If you have a brand new iPhone and you’re ready to get rid of your old one, don’t throw it away. Sell your phone. Selling your iPhone is a great way to make a few bucks on something that is no longer useful to you. If you’re wondering where can I sell my iPhone, you have plenty of options.
Why You Should Sell Your iPhone
You should absolutely sell your iPhone whether it’s an old one that you’ve had in the closet for years, stuffed away in a kitchen drawer, or it’s simply the phone you are replacing right now. You paid good money for that phone through your monthly phone bill and now that you’ve paid it off it’s your property and you can get a small return on your investment by selling online. There are plenty of people out there who will happily accept older versions, damaged versions for parts, and anything in between.
Should You Sell Your iPhone Online?
Selling Online vs. Offline
You can sell your iPhone offline or online, but knowing how to sell your iPhone for the most amount of money is important.. There are plenty of tiny stores in every major city that accepts old phones. You can go to Walmarts throughout the country and deposit your phone into a vending machine in exchange for cash. But when you sell offline you don’t have as many varieties or options at your disposal. You have no way of knowing how much your phone is actually worth and, in reality, if you sell offline it doesn’t matter how much it could be worth because you are going to get paid whatever that vending machine stipulates or whatever that small-time business owner offers you.
When you sell online you have a multitude of sites you can use and you don’t have to use just one. You can use all of them at once or start with one and if you don’t have success, move to the next, and so on. You also can make a great deal more money if you choose to go online because you can verify how much your phone is worth and then sell it for that price.
Option #1: Sell Your iPhone on eBay
How to Sell a Device on eBay
eBay is pretty simple. If you want to figure out how to sell your iPhone online, this is usually the first place people think of for selling goods. You have to sign up for an account that requires the standard verification and then linking of whatever financial account you were going to use which for most people is PayPal. Then you determine how you are going to accept the payment which, again, is usually PayPal.
Once that’s done you have to take pictures of the phone you are selling and write a short description. you’ll have to determine the asking price which you can do very easily by reviewing previously sold iPhones so that you have some idea of how much people are willing to pay. Then you decide whether you will charge for shipping for insurance and add any other details such as whether you are going to have the item up for auction where people bid on it which runs the risk of selling at a lower price or whether you will sell it at a flat rate. Then you just sit back and wait.
Pros of Selling on eBay
eBay is very useful as a result of the sold items filter. Even if you don’t end up using them as your final third-party to sell your phone, this tool will let you search what items were sold and for what price which allows you to figure out who has sold iPhones similar to yours both in the cage and the condition. Then you can figure out how much they actually sold for, not how much people asked for. This really helps you figure out a fair price for your item.
If your phone is in anything other than mint condition, this is going to be the best place for you because there are plenty of DIY wires who want broken components just for the parts so you can sell broken iPhones with a lot of success and get something that you would otherwise throw in the garbage for $50 or even $100 which, compared to nothing is a great deal.
Given the popularity of eBay, it has the widest audience so you’ll reach the highest number of people if you post anything for sale here.
Cons of Selling on eBay
eBay will take 10% of your sales. If you are selling your used iPhone for a few hundred dollars you could lose upwards of $100. Being aware of that you can always come back to this by factoring in the 10% fee when you list your item so that you can determine how much you will legitimately take home, not how much it will sell for.
Policies protect the buyers against scams much more than the sellers. eBay is not very good at protecting sellers. If you sell your phone to a scammer who makes a claim a few days after purchasing that the phone is damaged or it’s not as it was described, eBay might force you to accept a return request and still charge you a fee for the listing and the sale. There are plenty of stories out there where people are scammed in such a fashion and when they receive the “returned” purchased iPhone it’s something like a cheap Samsung or Nokia from the early 2000s. Of course this is a very small percentage of the time. Most buyers are completely legitimate but there is that one in a million chance that if something goes wrong even if it’s not something as extreme as this, eBay will protect the buyer before they protect the seller.
