Sunday, November 8, 2026 · Customer reviews of US businesses
The Fair Hearing score
Average
249 reviews
Geartrade.comSelect a line to read only those reviews.
Honesty, pricing, process and quality scores appear once 5 customers have rated them.
Where adventurists buy and sell the gear we love for the outdoors we need.We call it UnNew Outdoorhttps://geartrade.com/how-it-works
Geartrade.com (geartrade.com) has 249 customer reviews on The Fair Hearing, with an average rating of 3.8 out of 5.
Showing 19 reviews with 2 stars · Clear filters
Purchased item and paid for their "redo"option for free return. Unfortunately I had to return the item and i was then informed that it came from a third party seller, which was never mentioned when I was purchasing it. Then on top of that they did not honor the free return shipping and I had to pay to ship it back to the third party vendor. We'll see if they follow through on the full refund.
By brian
I've never sold anything here but Geartrade is great for buying from. But oh my god they just ****ed up the site so bad. There wasn't even anything wrong with it. Now it's borderline unusable.
By Ronny H.
Gear trade is a big rip off. They take forever to list your gear. I mean weeks possibly months after you've sent it. Their communication is poor. They sell brand-new unused gear at full price to other people and then they give you 50% or less! Honestly you have a better shot at selling it yourself online on some other platform that doesn't take half of the proceeds. I don't think I'd buy from here knowing that they rip people off this much.
By Kara
It’s completely hit or miss when buying. Out of a handful of orders 3 were flawed, either the item wasn’t what it was stated to be, wrong item sent, and one item they sent multiple items instead of one and expected me to do all the leg work to return the item. They couldn’t figure out how I could print a label. The amount of time I spent trying to fix their mistakes was absurd and stressful. Selling? I didn’t realize how large their cut was, a smaller item that was sold at $15 and my share was was less than $1.75! I love the idea of it and I did get a couple of things that were great buys and it kept those items from ending up in a landfill. However, it’s a lot of work and risky that the sizing will be correct (most items measurements aren’t provided) and that you’ll get the right item. Because they don’t provide measurements you have to try and locate the item on the website of the original company that sold it and try to find the size/measurements. This takes a lot of time.
By Catherine
We sent two items in to sell. (Both brand new- one had tags, the other we had already cut off but neither worn). Shipping in is free. It took them forever to get the items up (missing out the season they would be for). We didn’t realize that every 30 days they reduce the price. ( this is found in fine print but certainly not made clear when you start the process ). If the jacket we sent in (with tags retails over $100) sold today we would get just under $4. Yes FOUR DOLLARS. And to mail it back (this is a very light weight shell that maybe weighs 2 oz) cost me just over $13. Plus side they answer emails very quickly
By Tim F.
Response from Geartrade.com· Jun 13, 2023
Tim, We're sorry for the initial delay in listing your item. Our new consignment program has had a lot of demand. The good news is, we have expanded our team, refined our listing process and we have increased the speed in which we process these items. The processing time is now down to 3-4 weeks, which is much improved. Other consignment platforms may take up to 6 months. The jacket you sent in retailed for $90 and we listed it for sale at $34.20, which is 62% off the retail price and common for items that are used, but in excellent condition. Since the item did not sell right away, we do lower the price after 30 days. Your item sold for $23.85 three months after it was listed and you were paid $9.54 or a 40% payout. Please let us know if you have any questions on this process or payout. We have since moved up the payout details or 'fine print' to the main 'How it Works' page here: https://www.geartrade.com/how-it-works That way it is super visible to all people interested in consigning with us. We also send this information to our new consignors in a few different system emails that go out automatically to everyone who requests a label for consignment. We try to be as transparent as possible about how our consignment model works. Please let us know if there is anywhere we can improve. Thanks, Geartrade.com
They make it easy to send your gear in, but take forever to get your items listed. And my fault, but I should have checked the payout.... 40%. I sent them a $120 jacket and got $20. Such a rip off. Do not recommend doing business with them. Just sell the items yourself.
By Madeleine P.
Response from Geartrade.com· Aug 5, 2022
Madeleine, Thanks for your feedback. I see that your jacket retailed for $120 brand new, and we priced this at $53.98 since it was Used, but in Excellent condition. After you accepted this price, the jacket sold for $53.98 and we paid you $21.82. For details on our pricing, visit: https://www.geartrade.com/helpdesk/consignment Since we offer free shipping to get your products from your home to our warehouse, create all of the content, photos, warehouse your gear, ship your gear to the buyer and process all the payments from the buyer and to you, the seller, this comes at a cost. However, we do offer a price break as the selling price of your item increases. So, if you send us high priced gear, you do keep more of the sale. Let us know if you have any questions about our fees or process. Have a great weekend. Thanks so much, Geartrade
Gear trade Has a convoluted return and refund policy when items are mis represented. I'm not sure if this is unique to gear trade. I was eventually able to get a refund when an item was represented by the seller. However, It did take a lot of emails and hassle.
By Pat M.
Response from Geartrade.com· Jul 8, 2022
We are sorry to hear about the difficulties you experienced with our returns process. When you make a purchase from one of the individual sellers on our site and it is misrepresented, we will always help facilitate a return on your behalf with the seller. We ask that buyers reach out to us within 72 hours of delivery which you did on May 11th, and we promptly started helping you set up a return. We even offered to cover the return shipping cost but we never received a copy of your shipping receipt with the return tracking information to do so. Per our return policy, we issue refunds once the gear has been returned to the seller as we do not want sellers to be out of payment and their gear. That is one of the main reasons that we ask for a copy of the shipping receipt with the return tracking information so we can confirm this return delivery for you. We make a note of that return tracking number and as soon as the carrier marks the package as “delivered,” we know it is time to issue your refund. Since we did not receive return tracking information, we had to wait until the seller themselves confirmed that they had received the gear back before we could refund you. As soon as they confirmed they received back their item, we issued your refund in full. That was on 6/8/22. Once again, we apologize for the difficulties you experienced with our return process. We always aim to make this process as smooth and easy as possible.
The selling process if you choose to sell on your own takes some getting used to, but it offers options. You can choose to list at a fixed price, allow offers or lower the offer on a decreasing schedule as a function of time. This helps to speed up sales. To avoid selling at a price below a clearing level, the seller should understand that various offers and counteroffers can take place privately with a buyer, but that once an offer is accepted, the agreed on price is public and offered to all other buyers. Factoring today's high shipping rates, typically paid by the seller, and competitive pricing, the transaction structure is biased in favor of the buyer. If you subtract the commission, and consider the annoying unnecessary waiting period to get paid, you wonder whether it was worth the effort. If a buyer is stoked, though, and this is expressed in a review, then there's more reward to the seller. Lauren, who is from customer service and is excellent, please take note.
By Gatorcarver
Response from Geartrade.com· Jul 8, 2022
Thanks for your feedback. With the rising cost of shipping, we have just launched a new service for prepaid shipping labels that sellers can now use. That way, sellers do not have to worry about calculating shipping costs or going to the USPS, UPS or Fedex store. You can simply click and print these labels if you select the 'prepaid shipping label' option and we take care of the costs.
