Thursday, October 6, 2011

Re-Selling/Recycling Gently-Used Electronics

I recently wrote about how to go about recycling non-working electronic devices (bring them to Best Buy). Today, I’d like to tell you about a number of sites that will pay you to turn in and recycle “gently-used” electronic devices. (With a hat tip to Joe Riess, president of NSCS, who told me about them.)

There are several online sites (and even some that are in local stores) that will pay you for your gently-used electronic devices. Among these are Gazelle and NextWorth.

In researching these sites, I found an article about them that was published last February in USA Today. Let me quote from that article:

“Major retailers, such as Target (TGT) and RadioShack (RSH), are buying back products from customers in-store and offering credit toward purchase of new products. The retailers are working with a handful of websites that hunt for used gadgets, including NextWorth, Gazelle and CExchange. And there are dozens of other sites looking to snap up old gear, such as cashforiphones.com or buymytronics.com.

Buying back products from customers "drives traffic into the store, and helps tell that we're a place that can provide value above what you could find at another retailer," says Rob Dunlap, RadioShack's divisional merchandise manager. Target works with Boston-based NextWorth to handle the re-selling of the products that are traded in. NextWorth then turns to traditional online outlets such as eBay (EBAY) and Amazon (AMZN) to re-sell the gear. There's a robust market for those used goods.

The reason is simple. Because the full cost of a 16-gigabyte iPhone 4 is usually subsidized by the carrier, the smartphone costs far more than the $199.99 that most customers pay with a two-year contract. A recent iPhone 4 is worth more than $300 to $350 to resellers, who can turn around and sell it again for $400 or so, says NextWorth founder Dave Chen.

Gazelle, which is also based in Boston, buys back products from consumers on its site and at Walmart.com, Costco, Office Depot, Kmart and Sears, with branded retailer.gazelle.com sites.

It, too, plans to expand to an in-store operation with one of its brick-and-mortar retail partners this year. It declined to say which partner, although it had two in-store trials with Office Depot last year.”


So, if you have an electronic device that is still working, but out-of-date, and you want to recover part of its value, look into a few of the above sites that I have mentioned.

How Does it Work?

In the case of Gazelle, the online site describes the company as a “re-Commerce Service” that helps you sell and recycle your used electronics. Whether you want to sell a cell phone, laptop, or any other of the more than 250,000 products they accept, Gazelle can help.

What Happens When I Sell My Electronics?

Once received, your used cell phones and other used electronics are inspected to make sure their condition matches your evaluation. Then they send your payment. The process takes about a week once they receive your box.

What Does Gazelle Do With My Used Electronics?

At Gazelle, we believe electronics recycling begins with reuse. We extend the lives of used electronics by selling them through retail and wholesale outlets. Items without value are responsibly recycled.


NextWorth works in a similar fashion.

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