We get a lot of interesting responses to our ads and requests to purchase gear. They range from simple no thank you’s to the more colorful “go **** yourself” but sometimes we get a little dose of honesty too and one of the responses we hear on a semi-regular basis is that people want their gear to go to someone that is going to make wonderful content with it. And really who wouldn’t want that? Who doesn’t want to see their gear go to a kid looking for his first camera or a struggling film maker on a budget?
A bond is formed
People form endearing relationships with their gear that they didn’t realize they had until it comes time to sell. That HVX200 that you scrimped and saved to buy 10 years ago is now nearly unusable to you but it represents where you came from and the struggles you experienced to get there and seeing that camera go to a re-seller that’s just going to slap it up online for a higher price is just sacrilege. It represents everything you’re against. It should go to someone else like you, someone that would cherish it and appreciate it for what it is. There’s a different way to look at it though.
That young film maker? That struggling student looking for an inexpensive camera? They probably weren’t going to buy it from you anyhow. See after you sell us your camera we go through it and we check the functions on it and then we warranty it. And it’s for these reasons that people buy from us. They can go to Craigslist and likely get something for slightly less money if they’re willing to haggle and wait but when they buy from us they know they’re getting a camera that’s been tested and that’s backed by a warranty and to that person the difference between getting it off of Craigslist from a stranger for $600 or buying it from a company in the industry that has tested it and is warrantying it is huge.
We aren’t shooting with your camera
People assume that when they sell to a company like us we’re just throwing it in a pile, tossing some gasoline on it, lighting a match and then boom… fade to black. Sadness. The reality is much rosier however. Your gear will end up in the hands of someone that’s going to do something with it. We’re not shooting on HVX200’s but we sell a lot of them and they go to people looking to get into film making. You might not get the satisfaction of seeing the actual end user pick up your camera from you but rest assured, your gear lives on and more often then not, ends up in the hands of someone else in the same period of their life you found yourself in years ago. Selling to a reseller doesn’t mean your gear won’t end up in the hands of someone that will love it and go on to make great things. It just means it will end up in the hands of a practical, responsible buyer that carefully weighs their purchases before buying something that they will love and go on to make great things with.
Above all else we are community oriented. While we are a business and we do exist to make money, we don’t look at each piece of equipment that goes out as a dollar sign. Our customers call us months and years later to let us know what they’re working on, ask for advise for upgrade paths or just to talk to us about what they’re doing and what their future plans are. Our cameras travel all over the world and are used on shows that you likely watch every week and love and they came from people just like you.
So next time you think selling to a company like ours means your gear just sinks into a black hole of sadness; think again. Maybe that EX3 with 2000 hours is just getting broken in.
~Mike