Option #2: Sell Your iPhone on Craigslist
How to Sell a Device on Craigslist
Craigslist is a very similar set up whereby you post information about the phone including pictures. The more details you can provide, the higher the chances you will have people interested in your phone.
With this, it’s not as structured as eBay so there’s more flexibility in terms of how you choose to go about selling the product. This means you can have people email you if you want to communicate via email and then you set up with that individual how you’re going to ship the product in exchange payment or you can choose to have them text you or call you.
Pros of Selling on Craigslist
There is no fee because it’s a free resource. You can literally sell your phone and not pay a listing fee or a selling fee like you would with eBay.
You have more flexibility in terms of how you want to interact with people and what payment methods you want to except which can theoretically fall into the pros or cons category here based on your perspective.
Cons of Selling on Craigslist
If you are selling locally you might have to arrange to meet the buyer rather than ship your iPhone to them and that brings with it some safety concerns so it’s always important to let people know where you’re going and who you’re going to meet, and to meet someplace public.
You have to decide the type of payment you will accept from sellers which, if you’re selling in person obviously cash is best and you can accept cashier’s checks as well.
There are some scams on Craigslist just the same as there are on eBay so anything that involves Western Union should be avoided absolutely. Anything where someone says to ship them the phone after which they’ll ship you the money is to be avoided as well. The downside here is that while there is still a risk, there’s not nearly the level of protection, arguably, that one would get because it’s not a company that monitors and facilitates the exchange it’s just a free site you can use to post and sell.
Option #3: Sell Your iPhone to a Buyback Site
How to Sell Your Phone to a Buyback Site
There are lots of buyback sites out there including things like Gazelle, Decluttr, GadgetGone, and OCBuyBack. They vary ever-so-slightly but in essence, you give them information about your phone, fill out the form and they send you a quote. If you accept the instant quote, the amount of money they are willing to pay you, you ship them your phone and then they send you money through PayPal or a check in the mail. Some of them will accept phones in a variety of conditions even broken iPhones. Obviously the amount of money you get offered for broken iPhones is lower than a working phone. With any of these buyback sites, you can get money within a matter of days and shipping is included.
Pros of Using a Buyback Program
You get money fast. You literally just have to fill out their respective form with details pertaining to your phone and they get you a quote instantly. You don’t have to wait around like you would with Craigslist or eBay.
With some buyback programs, you can sell broken phones and get money where you would have otherwise received nothing.
You don’t have to sign up for programs or create an account in order to sell your product. You also don’t have to take pictures of it and upload additional information.
There is no interaction with buyers, no communication back and forth and no need to regularly check on eBay inbox.
Cons of Using a Buyback Program
You only get one offer. There is no flexibility here and you can’t wait for a different offer or haggle the price. You also give them limited details about the phone and then wait for the offer which in some situations might cause them to give you a lower offer than you deserve. You could theoretically make more money using other sites if you can find people who are willing to pay more money. Again, you can always use eBay to figure out what your phone is selling for on average before you use a buyback program and then compare the offers you are receiving from that program.
The Best Way to Sell Your iPhone Online
With so many options available the best way to sell your iPhone online is really contingent upon what your goal is. If your phone is relatively new and you want to sell it for top dollar, the best way is going to be eBay or Craigslist. If you don’t want to interact with people and you prefer having fast money right now, using a buyback program will be most beneficial for you.
Realistically though, iPhone Buyback Companies are the only option for selling iPhones that use the least amount of your time, come with the least amount of hassle, and give you the biggest bang for your buck. They cover the shipping labels in most cases so you don’t have to figure out how to ship your package or take it to a shipping center going out of your way. They also give you a fair rate based on the condition of your phone so you don’t have to do any heavy research and barter with people in order to get that fair rate. More importantly they cut out any of that middleman risk including fees that companies might take like eBay or the risk of scams from alternative sites, and you don’t have to deal with going back and forth with people or running the risk of a scam. You literally just fill out a form, get a quote, and send your phone in exchange for money. The whole process can be done in a matter of days.
