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Best Ways to Sell Your Old Phone
Posted on 13th Dec 2021 04:44:17 in Sell That Cell News, Guides, General

Just upgraded to a new cellphone or tablet and asking yourself "Where can I sell my old phone?" 15 years ago, your options were pretty limited, with Craigslist or eBay dominating the used cellphone industry. With the evolution of technology and the rise of ecommerce, several new businesses and marketplaces have emerged as alternatives to sell old used and broken personal electronic devices. Although all of these options attempt to provide the same end result (clearing out your junk drawers and putting cash in your pocket), they aren't all created equal. To save yourself some time, skip to the "Cellphone Buyback Sites" section at this bottom of this article to see why Sell That Cell is the easiest, safest, and most convenient way to sell your old device. 

Local Selling Apps

While selling your old used or broken electronics on local selling apps or Craigslist may seem like a quick, easy way to go about it, it's not always quite that simple. Once you go through the hassle of taking pictures, writing a description, and listing your phone; the battle has only just begun. Be prepared for a bombardment of low-ball offers and flaky buyers who promise to show up, but never do.

Before launching Sell That Cell, I was buying, fixing, and selling phones on all of the marketplace apps. I've sat in parking lots for up to 30 or 45 minutes at times waiting on buyers who continuously claim they are getting close and "it will be just another few minutes."

Even when your prospective buyer finally shows up, don't think for a second that their arrival means it is a done deal. Many buyers will immediately resort to haggling on the price even if they agreed on a number set before the meeting. If you do come to an agreement on the price, the game is still not over, because a good percentage of the time, your buyer will suddenly realize that they don't have enough cash and many times they happen to have just the amount they were trying to negotiate you down to earlier (what a coincidence). If you still haven't been beaten down enough to budge on the price, have fun waiting around another 20 minutes for your buyer to drive to an ATM to get more cash and return. 

Despite how annoying this all sounds, after 10 years of doing this, I was considering an hour long wait to sell a used or broken phone a pleasant scenario if it meant I had gotten out of there safely. Over the span of 10 years buying and selling phones locally, I was the victim of 13 attempted robberies. Most of them were teenagers who set a meeting to "buy a phone from me", but then decided grabbing the phone and running was a cheaper option. After having two guns pointed at me (one by a felon who was just released for murdering someone years ago) and being stabbed twice by a 14 year old, I decided it was no longer safe to sell meet up on local selling apps. 

Online Marketplace Apps

To avoid meeting up with strangers and risk assault and/or robbery, many people turn to popular online marketplace apps like eBay or Mercari as a safer, more convenient option. Although you may be removing the unreliable meetups and personal safety risks from the equation, selling to strangers on these apps is not always a walk in the park either. 

From buyers claiming they never received the item, to ones who use your phone for month then decide to return it, your transaction is open to chargebacks and returns for up to 60 days on some of these sites. A few years back I had a phone returned to me after the buyer had possession of it for almost a month. When I received the phone and inspected it, I was shocked to find it had been opened and several parts were missing (you could even see the rear camera was missing without even opening the phone). Despite the buyer's page clearly indicating that he repaired phones, eBay still sided with him when I called them to report the abuse of their returns process. These sites will always choose to side with their buyers, because they are the ones who are profitable!

If you are lucky enough to have a smooth transaction selling on one of these sites, you will still find that you didn't net nearly the amount you were originally hoping for. After paying for shipping, insurance, and fees to eBay or other marketplace, you may be losing up to 20% of your sale price. When selling a device for $300, that's up to $60 of your money that is gone!

Cellphone Buyback Sites

Now, we may be just a little biased (considering we are a cellphone buyback site), but in our opinion, the best way to sell your old used or broken cellphone is definitely to a phone buyback website. Not only is it safe, convenient, but you also pay no fees for selling your device and shipping is covered by the cellphone buyback company you are selling to. 

At the beginning of the article, we mentioned how all of the ways to sell your old phone are not created equal. Well, the same thing goes for all cellphone buyback websites. 

Here at Sell That Cell, we go above and beyond the competition when it comes to providing the best user experience for selling your old used or broken phone, tablet, and more. Not only do we already offer some of the highest prices in the industry, but we even have a price-match guarantee.

Send us a quote from a competitor of ours, and we will adjust your offer price to match their offer. If guaranteeing the most cash for your old device isn't enough, we also have the rest of the industry beat when it comes to convenience. We've checked dozens of competitors' sites and as far as we know, we are the only cellphone buyback company to offer USPS's paperless shipping labels with their Label Broker system.

No printer? No problem! When you accept a quoted offer with Sell That Cell, not only will we pay for the shipping label to send in your devices, but we will also provide a solution for the many of you who don't have convenient access to a printer to get your shipping label. In your order completion email, you will receive a traditional shipping label you can print out. You will also receive a QR code to save you from the hassle of tracking down one of these elusive printers. Simply package up your devices in a small box or padded envelope, and walk up to any United States Postal Service counter. Show the employee your QR code and they will print your label for you, put it on your package, and scan it in. It's that simple!

If the highest guaranteed price for your old device and the best shipping process in the industry aren't enough to convince you, we also offer the most options for you to get paid! We offer an industry-best 9 payment options. From traditional checks, bank transfers, and PayPal, to the convenient apps like Venmo and CashApp, we offer enough options to ensure everyone has access to be paid conveniently. 

What are you waiting for? Visit Sell That Cell to get a free quote in 2 minutes and guarantee that you have the best experience when selling your old used or broken phone, tablet, and more.