Selling a used iPad - need tips

November 29, 2012 6:46 PM

How should I price a used iPad 1?

I want to sell my iPad 1, 16 gigs, just wifi, and I'm confused. Amazon will do a trade-in for around $120. Same with gazelle.com. But then I go on ebay and I see things like this, where the same model as mine sold for $610. Should I sell mine on ebay or is there something weird going on there (the selling price was *too* high).

And what on earth is this about??

I put an ad on my local (NYC) Craig's List and two people responded, but when I answered them (just to give them contact info -- they already had the item details and price) they never contacted me again.

Any tips here? thanks.

posted by DMelanogaster to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

Hmm. I'm really interested to hear what the explanation for your first link is. I wonder, honestly, whether that might be a front for some kind of money laundering.

The second one, I can speculate: that device hasn't sold, and somebody's out there speculating for a sucker. The search you want to look at for a realistic idea is this one: all completed listings. Green prices sold, red prices didn't. So, you're looking at a realistic re-sell price of $250 or so, at which point you have to decide whether the hassle of selling on EBay or Craigslist is worth the $130 to you.
posted by Apropos of Something at 6:58 PM on November 29, 2012

The first one is possibly the buyer setting up the seller for an overpayment-scam. The second, yes, either fishing for a sucker or a typing error when making the listing. Apropos is right, just look at the average of the green completed listings for a week/month and ignore outliers like the ones linked in the question.

Selling on Craigslist will often involve time wasters, non-serious askers, browsers, people who don't show up and occasionally people who show up to complete the transaction but "oops, I only brought $180 and left my wallet, will you accept that?"
posted by K.P. at 7:10 PM on November 29, 2012

Best answer: Don't worry about wacky auctions that are obviously inflated. Did you see what the going rate on eBay is for your iPad? I did - it's about $220.

An eBay auction will get you substantially more than gazelle and other outfits that offer to take used tech off my hands. In December 2010, I got an iPhone 4 to replace my iPhone 3G. The store was offering $75 on trade-in but I decided to take my chances online. I got about $180 for that 3G at a time when it was already two generations old. I was pretty surprised, but that was about the going rate on eBay at the time for my model.

Just use eBay. You'll do better than gazelle and similar outfits.
posted by Tanizaki at 7:36 PM on November 29, 2012

Gazelle is sooo easy I've used them a couple of times. I've generally had good luck with Craigslist NYC and less good with eBay. Basically the more annoying the process the more money you will make. Just ask yourself what your time and aggravation is worth to you.
posted by lackutrol at 9:40 PM on November 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

I attempted to sell an iPad on eBay and every time I listed it I quickly got a bunch of ridiculously high bids from spammers. I couldn't figure out any good way to deal with it, so in each case by the end of the auction I had to cancel and start over. Totally annoying.

I ended up going through Gazelle or similar real company -- it was such a pain to try to deal with eBay.
posted by high5ths at 10:42 PM on November 29, 2012

Mod note: Switched tinyurls for regular urls; info here.
posted by taz (staff) at 3:26 AM on November 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: "I quickly got a bunch of ridiculously high bids from spammers. " -- high5ths, could you explain what you mean? This is just the kind of thing on eBay that I don't understand. If they bid what they bid and "won," wouldn't they have to pay for the item? Or -- what is the spam about? what are they accomplishing by doing this?

thanks
posted by DMelanogaster at 5:25 AM on November 30, 2012

"I quickly got a bunch of ridiculously high bids from spammers. " -- high5ths, could you explain what you mean? This is just the kind of thing on eBay that I don't understand. If they bid what they bid and "won," wouldn't they have to pay for the item? Or -- what is the spam about? what are they accomplishing by doing this?

I think the plan is either:
a) Paying you with stolen/fraudulent funds (stolen credit card, hacked Paypal account, forged cheque or other fraudulent money transfer), so they get your iPad at no cost to them.
or
b) They will buy the iPad for, say $1,000 and "accidentally" send you $2,000. They then go "oh sorry, my bad, can you send the extra $1,000 back?". Then you send them the $1,000, and then later on their payment is found to be fraudulent (as above - usually a forged cheque or Western Union transfer) and the $2,000 that was originally transferred into your account is taken out. The scammer now has the $1,000 that you sent them (and your iPad!).
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:34 AM on November 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: ok so if I sell this on ebay I will do Buy It Now for $250 and see what happens, and, of course, I must add shipping. I am thinking USPS, adding on the shipping costs - is this how it's done or is the US Postal Service not a good way to ship electronics? sorry if I am veering into other areas --
posted by DMelanogaster at 11:18 AM on November 30, 2012

The way to avoid scammers (like the ones mentioned above) is to only accept PayPal. They do ding you a small percentage (something on the order of 2%) but it is worth the safety.

Add on whatever shipping costs you can estimate, you can pad it a little, and USPS will work for electronics, however for a $250 item it may be better to use something like 2nd day UPS or 2nd day FedEx, and bake the higher price into your shipping charge.

(I personally haven't shipped high-value electronics via USPS myself, but have gone as high as an $80 item without a problem.)
posted by scooterdog at 7:54 PM on November 30, 2012