Buying and Selling for New Guys, Useful Information for all Options

[Evil Fingers]

Just a Heads Up, dont any of you try bag on me for the Topic Heading and it was suggest by Puzuma that I post this Topic in GPD.

That being said, the Information below is Copied and Pasted from 68caliber.com

Buying and Selling for N00bs

Every so often, and even more often for some, the time comes to put your favorite toy on the block to finance the purchase of a new love of your life, or to just try something different. There are several ways for you to dispose of your used gear, and for you to buy your next dream marker, pack, hopper or whatever.

Letting Go

So you've made the decision that you're going to sell something, whatever the reason. The first thing you're going to notice is that the going rate for your gear is nowhere near what you paid for it. This unfortunate fact is common in many industries, including paintball. Normally the value of something goes down over time. The term for this phenomenon is "Depreciation". Depreciation takes into account age, use, and the fact that companies normally release a new model of a given product every year.

For instance, your car normally depreciates at least 20% in the first year. Recreational items like dirt bikes, ATV's, and yes, paintball markers depreciate at even higher rates. It's not uncommon for the going rate of a paintball marker to drop 50% over the course of a year.

Some markers depreciate more than others, but a good rule of thumb is to not expect more than half of your investment to be returned to you when you sell it.

Where to go

With the explosion of the internet, there are so many options besides the traditional options, such as selling to friends or associates at your local field, or at your local paintball shop.

If you choose to stay local to move your gear, you can sell to friends at your local field. This is a great way to show off gear that you want to sell. Your potential buyer can see your stuff in action and use it himself to try it out. More often than not, the buyer feels most comfortable with this arrangement and even in the age of the internet a large number of transactions still take place this way.

Your local shop can help out too, either by buying your gear outright or by offering to their customers by selling it for you on consignment. Having a shop buy your gear outright is normally the worst deal for you, since a general rule of thumb is to offer half of the wholesale price for your now-used gear. This amounts to a tiny fraction of your initial investment, and it's not recommended unless you're in dire financial straits.

Consignment is another way your local shop can help out. For either a fixed charge or for a percentage of the final selling price, your local shop will display and sell your gear for you, only getting paid when it sells. Consignment is a great way to sell equipment, especially if your local shop is a popular one and have a lot of foot traffic coming through their doors. It's a no cost way for your shop to have inventory sitting on their walls to wow customers with, and since the gear is still yours, you have more control over asking price, and you have the option to come and pick your gear up if you end up changing your mind or sell it some other way.

If you decide that the way to go is to use the power of the internet to sell your gear, you have several options.

Forums

There are literally hundreds of forums out on the internet that deal with the sport of paintball, some of which are amongst the largest sites on the internet itself.

PBNation.Com is one of the largest forums sites on the internet, with literally thousands of people online at any given time. The Buy/Sell/Trade Forums are correspondingly large and active, with just about any sort of equipment being offered for sale or trade at any given time. Other sites like Mcarterbrown.Com and PBFreedom.Com also have large buying and selling forums.

There are also several different owners group websites, with the largest and best known amongst them being Automags.Org, Angel-Owners.Com, and Intimidatorowners.com. These sites are dedicated to the respective markers their named for, and the great majority of the gear offered for sale there are the markers the sites are dedicated to, as well as marker-specific accessories, like barrels.

Trading Services

In the past year or so trading services like TradeMyGun.Com have cropped up, offering an option for those who don't want to deal with individuals online, but with a company that specializes in buying, selling, and trading paintball markers. You can sell your marker to these companies outright, trade them in for credit towards a new (To you) from them, or at events, work out deals in person with company representatives.

eBay

Finally, there's eBay, which is an online auction website. Users have to register to be able to bid on products for sale in the online auctions, and to sell on the site. eBay has been around for several years, and more often than not there are bargains to be had. The popularity and desirability of your gear has a direct bearing on how much you'll get at auction's end, because people are bidding in a competitive fashion to buy your gear.

The paintball section of eBay is one of their largest categories, with literally thousands of items up for grabs at any given time. For buying, eBay is great because of the huge variety of gear available. A buyer can often buy top notch gear at bargain basement prices. Obviously for the seller this is a bit of an issue, since your goal as a seller is to get as much as possible for your stuff. Setting a reserve price, which ensures that you get your minimum asking price before the auction becomes binding legally.

After the deal is done

However you buy or sell your equipment, there are several choices available on how you pay for and ship your equipment. Paying for your equipment is one of the most important decisions you have to make. It's never advisable to send cash through the mail, for obvious reasons. Many sellers prefer money orders, while others will take a check and still others prefer PayPal, an online service that allows users to transfer funds from their bank accounts or credit cards. All that's really required with PayPal is an email address and a bank account. With a check, many sellers won't ship the item until the check clears, which is reasonable on their part. With Money Orders and Paypal shipping of the item should take place immediately, since the money is instantly available to the seller.

Shipping the item can be done via UPS, FedEx, and other shipping services, like DHL. USPS can be used as well, but it should be noted that per USPS regulations, it's not permitted to send paintball markers via USPS. If the postmaster discovers that a paintball marker is in a package, it's possible that it could be seized with no recourse to the marker's owner.* It's in everyone's best interest to get tracking numbers to prove that the item has been shipped and to provide the buyer with a way to keep tabs on the package as it makes its way through the shipping system. Once the item is received, make sure to check it over to make sure that everything is there and as advertised. If there are any problems, contact the seller to get them resolved.

While it's a very rare occurrence, there are instances where the seller never ships, or if he does, it's not what the buyer paid for. It's not well known, but when this occurs, it's a Federal Offense (in the U.S.) and the FBI investigates and if necessary arrests the person who's committing the offense. The best way to avoid being taken advantage of is to use your common sense. If the deal seems too good to be true, then it probably is!

So long as you use your common sense and act in an honorable fashion, it's perfectly safe to buy and sell your gear on- and off-line. Happy shopping!

[Florentine]

Nice read/post evil. Shouldn't this be in the Newbie Corner?

[Puzuma]

Newbies Corner? Maybe. But I think EVERYONE should read it, even the old farts. We've had a few problems with online transactions here on the forum over the last few months and some were 'seasoned' buyers/sellers.

This will be pinned were for a month or so and then moved to the library.

[shadow_772]

Very nice post evil.

[Sp.Ed]

Agreed there is a few things in there that I hav'nt even thought of and I have done quite a bit of BST ing here.

[xkpxfattyxx]

Want me to put this up in the Ultimate GPD?

[Eskimo]

what does OBO stand for?

[Sneaky Sir]

Or best offer

[U NO IT]

nice stuff(post) you got there.

[StealingYerMail]

So... I bought an 06 Borg, and the man shipped it today. But he shipped it USPS (2nd day air). Should I be worried?

This post has been edited by StealingYerMail: Jun 16 2009, 10:12 PM

[SKC]

Are you serious? Haha, no you shouldn't worry... Why a year old thread, though; come on now.

[StealingYerMail]

Because it's a sticky. If you can't bump a sticky, what can you bump?

But thanks for the info, I can relax a bit.

This post has been edited by StealingYerMail: Jun 16 2009, 10:24 PM

[slinkyaroo]

Many of us Canadians get things shipped USPS because there's no brokeage charge. I haven't had any problems.


.

[SKC]

Because it's a sticky. If you can't bump a sticky, what can you bump?

But thanks for the info, I can relax a bit.

haha, yeah, I saw that after I replied.. I like USPS, they are a lot cheaper and and they seem to take care of packages better.