Best/"safest" site to sell a Panasonic GM5

Hello All

I am looking for a no-nonsense site to sell one of my Panasonic GM5 cameras and perhaps the Panny 25 f1.7 and or the 12-32 kit lens,.... I have thought about eBay, Kijiji, and KEH, but am unsure about the reliability of payments,. etc.

I am the second owner, the camera is in great shape, low shutter count and I find the camera to work brilliantly, but I have two,.. as well as a GX7.

Any help is appreciated.

Regards

Mike F

I wouldn't question the reliability of payment from KEH, B&H or Adorama, but you will be selling at a discount if you sell to them because they need room for their overhead and profit when they resell.  I usually sell on Craigslist for cash only with a meeting at a very public place.  Some of the local police stations allow meetups for sales in their lobbies.

Mu-43 site is decently busy and often has want-to-buy GM5 posts. I've yet to have a problem dealing gear with anyone there.

Thanks jimrpdx,.

I've never heard of the site you suggested but I will give it a shot,. I have also bought from eBay and Kijiji before but never sold.

Part of the reasoning for asking the question here is that I wanted to keep the camera out of the hands of someone trying to Re-sell it for an outrageous. price,..

I want someone who enjoys photography to buy this.

Cheers

MikeF

MikeF15 wrote:

Thanks jimrpdx,.

I've never heard of the site you suggested but I will give it a shot,. I have also bought from eBay and Kijiji before but never sold.

Part of the reasoning for asking the question here is that I wanted to keep the camera out of the hands of someone trying to Re-sell it for an outrageous. price,..

I want someone who enjoys photography to buy this.

Cheers

MikeF

That's kind of a different goal than what your original post was about. If you care primarily about reliability of payment and no hassle, probably nothing will beat resellers like KEH, B&H, Adorama, MPB. You can ask for a quote from any of them (some of them are automated and instant), they likely will pay for shipping, and you get payment quickly. However, all of them will resell for a profit (and thus will offer a price lower than "market").

Depending on how you set your payment options, Ebay can be reliable too. However, you have to be careful about people who are using stolen payment information and the person can also request a chargeback or complain to EBay and you can be held holding the bag in the end if anything goes wrong. And unlike the reseller options, you have to wait for a buyer.

Selling on privately on forums has even less protection and it's entirely up to how you arrange for payment. It requires the most involvement on your part.

I agree about ebay's policies being too light so I make my own and put it in bold text in the item description:

"Seller must possess a minimum of 5 positive feed backs and no negatives in order to purchase this item. Item can only be shipped to the address given by PayPal and signature confirmation is required. Failure to meet these requirements will result in the cancellation of the order."

This may fall outside of ebay's policy but I don't care. It beats getting taken for several hundred dollars. Scamsters will open accounts just to defraud sellers. They see this and move along. It's not full proof but I had no issues selling a couple cameras and a bunch of lenses.

Here is a copy of an attempted Craigslist scam on me earlier this year (read from bottom up. I removed private info). I was selling a Canon DSLR:

Okay that sound good by me and am very much okay with your price just wondering if you can allow me pay you with a cashiers check because i just left out of town for my business and wait till you confirm check cleared in your account before i arrange pickup

On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 5:52 AM, craigslist  wrote:

$600 is the lowest price.

On 2/20/2018 8:34 AM, john cole wrote:

Hello good morning what is your lowest price i want to buy?

My reply was: Sorry man. Cash only.

Without any response from Craigslist, I put it on ebay and sold it fairly quickly. I don't have much luck with Craigslist as people seem to fear the scams or even violent crimes reported from Craigslist sales.

Why don't you list it on the buy/sell forum here?  A GM5 would likely disappear hear quickly - I sold one here a while back.  Smooth and seamless.  While there is no real protection here, you are dealing with the most geeky of photo geeks here.  Fred Miranda often also gets mentioned as a very reliable site to buy and sell gear.  I have never used it, but many here seem to have.

I am surprised no one has mentioned Fred Miranda  fredmiranda.com.  It is a site for photo enthusiasts.  There are several forums including buy and sell  You need to be a member.  I have bought and sold several cameras and lenses on this site including my GM5. All of the transactions were to and from very interesting people

The prices were better than any store I could have brought my equipment to

macsesso wrote:

I am surprised no one has mentioned Fred Miranda fredmiranda.com. It is a site for photo enthusiasts. There are several forums including buy and sell You need to be a member. I have bought and sold several cameras and lenses on this site including my GM5. All of the transactions were to and from very interesting people

The prices were better than any store I could have brought my equipment to

Right! List it on FM or right here, it will be gone quickly.

Swappa has added cameras to its sales. Their charges are about 1/3 of ebay's.

If you live in a big enough city then Craigslist can work pretty well for a seller.

Craigslist has the following advantages:

• Buyer gets to inspect or test the item before making purchase
• If the buyer wants it, then it is cash and carry, with no warranty 
• Absolutely no problem with buyer's remorse. You have the cash
• Absolutely no fees, as in Ebay and Paypal
• You will get more than any dealer will offer
• The buyer comes to you, at your convenience
• You take very little risk if you meet in a public place during daylight

Or, you could sell your camera to a reputable dealer (like Adorama, B&H, or KEH) but I promise you they will pay you almost nothing for it. They will generally give you HALF of what they plan to sell it for, which is around TWO THIRDS of the new price. So a camera you paid $1,000 might be worth $350 to them.

You are taking a beating because you want the convenience of selling to a dealer. But that just inserts someone who needs to make a profit into the transaction. Almost any other method will net you more money than selling to a dealer.

I have bought a lot on Craigslist, and it really is great for the buyer too, as long as he or she knows what they are buying and knows how to properly inspect and test something. Sure, there is always some small risk of a concealed problem, but the only way to avoid that risk is to buy brand new from Amazon or some other reputable dealer.

Marty4650 wrote:

If you live in a big enough city then Craigslist can work pretty well for a seller.

Craigslist has the following advantages:

• Buyer gets to inspect or test the item before making purchase
• If the buyer wants it, then it is cash and carry, with no warranty
• Absolutely no problem with buyer's remorse. You have the cash
• Absolutely no fees, as in Ebay and Paypal
• You will get more than any dealer will offer
• The buyer comes to you, at your convenience
• You take very little risk if you meet in a public place during daylight

Or, you could sell your camera to a reputable dealer (like Adorama, B&H, or KEH) but I promise you they will pay you almost nothing for it. They will generally give you HALF of what they plan to sell it for, which is around TWO THIRDS of the new price. So a camera you paid $1,000 might be worth $350 to them.

You are taking a beating because you want the convenience of selling to a dealer. But that just inserts someone who needs to make a profit into the transaction. Almost any other method will net you more money than selling to a dealer.

I have bought a lot on Craigslist, and it really is great for the buyer too, as long as he or she knows what they are buying and knows how to properly inspect and test something. Sure, there is always some small risk of a concealed problem, but the only way to avoid that risk is to buy brand new from Amazon or some other reputable dealer.

Yah CL works fine in bigger locations. I'm gonna get another A7s today for $850CDN and gonna meet the guy at a camera store. He only has manual adapter for EF lenses so need to test AF and gonna see if I can get the store to let me use a lens to test on the A7s.