Most households these days have stacks of unused and/or obsolete computer equipment collecting dust in the basement or tucked away in a closet, doing little more than taking up valuable storage space.
Many people are unaware that there is a booming market for used tech items on ebay.
As I mentioned in this post, as long as it still works (and sometimes even if it doesn’t) there are most likely a number of buyers who are eager to bid on your old gear regardless of its “age” in either years or technology.
Here are seven tips for selling your unused/obsolete computer items for top dollar on ebay:
1 – Old computers are almost always worth more when stripped down and sold part-by-part. While a dusty old PC with an antiquated CPU, 512 Megs of RAM and a 200 Megabyte hard drive would bring little-or-nothing if sold as-is, selling all of its parts individually might net a pretty decent sum.
2 – Using a can of compressed air, remove any dust from the parts and then take a couple of good, clear photos to post along with the ebay listing. Be sure to include any documentation and software that pertains to each part in the photo as well.
3 – Use a disk erase utility to completely erase the contents from the hard drive(s) before listing it for sale. There are plenty of these tools available, several of which come with the awesome Hiren’s BootCD.
4 – Write a complete and detailed sales listing for each item. Be sure to include any known defects such as scratches or dents. Always be completely accurate and truthful when writing your item descriptions in order to avoid customer dissatisfaction and negative feedback.
5 – Package the parts, documentation and software media securely for shipment. Handle items that are sensitive to electrostatic discharge carefully and either place them in anti-static bags or wrap them up in aluminum foil.
6 – List each item with an extremely low starting bid with no reserve, then post a shipping and handling charge that is high enough to ensure that you don’t actually lose money if the selling price remains low. A low opening bid will encourage bidders to take a chance on the item, and hopefully a bidding war will ensue that results in a favorable selling price.
7 – Ship the item promptly upon receipt of payment in order to encourage repeat bidders on your future auctions and to build a solid feedback profile.
Bottom line: You don’t have to let your house remain cluttered with stacks of old computer equipment. Strip it down, clean it up, photograph it, list it…and sell it!
Bonus tip: Before you sell that old dusty PC you might want to consider breathing new life into it replacing its Windows operating system with Linux!