How to sell your old, unwanted tech: Talking Tech podcast

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Hey there, listeners. It's Brett Molina. Welcome back to Talking Tech. We all have old tech sitting around our house that were thinking, "What do we do with this?" You can recycle it. If, say, you're getting a new phone, maybe you want to trade in. It's just a question that always pops up from time to time. What do you do with your old device, especially if you get something brand new?

My colleague and Talking Tech's favorite Canadian, Marc Saltzman, talks about this in a column that you can read on Tech.USAToday.com. It's titled How and Where to Sell Your Old or Unwanted Tech Gear. He goes through a lot of different options and several different places you can go to. We'll break them down bit by bit.

One of the first ones, obviously, is online classifieds. So, you're thinking about sites like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, what have you. It's very local. So, the idea is you post them wherever it may be, someone gets in touch with you, and then you complete the transaction. So, say you're giving away an old phone, old TV, you connect, and then you make the transaction, and everything's good.

One thing Marc suggests, though, only accept cash. Don't accept a check. According to him, the buyer will want to check out what you're selling, as well. So, make sure everything's up-to-date. Make sure you have everything that you said would in your advertisement. If you said, "It comes with a charging cable and a charging block," make sure you can include all that, and just make sure everything is exactly the way it should be. That way, it's a very smooth process and nothing you really have to worry about. He also has some great tips on how to get the most out of your online classified if you want to make sure a lot of people see it and you want to get the best deal that you can for what you're selling.

Another option of course is the online marketplace. eBay is the one that obviously jumps right out, really easy to sell and buy stuff, works out great, too, especially if you have a device. This happened to be with video games, where when you're trying to trade in video games, you usually get a much lower price. What's nice about somewhere like eBay is the buyer and seller win because the buyer is going to get that game at a much cheaper price than they would, say, going to a store where they might have used games, but they're still pretty pricey. Then, for the seller, they're going to get a lot more money back than they would if they try to trade it in at a bigger store. So, there's a lot of benefit there.

There are also some other apps and services that offer a lot of opportunities, trade-in and sell your stuff. Decluttr, Decluttr, excuse me, and Gazelle, they work great for mobile phones. It's an example of another place you can go to if you're dealing with your smartphone and you want to trade it in for money. There's also a site called MPB, where sellers will fill out a form and you can get a quote on things, like photography gear, videography gear, and then it just gives you a better sense of that. Also, for those sites like Decluttr, you can use other devices, as well. So, if you have an older computer, if you have an older game console, you can sell them that way, as well.

You can check out more of Marc's tips in his column on Tech.USAToday.com. Listeners, let's hear from you. Do you have any comments, questions, or show ideas, any tech problems you want us to try to address? You can find me on Twitter, @BrettMolina23. Please, don't forget to subscribe and rate us or leave for review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, anywhere you get your podcast. You've been listening to Talking Tech. We'll be back tomorrow with another quick hit from the world of tech.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How to sell your old, unwanted tech: Talking Tech podcast