How to Sell A Guitar on eBay

Whether it’s due to running out of storage room, needed to free up some cash, or a thinly veiled threat from your significant other, there will come a time that you’ll need to sell a guitar or two.

Over the course of my guitar addiction hobby career, I’ve sold dozens of guitars on eBay. And along the way, I’ve learned a little bit about how to craft a listing so that it catches people’s attention and sells quickly and for top dollar. I’d like to share what I’ve learned with you!

*But before we get into that, let’s get a couple of disclaimers out of the way*

1. eBay’s search engine picks up on various signals from a listing. Everything including pictures, completeness of listing, and seller level is involved in the visibility of your guitar in eBay search results.
2. Not all guitars will sell for top dollar as a complete unit. Sometimes it’s better to part out your guitar to get the most money for it.
3. If you are new to selling on eBay, it will take time to build up your seller level. But when you do, your listings will receive many more views and bids.

Ok, let’s move on. In this post, I’m assuming you have already set up an eBay account. If not, it’s easy to do and eBay will walk you through step-by-step to get it up and running. I won’t be covering those steps here.

Step 1: Pictures

Once you’ve narrowed down the axe you want to ax from your collection, the next thing to do is clean it up! Yes, it’s possible to sell a dirty guitar, but just like anything else (cars, houses, etc.) you’ll get a better chance at selling for top dollar if it’s in tip-top shape. For years, I’ve used the Jim Dunlop System 65 Guitar Maintenance Kit to both keep my guitars looking good while I own them and also to ready them for pictures.

Once your guitar is looking pretty, it’s now time to take those pictures. Good quality pictures are a necessity when selling guitars, or really anything, on eBay as users rely on them to judge whether or not to bid on an item. Make sure you have good lighting. Natural daylight seems to work the best for me. I don’t really take the guitar outside, but rather take the pictures inside in a room with a big window. Here’s an example from a recently sold listing of mine:

Notice how the natural daylight helps to show the shine and the features of the guitar.

Pro tip: Sometimes I need an extra light source. In that case I use a ring light on a stand – sometimes called an “influencer light” – like this one.

Another important note here is that eBay’s algorithm likes to serve up listings that have many pictures. If possible, fill up all the available picture slots with different angle shots. In the listing above, I have 14 pictures of the guitar – front, back, sides, and closeups of any imperfections.

Step 2: Create the Listing

Now that you have pictures, you are ready to start your listing. I typically will create my listings directly from the eBay mobile app. This is the easiest route for me since I take all the product pictures from my iPhone and it’s super easy to import them into the listing via the app.

To create the listing, you can go one of two ways:

1. Create the listing from scratch (not recommended by me)
2. Search eBay for your guitar and click on “sell similar” (highly recommended, it saves a ton of time)

For the sake of this article, I’m just going to focus on what I think works best, option #2.

The first thing to do is to type in specifically what you are looking for. In this example, I’m looking for a 2006 Squire Stratocaster body.

Once you see the results listings, click on the filter button. Select “Show more”. Then click the slider for “Sold Items”. This helps you to do two things: 1) you can see what a successful sale listing looks like, and 2) it gives you an idea of what a final selling price will be. Screenshots below.

Once you’ve identified an item that matches what you are selling, click on that item and choose “Sell one like this”.

The reason you want to go this route is because when you hit that “Sell one like this” button, all of the attributes that the item had will automatically be transferred into your listing – this includes title, category, and item specifics. Usually this will save you time in creating a listing. However it’s super important to review what was imported to make 100% sure that what is there matches exactly what you are selling.

The listing completeness is critically important for a successful top-dollar sale. So add as many attributes as you can to get the listing as completed as possible:

Title – Make sure the title is descriptive and utilize as much of the 80 character limit as possible. The title is one of the most important parts of the listing, any spelling errors could decrease your visibility and possibility of sale.

Category – Check this to make 100% sure that you are listing the item in the correct, and most granular, category. In my example, the category hierarchy is as follows: Musical Instruments & Gear > Guitars & Basses > Parts & Accessories > Guitar & Bass Parts. The top level category is “Musical Instruments & Gear” and each sub-category is listed after each “>”.

Item Specifics – This is where the majority of the work may come in any given listing. Make sure you go through the attributes here and add everything possible. eBay makes it pretty fool-proof here, there is a little blue dot visual that will slowly fill as you enter your specifics. Once it is fully blue, you are ready to move on.

Description – After a recent update to eBay, the description is now easier than ever to write. eBay has integrated a ChatGPT-like AI writing tool that allows you to create a description with one button click in seconds. I use the AI description on all my listings! But, as powerful as AI is, it’s still not perfect. So make sure to review the AI-generated description and edit as necessary.

