On buying and selling drums on the internet.

I buy drums and accessories on the internet, more than I buy them from brick and mortar shops.

I do this because, to be honest, even with shipping I can usually find what I’m looking for at a lower price.

Sometimes I buy from a regular seller on eBay, someone with an online store. Other times, I may find something that an individual is offering simply to clear space at home, or because they no longer use it. 

In all cases, if I’m interacting with a private individual I DO NOT KNOW, I will use PayPal to send money, and I will use the “Pay for goods and services” option. I choose this because if I don’t know the seller and something goes wrong — the seller doesn’t ship, or the item is lost in shipping and the seller doesn’t offer any assistance to resolve the issue, I can contact PayPal for help. If the seller continues to be recalcitrant, I can ask PayPal to refund my money and then they can take it to the next level with the seller.

If the seller is someone I know and isn’t running an online store, I am willing to consider using the Friends and Family (“Send money to a friend”) option to save them the fees involved with selling. But this option does not come with any buyer protection so I use it sparingly and only with people I know well.

A new seller, one who runs an online music store and who is someone I ado not know, reached out to me to offer a drum I’d been looking for, and his price was reasonable. He asked me to pay using the Friends and Family option. As he was a commercial seller AND someone I didn’t know, and the price was a bit on the expensive side for me, I asked him if he would allow me to use the other option. He laughed at me — that was his first mistake — then said he would not. So I told him I’d pass. He laughed a second time when I told him the item was expensive for me. So I made a note of his online store, and his name, and I blocked him on FB to avoid bumping into his store or him again. 

Because laughing at a potential customer after you’ve reached out and offered to sell them something, and then refuse to take their payment above-board to avoid seller fees — and responsibility — is bad business.

I also sell things online from time to time. When I do, I take decent photos and, if it’s on a casual place like Facebook, I post an asking price rather than entertain offers. And if a stranger wants to buy the item and asks for buyer protection, I’ll give it to them because they don’t know me from Adam. It’s just the sensible thing to do.

When you sell something, it’s impolite to make the buyer do all the heavy lifting.

Be nice.