How To Sell Used Gadgets Online

3. Choose Your Site

Need some extra cash for holiday shopping? Want to upgrade for free? Follow our advice and to send your old junk out the door and pocket the profits.

There are a lot of places to sell your stuff online. While Craigslist will often net you less money, you don’t have to pay fees to list and selling can be a snap (with a few caveats). Craigslist isn’t just local anymore – people do check the listings in multiple cities, and setting up a way to mail your gadget is easy. Amazon has a service ("Sell your stuff")where you can send the company a bunch of your stuff and they’ll take care of everything for you – for a cut. eBay is still pretty simple to sell, and often you can get great prices. We sold one of our iPhone 3Gs to a guy in eastern Europe for more than the cost of a new iPhone 4 – and eBay is the best selling site that is heavily used by people overseas, so it’s worth it to list there. If you're selling something pretty specific, search for sell + the type of gadget you're selling and you should be able to find some options. Forums may be a good place to sell, especially for camera gear.

Craft Your Message

When crafting your description, keep it simple and short. Make sure your description includes pertinent keywords as well as descriptive adjectives. Include the important information first  -- things like condition, age, warranty, and leave the rest for the end. If you're posting to Craigslist, you're better off writing only a few sentences anyway. Amazon will only allow you a single sentence, so you don't have a choice. eBay lets you write more, and for them you may want to pound out the keywords for whatever gizmo you’re selling.

You may get lots of questions about your gadget. Just answer them, even if they ask things that have already been answered by your description. Expect that people won’t be able to understand the whole listing, and be patient with those emails. It’ll pay off in the end.