrog]

I agree with Metaltastic. Regardless of the fee aspect, GG tried to fill a void that just wasn't there.

Great post, I agree totally.

 

[Metal Overload]

Don´t give up Shane, i found the project really good, i told some friends and they thought that is kick ass, the project is awesome, but is just that it need more time to begin to work, you are giving up to early i guess, as you said, ebay has over a decade, personally i started using it about 3 years ago, more people starting to using it there. you need more time, and you can use some promotion on magazines, webzines or something like that, i thing you have to invest and the project will be succesfull i thing, ebay is filling with shitty sellers day by day. i thing GG has more potential for musicians.

 

[Kazrog]

Don´t give up Shane, i found the project really good, i told some friends and they thought that is kick ass, the project is awesome, but is just that it need more time to begin to work, you are giving up to early i guess, as you said, ebay has over a decade, personally i started using it about 3 years ago, more people starting to using it there. you need more time, and you can use some promotion on magazines, webzines or something like that, i thing you have to invest and the project will be succesfull i thing, ebay is filling with shitty sellers day by day. i thing GG has more potential for musicians.

I appreciate the vote of confidence. However, I don't have the money to invest in promoting the site adequately, I don't think that even with a $1 million USD advertising investment it would have a place in the market, and I have other projects going that I feel have a much better chance of success, so GearGoblin gets the back burner for now. I will keep it going, and if anybody feels like using it, go ahead, but be advised I'm not promoting it at this time. I won't outright kill the site unless there are zero listings, so don't worry about that. If people use it, it stays, in other words.

One of my general rules for web startups to be successful is that they can't be "like eBay, only...." or "like Flickr, only...", etc. MySpace got lucky because Friendster massively dropped the ball, but they are the exception that makes the rule true. Similarly I felt that I could be the exception because eBay had apparently dropped the ball last year with their new CEO putting absurd new policies and fees in place - but apparently the initial angry reaction was temporary and everyone is still using eBay like crazy. eBay simply has more weight to throw around, and people are willing to accept their BS because of it. It's great to be eBay, I guess.

 

[Unavailable]

One thing I would definitely use GG for is making a sale that was organized on this forum.

Oh, and I think the same thing happened to a website called instrument exchange, which actually got a fair amount of traffic in its prime. It seems that it has now completely shut down.

I hope you have the motivation to keep it running! With the promise of a sale, it's obviously a more attractive option.

 

[JBroll]

I searched GG before going to eBay when I bought my last few pieces of gear, but it's just going to take a little time to get things going. When I wind up having to sell gear I don't use, modded pedals, plasma and kidneys, or whatever else I wind up using to pay for living expenses through grad school, I see no benefit from paying to have it on eBay and dealing with their bullshit so I'll go GG if it's an option, but things like this take time and there's really no happy, fun, quick way about it.

Jeff

 

[Kazrog]

There was also a website called DigiBid.com that targeted the pro audio and video market that did well for a while, then went away. A lot of people miss it I've heard. I tried to buy the domain from its present owner but got no response.

Part of my goal with GearGoblin was to "explore the space" a bit and see if this kind of thing could fly. Seems like there's no real need for it, but I learned a lot in the process, in large part due to you guys. Thanks for your help!

 

[dontletmedrown]

Hi Shane,

These things take time. Most new businesses are not successful in their first year. It takes time to earn people's trust and for the positive word-of-mouth to circulate. The fact that you haven't invested more than $200 into your business says a lot honestly. It kinda shows that it is not your passion. Every time I receive money, I'm thinking of how much of it I can use to put back into my business.

To quote one of my favorite movies: "You didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you??"

 

[scorpio01169]

There was also a website called DigiBid.com that targeted the pro audio and video market that did well for a while, then went away. A lot of people miss it I've heard. I tried to buy the domain from its present owner but got no response.

Part of my goal with GearGoblin was to "explore the space" a bit and see if this kind of thing could fly. Seems like there's no real need for it, but I learned a lot in the process, in large part due to you guys. Thanks for your help!

i too think gg is a good idea. just need to reach the masses

 

[rvs0002]

I just think it's cool that you gave it a go. Most of us come up with great ideas and never get off our asses to do anything about it. Thumbs up to you for taking action and make it happen.

 

[Kazrog]

Hi Shane,

These things take time. Most new businesses are not successful in their first year. It takes time to earn people's trust and for the positive word-of-mouth to circulate. The fact that you haven't invested more than $200 into your business says a lot honestly. It kinda shows that it is not your passion. Every time I receive money, I'm thinking of how much of it I can use to put back into my business.

To quote one of my favorite movies: "You didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you??"

That's not really the approach that works in the online world, and I didn't look at GearGoblin as my business, but as a relatively small potential facet of my business.

I've done enough to know that the idea won't scale well, and it doesn't take much money or time investment to test the viability of an idea online, if you approach it right. I've got other products and services I'm working on that people are literally begging for, and those are the ones I know that will work.

Running a production business is a different ballgame entirely and your philosophy there is legit. All the same, it's never a smart idea in any business, on or offline, to blindly throw money at something that is clearly not working.

I'm working on a couple of exciting projects right now that I can't wait to tell you guys about... very soon...

 

[FULLMETALSPEEDO]

I have an idea. What if we were all to pick a piece of gear. Whether it be a pedal, cables, interface, amp head etc....and post it on GG. I'm sure everyone in here has some piece of gear that either they don't use anymore or are just looking to upgrade. Then everyone advertise their listing in all the different forums they belong to. That should get the exposure out to some extent. I have a Maxon OD808 and an equalizer pedal I don't use anymore. I also have a Krank Rev Jr. cab that is collecting dust. I'll post them this weekend. C'mon, surely everyone can pitch in something. Don't get crazy on the pricing, price em accordingly. All great ventures need support. I think this could very well have the potential to replace ebay and craigslist for musical and recording gear.