Many of you very likely received a new gadget yesterday for Christmas and if you’re a geek like me you have already got that gadget set up, installed, updated and functioning well.
Where is the gadget it replaced? Mine go into either a drawer or box along with all its cords and then just sits there.
Well have you ever thought about recycling that old gadget and getting a few bucks back for it?
I have done this recycle process twice. The first time I sent in an old cell phone that was working and the feedback I received from the company who took it for recycling was that it was not working when it arrived. My only option was to leave it with them or pay to have it returned to me after I had already paid to send it in to them. I opted to leave it there and am still not convinced that it wasn’t working. I now consider that a lesson learned – use a reliable company to do my turn in and recycling.
My second attempt at recycling gadgets and getting a few dollars for them is currently in progress.
I am using one of the newest players in this arena, NewEgg, who recently announced a new program that they have put in place to recommerce your old gadgets. They are not running it directly but it is obviously a major partnership for them as their logo is all over the site hosting the services.
The program is being run by a company called Gazelle.com and you can visit the site at http://newegg.gazelle.com
The gadgets they are looking for include:
- Cell Phones
- Video Games
- Movies
- Laptops
- MP3 Players
- Digital Cameras
- PDA’s
- Gaming Consoles
- GPS Devices
The process to send them your gadgets is very simple and is just about like shopping at your favorite tech website.
Start with a search for your item then click on the result that matches what you want to trade in:
Once you click on the results for your item you get this screen and need to answer a few questions to help evaluate your items value:
Once you have answered all the questions then click the Calculate button to see how much they are willing to offer you for your gadget based on your answers about it.
If you like the result you get then add the item to your box, which is also known as a shopping cart, to move on to the check out process:
As you can see here they will pay for shipping and once you have checked out they will email you a shipping label to attach to the box you pack up. In some situations they will even send you a box ready to send back to them with your items in it.
When Gazelle gets your items they will inspect them and if everything is good to go with the initial offer they will send you your money as a NewEgg Gift Card. If for some reason they disagree with your assessment of the items and they intend to lower the offer they will contact you by email and give you a chance to either accept the change or refuse it and have your item sent back to you.
I am about to ship my first box of gadgets to Gazelle using this new service so I will let you know those results when the transaction wraps up.
By the way, if they are not offering any cash value for an item you may have, they are willing to accept it for recycling and you can send those items in the same box as your other items.
The experience so far has been good and I am very interested in seeing what they say about the gadgets once they receive them.
Have you ever successfully cashed in an item using a service? How did that process go?