The fortunate and equally unfortunate aspect of owning a smartphone is that they get (sort of) redundant pretty quickly, compared to most other gadgets around. Unfortunate, as they are a big salary drain every 2 years. Fortunate, as we have more than a master-servant equation with our phones and seem to derive the same pleasure from getting a new phone as getting into a new romantic relationship. In most cases, the phone that we break up with isn’t exactly broken, and can be given away for a fraction of its original price. The tricky part though is getting the greatest possible buck for the phone, given the time and energy one is willing to invest in figuring out the different avenues of selling a used phone and what price they can offer. In truth, there are 4 different alleys down which you can dispense off your old boyfriend phone:
Use the Trade-In programs
The easiest and most convenient way is to opt for the trade-in programs offered by the big boys of the phone resale game: Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Walmart, Verizon, BestBuy, GameStop, and a few others. These companies evaluate the condition of your phone and offer you suitable (in their eyes) compensation, mostly credit to buy something from them in the future. As hassle-free as these deals are for you to get rid of your old phone, you will certainly not get the best deal that you possibly can.
Head to a phone reseller website
Quite a few companies exist that deal exclusively in the resale of old gadgets and electronic items- uSell, SellCell, Glyde, Decluttr, Gazelle, to name a few. They get you to take pictures of their phone and send it to them for evaluation, or have you run their algorithm through your phone to determine its functional fitness. Either ways, they estimate the overall quality of your phone and then quote a price. Once you agree to that, you send them your phone and they pay you the price, in cash or electronically. Some companies pay upfront and some pay as your phone finds its buyer. Be assured of the fact that you will always get a financially better deal here than the trade-in method.
Sell it yourself
If your phone has always been dealt with delicately and you find the price quoted by any company to be quite pinched for a phone in such a pristine condition, then you can always go ahead and sell it yourself, independently, on e-commerce platforms such as eBay, Craigslist, Bonanza, Amazon. The potential downside to doing things this way is that the headache of completing this transaction, from start to finish, is yours. That includes checking the authenticity of potential buyers, getting the phone across etc.
Head to Pawn Shops
Lastly, you can head to pawn shops in the neighborhood and ask for the estimated price there, which can give you a good idea of the current price going around in the market. In case you do find the price to your liking, you can encash your phone then and there.
Tips and Tricks:
1. Timing
The market value of every smartphone follows a set pattern that is influenced by the coming and going of competitors, old and new. Selling the phone at its highest can be easy if you get the timing right. The easiest option is to sell it just before the next iteration of the parent company is about to be released, possibly by a month.
2. Avoid Scams
If you plan on selling your phone yourself, be as vigilant as you possibly can be, for fraudsters abound the resale market. Get your payment in full before you send out the phone.
3. Clean the Phone
Take out all your personal data and clean out the phone, inside out. All of us have sensitive personal information stored in our phones, from financial details to private messages, with and without our knowing it. Such information, if it falls in the wrong hands, could do paramount damage to you.