Little Known eBay Service Offers Hassle-Free Immediate Cash for Your Electronics

by Darwin on March 16, 2011

There’s a new service on eBay that allows you to forgo the hassle and cost of doing an auction for your old electronics.  In the EBay Instant Sale area, you simply type in the model and condition of your old Cell phone, camera, computer, etc., and whether the charger’s included and they’ll quote you a price immediately. eBay’s tilt on this is that it’s a green initiative as well, preventing electronics from ending up in landfills, but you can make a few bucks in the process.

Here’s What My Stuff’s Worth

 

  • iPhone 3GS – I checked out what I could get for my iPhone 3GS (if I were so desperate for the latest thing that I had to upgrade to an iPhone 4) and got a surprisingly high $200 quote.

 

  • Garmin c330 – Since I use my iPhone as my GPS primarily these days, I was curious what I could get for my old Garmin GPS unit for 5 years back.  The maps are pretty out of date and I’ve never been real pleased with its performance anyway, so I checked out what I could get.  The c330 unit fetched $10 with the mounting bracket, $8 without.

Can You Get More Buy Selling Through eBay Normally?

By contrast, when I checked out some of the auctions for the Garmin c330, I saw routine buy-it-now prices and auction prices hovering in the $30-$45 range though.  In my mind, if I’m going to part with it, and I can only get even $30, it’s still worth the extra money to just host an auction and sell it conventionally.  On the iPhone, people would probably be much more hesitant to buy a used unit at anything above the price quoted above though.

I suspect there’s a place for each type of transaction – check out both ways, but if anything, perhaps this article will spur you to get rid of some old electronics and make a few bucks!  My drawers are full of stuff I should either throw out or sell, so even if I make a few bucks on the side and save some landfill space, great!

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

Kevin @ Thousandaire.com March 17, 2011 at 10:34 am

Crap. I just sold my myTouch 3G for $60 on eBay, and I could have gotten $67 through this.

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krantcents March 17, 2011 at 2:31 pm

I have an older (quality) stereo system that I want to sell. I think I will check that out.

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MoneyIsTheRoot March 18, 2011 at 9:19 am

Good tip! I did not know about this service, but I will definitely try it out!!

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Car Negotiation Coach March 18, 2011 at 10:29 am

Darwin, you have great timing. I just got “sell your crap” and my wife and I were planning to inventory the house and start getting rid of stuff this weekend. Didn’t know about this little ebay gem, but will be checking it out as well!

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Amanda L Grossman March 18, 2011 at 8:12 pm

Great tip–I wasn’t aware of this.

It is time for a free upgrade on my cell phone with Verizon, and I always sell off my old phone, so I’ll have to give it a shot!

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Benjamin March 24, 2011 at 2:00 am

Nice post and tip!

Just something I noticed is that if you sell a used iPhone 3gs on eBay you can get a lot more than $200. They average right around $300.

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