How consignment works at Gearkeun, from photographs to payout

The first question is almost always the same: does the gear have to be sent to Gearkeun first. It does not. It stays with you until somebody buys it, and then goes from your hands straight to the buyer.

What Gearkeun does is the part that usually makes selling used gear exhausting: building a listing that says enough, checking it before it goes live, holding the buyer's money until the parcel lands, and stepping in when something is not right.

Only the commission comes off

The buyer pays exactly the price on the listing. There is no markup on top of it.

What you receive is that price minus five per cent commission. The figure is shown in the wizard before you press the last button, broken into the price, the commission and what is left for you, so there is nothing to work out yourself.

Shipping is separate and paid by the buyer, quoted from your origin address to theirs. That is why an origin address is required: without one the quote is measured from the wrong place, and a figure that is badly wrong ends up as a parcel the courier re-weighs at the depot.

The sequence

1. Fill in the wizard

Six steps: category, details, condition, photographs, price, then a summary. The two questions that come up most often are both in the details step, and they are the weight and the dimensions of the parcel.

Both are required, and not to be tiresome. Couriers bill on volumetric weight, which is length times width times height divided by 6000, and they charge whichever is greater, that or the real weight. A helmet in a box 40 by 40 by 40 centimetres is billed like a ten-kilogram parcel while the helmet itself weighs one and a half. Leave the size out and the shipping is quoted from a category default, and that default is what the buyer is charged.

2. Photographs

Three sides are required on everything: front, back, side. The damage close-up slot is always offered and worth using, because one honest photograph of a scuff stops more complaints than a paragraph of description.

A photograph has to be a photograph: at least 700 pixels on the shorter edge, and a sensible shape rather than a long strip. That threshold catches screenshots and images pulled out of a chat thread, not anybody's phone camera.

3. Review

The listing joins a queue and is checked before it goes live. If it is rejected the reason is written down and you can read it in the dashboard and fix it. A rejection you cannot see is not moderation, it is a dead end.

4. Sold

The item leaves the catalogue the moment somebody pays. You have a window in which to send it, and there is one button on the order page for it: book the courier.

The courier is not yours to choose there, because the buyer already paid for a specific service at checkout. The shipping is paid up front too, so there is nothing for you to lay out at a counter, and the tracking number comes from the carrier itself. By default the courier collects from your origin address; some carriers also take a drop-off at their agent, and that choice appears where the carrier being used accepts one.

5. The money

The buyer's payment is held until they confirm the parcel arrived. After that it joins your payout list and you request a withdrawal to your own bank account or e-wallet.

Holding it does add a delay, and that is exactly its purpose: it is the reason a buyer is willing to send money first to somebody they have never met.

When something goes wrong

Before the parcel is posted, the buyer may cancel. Afterwards the path becomes a dispute, which needs a reason and photographic evidence, except where the parcel never arrived, which cannot be photographed.

Every conversation about an order belongs in the order chat rather than in a DM. Not as a rule for its own sake, but because if something has to be settled later, only what was recorded can be read.

Ready to start? Consign your first item. If it is a helmet, two pieces are worth reading first: SNI status and how old a used helmet really is.