Shortly after finishing my previous post on planned obsolescence, I tried to account for all the old and rarely used electronics in our apartment. I was determined to mitigate some of the guilt stemming from my contribution to the growing global e-waste problem. Of course, these items had already been bought so my only options left to reduce my impact were to re-use or recycle them (and as I learned from my research for the last article, e-waste recycling can be deceptively not as green as it sounds).
What I came to realize was that the re-user doesn’t have to be only me in order to accomplish the goal of mitigating my environmental impact. If other people are willing to use these devices (and better, willing to pay for them) rather than buying a brand new version for themselves, then that makes it a win-win scenario.
For whatever reason, I’ve never been one to sell old items. Usually I would let old electronics just sit unused in a drawer until they were virtually worthless, then drop them in the recycling boxes that some stores offer. I guess I underestimated the second-hand market, because I thought it would be a much bigger hassle to sell things.
I’m happy to admit that I was totally wrong. While Craigslist was kind of dead, every item I posted on Facebook Marketplace had a deal ironed out within hours. I only had to dodge one attempted scammer and politely reject offers from a dozen lowballers. The longest that I had to wait for someone to meet up and complete a deal in person was 15 minutes.
My main strategy for pricing was to look up identical items on Swappa (an online used electronics marketplace), but I didn’t list on this site because I didn’t want to deal with shipping things. I tried to match the condition of my item to the site descriptors like “fair” or “good”, and averaged the prices for items that were the closest match and had recently sold. I then cross-referenced with Facebook Marketplace prices in my area and subtracted up to 10% from my list price if necessary to ensure I had the best price for those items. I was more concerned with selling stuff relatively quickly as opposed to having listings sit for a while to try and squeeze another $5-10 out of an item.
Another tip is to clean up the devices and take good pictures. I cleaned everything up as best as practical and if the item had a screen, I wiped it down with a microfiber cloth. I saw a bunch of listings of grungy phones covered in fingerprints photographed in low lighting, with no photographic proof that they even turned on. I can’t imagine those sell as well compared to the cleaned-up devices that someone put even two minutes of effort into staging the photos for.
I accepted nothing other than cash in hand for my items, as digital payment apps like PayPal, Venmo, and Zelle all have various scams associated with them in which the transactions are reversed a couple days later once the scammer has your item in hand.
My sales results
Item #1, Amazon Kindle Fire HD 10 Tablet:
The inspiration for my musings on planned obsolescence. The original price was $123.23 including the case. I was able to sell it quickly for $60 cash, recovering almost half of what I spent! I’m surprised it sold for that much given my experience that it was a laggy device prone to crashing due to only having 1 GB of RAM, but I’m definitely not going to argue if someone thinks it’s worth more than I would personally pay.
Item #2, Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Headset:
Another poor purchase from my past, as I must have only used this thing for 25 hours in the two years that I owned it. This was an impulse buy after trying VR at a friend’s house and getting blown away; unfortunately the novelty quickly wore off. Originally purchased for $333.73, I was able to get $175 cash for it, recovering just over half of the original price. The effective cost came out to roughly $6.35 per hour of VR gaming entertainment, so it doesn’t seem like too big of a waste in those terms.
Item #3, Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus:
This was my previous cellphone that I bought in 2015, and replaced after only two years because the battery could barely make it half a day of light use by that point. The glass on the back panel was completely shattered from a drop, but I still managed to get $40 cash, a laughably small fraction of the $720 purchase price.
I’m very happy with my current phone, a OnePlus 5T, as the battery is still quite healthy after 3 years of use. I feel like we’ve reached the point where the tech in even mid-level phones is powerful enough to last for many years longer than the battery tends to. I really don’t need it to do much more than texting, web browsing, email, and music streaming. I’m hoping to get at least another year (preferably two years) of use out of my phone before I consider replacing it.
Item #4, Microsoft Surface RT Tablet:
After seeing my rousing success selling my old electronics, my girlfriend offered me a 1/3 cut to list and sell some of her items. I was skeptical that this tablet was worth anything at all — it’s from 2012, and it runs a weird orphaned offshoot of Windows 8 called Windows RT on which you can’t install any programs. The tablet comes with Office 2013 and an outdated version of Internet Explorer that most sites don’t even support anymore, and that’s really all you can use it for.
As far as I can tell the original retail price was $499, and I was very surprised that I was able to quickly sell this tablet for $60 cash, of which I got $20 for my cut.
Item #5, iPhone 7:
Another of my girlfriend’s items that I was commissioned to sell. The secondhand iPhone market appears to be extremely healthy. Unlocked phones sell for a bit more, but if they’re locked to a popular carrier it shouldn’t be an issue. Hers was locked to Verizon and I sold it within 12 hours of posting.
This iPhone 7 had a retail price of $650 in 2016, and despite the screen being moderately scratched I was able to sell it for $125. That’s over twice what Verizon was offering to buy this phone back when she upgraded. I was given a $40 cut for my efforts.
Totaling my earnings
Adding up the value of my three items, plus the cut I received from selling her two devices comes out to $335! That’s a crazy return for the amount of effort that this took. I’d estimate that I spent 3 cumulative hours getting these devices ready to sell, photographing them and creating listings, negotiating with potential buyers, and meeting to make the exchange. That’s over $100 per hour, more than twice what I make from my day job.
A little bit more than just the money
Other than the obvious monetary gains, there were several other benefits to this exercise, such as:
- De-cluttering these items from our cramped 800 square foot apartment.
- Mitigating some guilt over our contribution to the massive amounts of e-waste produced annually, in that someone else will extend the useful lifespan of these devices.
- Being forced to physically confront my past purchasing history rather than hiding these items at the bottom of a drawer or closet was a good reminder to be more mindful of my future consumption habits.
I’m not planning to do anything special with this $335 windfall. I briefly thought about spending it on something frivolous, as I’ve already saved over $25,000 so far this year, but that doesn’t sit right with the anti-consumption spirit of these past couple articles. In the end I exercised self-discipline and made the frugal, responsible decision to just save it. Every chunk of change saved is a few steps further along the journey to financial freedom.
Do you have any old, unused electronics sitting around your house? You might be surprised how much they’re worth, and how easy it is to sell them!