Your guide to holiday shipping with Geartrade

To the avid outdoors enthusiast, Geartrade during the holidays is like a direct peek into a merry elves’ workshop full of skis, boots, goggles, coats, snowshoes, and joy. It’s a perfect time to sell gear you haven’t been using, and stock up on things you’d love to use. The one word of caution this year is to keep shipping times in mind—whether you’re buying or selling. The postal service is always more overloaded during the holidays, and in 2020 the bottleneck may be worse. Thanks to the pandemic, far more people will be shopping online this year for the holidays—in fact The New York Times is predicting a “Holiday Shipmageddon.” (Read here if you dare.) So if you’re buying, especially as a gift (or a gift to self), buffer your timeline and try purchasing a couple weeks ahead of time, at least. And if you’re selling, you technically have five days to ship according to Geartrade rules, but it’s all the better if you can hustle a little faster and drop your items in the mail sooner. You have to think: shipping takes a while these days, and if the buyer is trying to get their item in time for the holidays, this is your personal chance to be gear-Santa and help deliver on time by shipping fast. Sellers, know the process: stay a step ahead. Before your item even sells, start thinking about getting a box to ship it in, especially if it’s an oversized item like skis, a snowboard, snowshoes, or a surfboard. This is the kind of box you either have to buy special or source from a local outdoor shop for free. Once your item sells, print off the shipping label right away, or, make a plan to swing by your local U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, or UPS location as soon as possible. Print the item invoice if you can, as it’s a nice touch if you can tuck it into the box. Then … send that sucker as soon as possible. You’ll earn bonus love through reviews on Geartrade and garner extra street cred by shipping quickly. Buyers, know the realities of holiday shipping: buy early. This year, shipping across the U.S. can take a couple of weeks—more than usual, but not so bad if you plan ahead. Keep in mind that Geartrade sellers do their best to ship as soon as they can, but buy as early as possible to help make sure that gifts arrive on time! How to Sell Your Gear in 10 easy steps

1. Create an account and sign in.
2. Click, “Sell Your Gear.”
3. You’ll answer a few questions to list your gear in the right category. Select categories and sub-categories carefully to make sure that people looking for gear will see it in the right place.
4. Then, you’ll upload photos! See our blog article for tips on how to take the best photos of your gear. Snap a few good ones from every angle, and upload them here.
5. You’ll fill in the item’s size and brand, how much you paid for it originally, and write a brief description of the item. Give all the details a buyer might want to know! Also don't forget the product title; read our tips here.
6. We’ll give you a suggested price, but feel free to list it for more or less. You can adjust that later if you want to entice people to buy, too.
7. You’ll get a preview of what your listing will look like, and if it’s good to go, just click “Click Here to List Your Gear!”
8. Presto, your gear is listed. You’ll get an email when it sells—you’ll see exactly whom to send it to, what their address is, and how many days you have.
9. Be sure to go in and adjust your payment settings so you receive payment in your preferred method.
10. And this is important: you have to enter your shipping tracking number for us to queue you up to get paid. So not only should you ship soon, but keep that receipt and enter it in your account under the item you sold so- we know you sent it. Approximately 9 days after you send the gear to the recipient, you’ll get paid for the item and the shipping cost!

The entire listing process takes under 2 minutes. How To Sell Video If you’re buying on Geartrade, the process is even simpler. Just find something you’d love,click Buy, enter your purchasing info, and wait for the goods to land on your doorstep! Keep in mind that 2020 is a little slower shipping-wise than usual, and you’ll be stoked. To all those taking a stand keeping gear out of the landfills this year: we salute you. And we hope these instructions make it easier than ever to earn money or save money through Geartrade. Beth Lopez is a seasoned writer and creative director who loves to tell tales of adventure and discovery—and finds writing a powerful way to give a voice to people, causes, and places. Beth runs amok in the Wasatch mountains when untethered from her computer. She believes there’s no such thing as a bad ski day and considers animals her favorite people. Don’t tell her mother about her Instagram mountaineering photos.