I like the philosophy behind eBay:

A community where

1) Sellers can find someone interested in their item(s), and

2) Buyers can find something that is otherwise hard to find.


This works particularly well for guitars:

If you no longer use your old guitar, you will most likely find someone who will be interested in buying it from you. :-)


I like eBay for selling guitars, because music stores will only offer 1/3, or less, of the value that they themselves would be willing to make the effort of selling in their store (moving inventory of limited interest to customers is an effort with very little return for store personnel).

However, it has become very difficult to sell on eBay during these last few years ...

Background: I have had only a few guitars over the past several years (I'm not an actively employed musician); and now want to un-burden myself of a few guitars that I will no longer play. I don't want much for the guitars, and am actually only hoping to get between 80 - 100 for each.

Problem: How and where to list the guitars? ... They are all guitars that I have assembled myself from good quality parts (that cost me a reasonable amount at the time I bought those parts).

E.g., One of my guitars was built to look like a Fender Strat. It plays and sounds about as good as an American Standard, and is compares (in component parts value) to a mid-priced Fender (400 - 600). Again, I would be happy with even less than 100 for it.

My sense is that, since it's not a Fender, there would really be no interest in it, regardless of how good it actually is. Hence, my resignation to settle for under 100.

The thing is, on price, then, this falls into the range of the economy Fender's (150 - 200). But, since buyers can easily go to a local store and get one of those cheap Fender's there, why should they even think to look on eBay?

And herein lies the crux of my alleged dilemma: If buyers log in to eBay to look specifically for an economy Fender, so that they can, hopefully, get one for under 100 ... how would they possibly ever see my listing, if ...

1) They only look in "FENDER" for guitars under 100, and

2) If the listings under "FENDER" are flooded with, not just high end (multi 1000 dollar) guitars; but also accessory items like tee-shirts, decals, etc.?

Any thoughts?

TIA! :-)