An Easy Way to Sell Your Unwanted Gadgets

I'll admit that I'm addicted to gadgets. I can't seem to go for more than a year without replacing my existing cell phone, digital camera, or video camera with a newer, smaller, shinier, faster model. What do I do with my old gadgets? Sometimes I give them to friends, my kids, or to charity. But even so, quite a few have piled up in a my desk drawer. I was wondering what to do with all these unwanted gadgets. I considered selling them on eBay, as I have in the past, but then I heard about Gazelle.com, a Web site that buys your gadgets from you.

The entire process was painless. I started by entering the names of my gadgets into the search form. As I typed, Gazelle offered suggestions for the name and model of the item. After selecting the correct model, Gazelle then asked me about the condition of the item. I chose "good" for all of them. Then, Gazelle presented me with a cash offer. It offered $268.60 for a Google Nexus One phone, $15.75 for a Flip Video Mino Digital Camcorder, $38.85 for a Flip Video UltraHD Camcorder, and $133 for an Android phone. I accepted these offers. (I turned down Gazelle's offer of $52 for an 8GB iPod Touch and $72 for an 8GB iPhone 2G because my kids can use these to watch movies and play games).

Once we agreed on the prices, Gazelle gave me a link to a page with a FedEx label. I filled a cardboard box with the gadgets (wrapping each in plenty of packing material). I taped the FedEx mailing label to the box and dropped it off at the local FedEx store. About a week later, Gazelle sent me an email telling me that everything I'd sent looked fine, with the exception of the Android phone -- I'd provided the incorrect model number, and it was worth $77.70, not $133. I emailed them back to let them know I would accept the new, lower price.

A few days later, I got a check in the mail for $401.10.

So you may wonder, as I did, what does Gazelle.com do with the stuff it buys? First of all, it erases all the personal information stored on each gadget (I recommend that you remove the SIM cards from phones, and format the memory in all the devices before sending them in, just to make sure). Gazelle then resells the items "through a variety of retail and wholesale outlets." Do they sell them for more than they paid? I'm sure they do. That's OK, they deserve to make some money for the hassle of listing and selling the items. From now on, my old gadgets are going to Gazelle.

Mark Frauenfelder – Editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine and the founder of the popular Boing Boing weblog, Mark was an editor at Wired from 1993-1998 and is the founding editor of Wired Online.