Step 3: Pricing Strategy

The next option you will come to in your listing is Pricing. I’ve talked about pricing strategy in the past, but it’s important to think about again when selling a guitar on eBay.

eBay in the most basic sense is an auction site. So, this pricing will typically default to an auction. Usually, eBay will suggest a starting bid point based on previous sales. However, I’ve learned that this isn’t always accurate or even the best recommendation to follow. There are two ways to price and sell your guitar: 1) Auction, or 2) Fixed Price (buy it now).

Auction – If you decide to go the auction route, you may get bidders to compete on your guitar. Conversely, you may not get the price that you really want for it. It’s a bit of a gamble, frankly. Therefore I use one of two strategies if I auction off an instrument.

1. List my floor price as the opening bid price. This will prevent my guitar from selling too low if the bidding interest is not there at that particular point in time. The “pro” to this strategy is that you’ll sell it for a price you’re comfortable with. The “con” is that it may be a high barrier to entry for bidders. In fact it may deter bidders from placing the bid altogether resulting in your guitar being relisted again and again after the auction period closes.
2. Start the bidding at $0.99. I know what you’re thinking, “that’s way too low of a bid for my baby!” You’re right, it is. But, the benefit of starting the bid off at less than a dollar is that you get a TON of views on your item. I mean, like, 3-5X the views that you would get if you set the starting bid higher. This will pull people in and may help to create bidding wars on your guitar that would drive the price up higher that you ever expected. It’s a gamble, but often times this gamble pays off nicely.

Fixed Price (Buy it Now) – I personally like the fixed price strategy if I have an instrument that I don’t need to move very quickly. These listings will stay visible until they are sold – up to 200 days (or something like that). Think of it like putting an item in a consignment shop and letting it sit in the window until it sells. Someone will eventually find it and buy it.

Typically, if I go with a fixed price for my item, I’ll price it at what I want to get for it plus $30 and offer free shipping. That’s an old marketing trick ;). It’s crazy but it works really well.

Step 4: Shipping

Proper packing and shipping is a critical step in selling anything on eBay, especially guitars. There’s two primary reasons why: 1) the most obvious reason is to protect the item that you sold in transport, and 2) well packaged and quickly shipped items will get you better feedback on your sales and will therefore increase your seller rating. Sellers that get better feedback will reach “Top Rated” much quicker than those that do not. Once you reach this level, you get additional perks like a higher quantity of free listings per month and the picture count on your items will increase from 12 to 24.

The first step in properly packaging your guitar is to wrap it with protection, especially if you’re not shipping it in a guitar case. I use bubble wrap, it’s very light and that cuts down the cost to ship. Even if you do ship your guitar in a case, it’s a good idea to lay a sheet of bubble wrap inside the case to keep the guitar from moving around during shipment.

The next thing you will need is a proper guitar shipping box. These are made specifically for shipping guitars and are available in different sizes – thicker ones for acoustic guitars, thinner ones for electric guitars, shorter ones for shorter length guitars, etc. So, it’s important to measure your instruments and pack them in the correct size box.

When it comes to a carrier service, I like to utilize the built-in label service on eBay. It’s quick and convenient to print the label at home and then just use packing tape to tape it to the box. There are many carrier options to choose from – USPS, FedEx, and UPS are available on eBay. For guitars, I prefer to use FedEx Ground. For me, it’s usually the cheapest way and I have a FedEx store close to where I live. The best thing to do here is to compare the prices on the different shipping methods and pick what works best for you.

Pro tip: you don’t have to use the shipping service that the buyer selected. You can opt to go with a different one when you print your label.

Other Things to Note

Usually, things go pretty smoothly when selling on eBay. But, there are times when the transaction doesn’t go as planned. When this happens, it’s best to quickly resolve the issue if possible without eBay stepping in. For example, if the item arrives to the buyer and they don’t like it for some reason, offer a refund if they return it. Yes, it’s a pain in the butt to have to relist the item, but it’s better for your seller level to provide excellent customer service.

Always be professional in your responses to complaints. SkyNet, I mean, eBay monitors your messages to and from buyers. Once the issue is resolved, you can easily block the bidder from any future auctions. I have several bidders blocked due to things like difficult transactions, non-payment, or unwarranted negative feedback. Here’s a look at the options available to block bidders:

That said, I only use this feature if absolutely necessary.

Closing Thoughts

Now you are ready to sell your guitar on eBay. Simply follow the steps here and you should have an easy, positive selling experience. Couple this with my post on How to get a Free Guitar, and you’ll be making some extra cash in no time!

Happy selling!