Used musical instruments are a great opportunity to get extra money fast, and also to recover the investment you made in them. If you want to sell your musical instruments but do not know what to do first or what is important, here we want to give you some interesting tips to do it. Don’t miss out!
- Cleanliness and condition
- Make sure they are functional
- Take good pictures
- Set a realistic price
- Allow the customer to test the instrument
- Sell it online in a marketplace
1. Cleanliness and condition
Before selling your musical instruments, you must check them thoroughly to determine if their state of preservation is good enough to sell them because if your instruments are in a very advanced level of deterioration, it will not be worth selling them and it will be better to discard them.
Apart from their level of conservation, you should dedicate some time to cleaning your instruments well, and removing all traces of dust or dirt, especially if they are wind instruments, which accumulate more bacteria on the mouthpiece, these should be cleaned with more effort, as they have to be presentable and clean for buyers.
2. Make sure they are functional
The functionality of the musical instruments is extremely important when selling them because the idea is that the buyers acquire an instrument that serves them to play music, and that does not have any damage that affects the sound. So you have to test the instrument you want to sell well before putting it up for sale, play it enough, and check that it works as it should.
In the case of electric instruments, such as electric guitars and basses you have to make sure that their internal wiring works well, and if you are going to sell them with some accessories, such as an amplifier or a pedal, you must confirm that these implements also work, so you can sell everything in good condition and avoid problems.
Another great option to make sure your musical instruments work, is to commit to replacing the strings of the stringed instruments since they have surely lost a little of their functionality due to lack of use. So it’s your responsibility to change the strings and prepare the instrument for customers.
3. Take good pictures
Once you’ve thoroughly cleaned your instrument and made sure it works, it’s time to start taking the pictures for the ads you’ll be posting online, for this you need to follow some simple tips that will make your photographs more attractive, and therefore make your instrument sell faster. Here are some tips for you:
- Take pictures in a clean, lighted place, preferably on a white or unicolor background.
- Make sure that the photographs are taken in a horizontal arrangement, so they will be larger and can be better published in the marketplaces.
- Try to take the picture without any other objects in the background, so customers won’t be distracted by other objects.
- Capture several angles of your instrument, be sure to show every detail it has, both good and bad, as you must be honest in showing what you want to sell.
- Photograph accessories or additional items, if you want to sell your guitar with an amp, pedal, and case, then be sure to take pictures of all those items and include them in the ad.
4. Set a realistic price
When selling your musical instrument you must do your research before publishing it on the web, ideally you should get a fair price for your instrument, taking into account its state of preservation, the brand, and the model, as well as other added accessories that may increase its value.
All this you can do by looking for other instruments similar or of the same brand as yours in online marketplaces, here you can give an idea of how much an instrument like yours is worth and how you can adjust the price according to the factors mentioned above.
If you find it difficult to value your instrument, we recommend you go to a music store and ask the experts how much they value it, so you can be sure how much it is worth and publish it. Keep in mind that your second-hand musical instrument will never be worth the same as a new one, so you need to appraise it and find a fair price to sell it, to recover a part of your investment, but not its entirety.
5. Allow the customer to test the instrument
Although it seems like something difficult to allow, you must let customers or those interested in the instruments try them, because it is a way for them to make sure that what they are going to buy is fully functional, and this is very reasonable. Similarly, your priority should be to prove that your instrument works and that therefore it is worth every penny you ask for it.
We recommend that when contacting customers arrange a time for them to attend your home or meet in a public space to test the instrument, it may be in a music store, or in a place where there is sufficient surveillance, so you will feel more confident that nothing strange will happen.
6. Sell it online in a marketplace
Finally, we recommend selling your used musical instrument in an online marketplace, these websites are ideal for you to publish your instruments and you can get buyers near your locality. Nowadays most people turn to the internet to get what they need, so it will be easy for your instrument to be seen by hundreds of people and get a buyer in a short time.
Best of all, many of these marketplaces offer shipping and seller protection services, so you can always have the support of the websites and their support team to process your sale. Simple, quick, and secure!
Do you want to see some of these marketplaces to sell your used musical instruments? Click here.
We hope these tips have helped you a lot to start selling the musical instruments that you don’t use and get extra money.
If you want to check what other items you can sell to make money quick, here are some recommendations.
Sell what you don’t use and make easy money!