How to sell your unwanted gadgets for cash

[TheFixers]

Maybe you’ve just upgraded your smartphone, or maybe you’ve been given a gift you’re not all that keen on. Or, maybe, you simply aren’t using your new e-reader quite as much as you thought you would.

Whatever the reason, you can turn your unwanted tech into cold, hard cash (or electronic transfers) in several ways. You’ll get some extra money, and buyers will get themselves gadgets at less-than-retail price.

If you don’t want anything in return for your old or unwanted gadgets, don’t just throw them away—pass them on to a friend or relative, or recycle them. You might also be able to get money off a new toy via a trade-in. Plenty of retailers, including Best Buy and Apple, offer these, but make sure you shop around for the best discount.

Your selling options

The first place many people likely think of when considering selling their gadgets second-hand is eBay—with 183 million buyers worldwide, your listings stand a good chance of reaching a wide audience. Both its desktop and mobile selling tools are simple to use, but eBay’s interface continues to look a little dated.

Fees vary slightly depending on what you’re selling, but for most items, you can create up to 50 listings for free each month. After that, they’re 35 cents each. eBay also takes 10-12 percent of the final selling price, including postage, up to a maximum of $750.

Those are the prices you’ll pay to use eBay’s services and tap into its wide reach. If you don’t want to pay anything to list your item, Craigslist is the obvious choice. It’s not as polished as eBay, and only recently got a mobile app, but it’s free to use for anyone trying to sell electronics.

Craigslist has always worked well for selling locally (which is why you're directed to your local Craigslist page when you open up the site). It doesn't have options for shipping items to buyers—transactions are handled face-to-face, instead—so it works best for more in-demand gadgets. Otherwise, you might struggle to get your asking price.

Facebook Marketplace is another option for selling unwanted tech, and its focus on local buyers makes it more similar to Craigslist than eBay. That said, you can ship items if you want to. As you would expect with Facebook, everything is easy to use whether you’re on desktop or mobile.

What you won’t get is any kind of integrated payment system or an auction process, both of which are available on eBay. Instead, it's up to you to set a price and figure out payment details with buyers (much as you might do in a local Facebook group). If you already use Facebook, this option at least saves you from having to create another account.

If those sites aren’t enough, you can also consider some smaller marketplaces focused primarily on electronics. Take Swappa, for instance: You might not reach as many potential buyers as you would on eBay, and it doesn’t offer a mobile app, but it’s arguably faster and easier to use, and all payments are handled by PayPal. There aren’t any auction-style selling formats, and there are no seller fees (the buyer pays the fees instead).