BUSINESS MATTERS
Can Selling on Reverb . com Help Your Retail Business ?
By Michael Raine
Reverb . com turned a lot of heads in 2015 when , only two years after its founding , the company raised $ 31.5 million from investors , which included Cheap Trick ’ s Rick Nielsen and David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven . Now , four years in , Reverb . com has become a major player in instrument retail , taking lessons learned in the brick-andmortar MI sector and applying them to an online marketplace that gives musicians a more customized and transparent customer experience than they get with Amazon or eBay .
Reverb ’ s founder , David Kalt , has had a foot in both the tech and MI worlds . He founded online brokerage firm OptionsXpress Holdings , which was later sold for over $ 1 billion , and then decided to embrace his passion for music by running the Chicago Music Exchange retail store . In Reverb . com , he combined the lessons learned from both ventures to give musicians and instrument resellers a community and platform that worked for both sides of the transaction . And it certainly seems to be working , as Reverb . com handled around $ 120 million in transactions in 2015 and has continued to grow since then .
While the majority of Reverb . com ’ s sellers are individuals selling their own gear and collections , a growing number of MI retailers are finding the platform to be a useful way to supplement their in-store business and even their own e-commerce sites .
“ It ’ s been a really frustrating thing for me getting any real critical mass or momentum on my own site ,” says Brian Reardon , owner of Monster Music in New York , who has presented at NAMM U on how to maximize sales on Reverb . com . “ A lot of the things that they have with their content on the site are things that keep people there and engaged and spending time on the site . But their platform is so good and so easy to use … They allow you to go directly with a link to , in my case , Monster Music ’ s actual store website , not their Reverb page , and that requires a tremendous degree of confidence and belief that people are going to enjoy the experience on Reverb to such a degree that they ’ re going to choose to buy it on Reverb . If somebody on Reverb connects to my store
Gear Music ’ s Andrew Aldridge ( Top )
Monster Music ’ s Brian Reardon ( Bottom ) website and buys it from me , Reverb gets nothing .”
“ Definitely one supplements the other , I find ,” adds Andrew Aldridge , who handles the Reverb listings for Gear Music in Oakville , ON . “ Like when you list something on Reverb and that will draw people to your site and there may be other new things that are listed on your site that you ’ re not listing on Reverb .” In addition , Aldridge says , he has found that occasionally his listings and even sales on Reverb will result in new potential customers walking through the door of his shop . “ We ’ ve noticed some of the items that we put up , somebody will phone from Toronto or Hamilton or London and say , ‘ I saw it on Reverb , is it still there ? Can I just come pick it up at the store ?’ So they can buy it through Reverb and pick it up at the store as opposed to paying for shipping , or if they want , they can just come buy it at the store .”
In his NAMM U presentation , Reardon offers five areas of focus to help retailers maximize their Reverb sales . He says by focusing on these five things , Reverb has become one of the fasting growing segments of Monster Music ’ s business , with $ 140,000 in sales in the past 12 months . While talking to Canadian Music Trade at the 2017 NAMM Show , Reardon added that when he first gave his presentation at the 2016 Summer NAMM show , his Reverb sales in the past year at that time were $ 100,000 .
“ So in six months , up $ 40,000 is an 80 per cent rate of growth on what , for my store , was already a meaningful revenue stream . So it demands my attention ,” adds Reardon . “ When you sit there and say , ‘ I ’ ve got these channels of my business that are flat and this one is up 80 per cent ,’ well , I ’ d be a fool to not be looking at it and not paying attention , to not be figuring out what we can do to continue feeding this growth .”
Reardon ’ s five areas of focus on maximizing Reverb sales are :
1 . Take great pictures of the actual gear . 2 . Get your listings seen by utilizing
Reverb ’ s Bump feature . 3 . Participate in Reverb . com sales . 4 . Price gear right . 5 . Take care of your customers .
Number one is pretty self-explanatory , meaning use a proper camera and not a cell phone , have good lighting , and an uncluttered background to show off the item being sold . As well , Reardon advises , take a picture of the serial number so people can be confident in what they ’ re getting .
“ Obviously if there is any damage or wear or anything of note , make sure it ’ s shown ,” adds Aldridge “ Years ago , when the only
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CANADIAN MUSIC TRADE