As some users experienced on June 3rd, Gear Focus got Undone by, well, YouTube star Gerald Undone. For those out of the loop, Gerald very graciously offered around 20 items of his own personal used gear for sale on Gear Focus at heavy discounts. And with one mention of his drool-worthy shop in
THIS video, we experienced periods of peak activity that overwhelmed our servers. We apologize for any disruption this may have caused our users! For those gearheads impacted by this outage, we are working on some freebie packages for you.
Gear Focus is a small (but growing!) outfit of creators with one goal in mind: improving the process for buying and selling used camera gear online. In the past year, we have seen incredible leaps in the design, layout, and functionality of Gear Focus. As we scale this mountain together, we’ll encounter hiccups along the way. And Gerald’s community provided a valuable learning experience for us here at Gear Focus. As such, we have been working around the clock to resolve and allocate more resources to prevent this from happening again. So, a special shout out and heartfelt thanks to Gerald Undone, even if he inadvertently caused "Gear Focus to get Undone!"
Gear Focus Got Undone: What Happened
For those out of the loop, Gerald very graciously offered about 25 items of his own personal used gear for sale on Gear Focus at heavy discounts. We're talking gear priced at $1-type discounts. When he mentioned this
in his video, it caused a flood of users all vying for the same few pieces of gear. This flood was unfortunately enough to overwhelm us and cause significant downtime and outages across the site. There were some other issues internally that led to the outage as well that have also been addressed.
What We're Doing
This proved to be a valuable learning experience for us here at Gear Focus. We have been working around the clock since these issues to resolve them and allocate more resources to prevent this from happening again. For some users that were directly impacted by this, we are working on some freebie packages. We'll send you more information on this later if you were one of those directly impacted.
Watch the Video
https://youtu.be/u5ocHSnIZwM
In Other News
On a more positive note, our Gear Focus 4th of July Camera Giveaway contest is now live! It's super simple: all you need to do is list your new or used camera gear for sale and you are automatically entered! Yep, that's really all there is to it - and every listing is an entry.
Full details can be found here. One winner will receive their choice of one of the following camera bundles (all valued at around $3000!)
- Sony a7R III with 24-70mm f/4 lens
- Nikon Z7 with 24-70mm f/4 lens
- Canon EOS R6 with RF 24-105mm f/4-7.1 lens
- Fujifilm X-T4 with 16-80mm f/4 lens and battery grip kit
Hurry and list your items before July 4th! A winner will be selected from new listings posted between now and 5pm EST on July 4th. The winner will be announced shortly thereafter.
Thank You
We just wanted to end by sending a heartfelt thanks to all users that have helped Gear Focus grow recently. And thanks again to Gerald Undone, even if he inadvertently caused Gear Focus to get Undone! We have been overwhelmed with the support received recently. We truly couldn't have imagined a better community than we've begun creating here.