At a time when a lot of people are looking to make some extra cash, where on Earth are you supposed to sell your guns during a pandemic?!
Now that the COVID-19 pandemic has lasted almost a year, and we’re back in the middle of a lockdown, our lives feel more disrupted than ever. Businesses are closed, children are back to home schooling, and the post office is overwhelmed with online sales from sites like Amazon. What’s a person to do?
Trying to sell your firearms during this time can seem almost impossible. Gun stores are all closed (since they aren’t essential businesses) and trying to meet people online to sell your guns is risky under even normal circumstances, let alone with the additional risk of catching COVID-19.
Gun stores and private sales were not ideal options to begin with for selling your unused guns. If you sold your firearms at a gun store, you’d likely get a lowball offer from them. And going to online forums to sell your firearms is risky at best, dangerous at worse. The chances are high that you could be walking into a scam.
The Better Option: Online Gun Auctions
The ideal method of selling your firearms during the pandemic needs to meet two criteria:
First, personal contact needs to be minimal. You don’t want to need to meet with and interact with strangers to sell your gun.
Second, the transaction should be virtual, so you don’t need to worry about lockdowns getting in the way.
Thankfully, GTA Guns meets both of these needs!
When you sell your firearms with GTA Guns, there’s only one point of contact: US! After you give us a call to arrange the drop-off, you only need to come to our brick-and-mortar location to give us the firearms you wish to sell. We closely follow all COVID-19 guidelines, including curbside drop off/pick up, to ensure that there is absolutely no risk to you and your family.
After we have your firearms, every other step in the process is 100% virtual. Since we’re the ones who are handling the auction, you don’t need to interact with any potential sellers. Their bids will be made online throughout the auction, so there are no interactions!
What Happens With Your Firearms
Once we have your firearms in our possession, we immediately put them through our proprietary GUNCHECK™ and CYCLECHECK™ systems. They’re examined inside and out to determine their exact condition. We then take high-resolution photos (or video, in the case of semi-automatic firearms) to post on the auction page. A detailed description is written to ensure that all potential buyers know precisely what they will be bidding on. Then, the firearm is posted, and the fun begins!
Our sellers always tell us how enjoyable it is to monitor the bidding on their items, seeing the price go up and up as our massive pool of buyers across North America gets in on the action. At that point, all you need to do is sit back and watch the bids come in on your phone!
We Handle the Details
After the sale is finalized, you still don’t need to do a thing. The buyer sends us the money, and we transfer the proceeds into your bank account. As for transferring the gun license, that’s our job too. One less thing you don’t have to worry about—and one less liability too. Finally, we securely ship the firearm directly to the buyer—shipping might take a little longer to arrive than usual because of the pandemic.
Ah, but what if the item arrives damaged, or they decide they want to return it? Don’t worry, that isn’t your responsibility. If the firearm is damaged in any way, we take care of it for them. They send it back to us (we pay to ship) and we repair it, free of charge (30-day max). If they decide they don’t want the gun for any reason, they can send it back to us and we will relist it in our next auction for them with no seller’s fees (30-day max, +$3000 hammer price).
Either way, your buyer is taken care of without you needing to lift a finger. In fact, your part of the transaction is finished! And it was 100% virtual!
Whether or not there’s still a pandemic going on when you read this, we believe that our auctions at GTA Guns are the best way to buy and sell firearms. Dropped into the middle of a pandemic, there’s absolutely NO comparison; online auctions are the single best option for selling your unused guns. Our virtual gun auctions remove all of the risk and potential contact between buyers and sellers. And on top of that, you’re much more likely to get a good price for your guns through the auction method. That’s a win-win!
If you’d like to learn more about how our virtual auctions work, please feel free to contact us today. We can’t wait to answer all of your pandemic questions about GTA Guns auctions and our other services!