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Please Give Me Advice For Selling An Old MacBook Pro

M

Mirabella

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 27, 2010
198
0
In a few days, when my new MBP arrives, I want to sell my old one. I've never sold one, nor a similar sort of item, before.

For those of you who are veterans at selling old ones, please give me some advice. Where is the best place to advertise, in order to sell it? Craigslist? Ebay? Somewhere else? What should an ad for one look like? (Can you show me an old ad of yours?) Is it best to sell it locally, in person? Or does that not really matter? What kind of precautions, if any, do you take? How is a good way to determine a sensible asking price for it? (Note: I'm looking looking for a price check; I'm looking to find out how you figured out what prices you set your sales at.) If there's anything else I should know, but in my ignorance failed to ask, please inform me.

Thank you.
 
Mirabella said:
In a few days, when my new MBP arrives, I want to sell my old one. I've never sold one, nor a similar sort of item, before.

For those of you who are veterans at selling old ones, please give me some advice. Where is the best place to advertise, in order to sell it? Craigslist? Ebay? Somewhere else? What should an ad for one look like? (Can you show me an old ad of yours?) Is it best to sell it locally, in person? Or does that not really matter? What kind of precautions, if any, do you take? How is a good way to determine a sensible asking price for it? If there's anything else I should know, but in my ignorance failed to ask, please inform me.

Thank you.
Click to expand...

I am not a Veteran at selling Macs online. But I can give my suggestion :)

I have not sold anything via eBay and hence not very sure of the following. You make want to have some good seller feedback for a potential buyer to trust and buy from you.

Macrumors Marketplace is a good place to sell but you need to have 250 posts or more to access it.

I sold my late 2006 model MBP (Bought in April 2007) on Craigslist last week. I can speak about Craigslist as I have sold my 1st Gen iPhone and a few other items also on it. Craigslist has the below page telling how to avoid potential scams. You should check it out.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams

I have always got emails once I post an ad in Craigslist that they like my product very much and want me to ship via USPS/Fedex/UPS. They would offer a couple of hundred bucks extra to cover postage fees. I right away ignore these. I also sell only locally and ask for cash. If the item I am selling is small, I meet up with the person in a common public place.

Below is the ad I posted on Craigslist for my MBP. I listed the item on Thursday morning and it got sold by evening.

5" 2.16 GHz Macbook Pro in excellent condition for sale - $700

I am selling my 15" Macbook Pro. The laptop is in excellent condition. There is not even a single scratch or a single dent. It is running the latest OS Snow Leopard. I have attached a few photos (attached 4 nice pics). Below are the technical specifications.

2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo Processor
1 GB RAM
120 GB HDD
15" Matte Screen
Running Snow Leopard

The laptop is fully loaded with the useful software titles. Below are some of them.

Microsoft Office 2008 Suite - Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Entourage, Messenger.
Adobe CS4 Extended
iPhoto 2009
1Password
Quicksilver

It also has all major media players and other good applications loaded.

The Laptop comes with the original box, charger, OS disc, etc. I can also throw in a 15" Incase Neoprene sleeve.

Asking - $700 (OBO).
Call xxx xxx xxxx

I dont know your MBP model and specs and hence cannot suggest a good selling price.
 
Thank you very much for your answer. I'm thinking I will try for selling it locally through Craigslist, in cash, in a public place.

vijay007 said:
I dont know your MBP model and specs and hence cannot suggest a good selling price.
Click to expand...

I've been informed by the moderator that Price check threads are not allowed, so I've edited out that content. Please let's stick to the other questions and discussion, and not price-checking. Thanks.
 
I am in a somewhat same situation as the OP. Any recommendations for the asking price? Specs below:

Macbook Pro (Late 2007 Edition)
2.6ghz Processor (BTO Upgrade)
4GB of RAM (OWC Upgrade)
200GB 7200 RPM HDD (BTO Upgrade)
Matte Screen
OS X 10.6.3

There are no dents and no scratches (except for a some wear and tear on the release button). Kept in good condition.

So I have no real clue what to ask for it. I would rather sell this on CL than on Ebay but either option is viable. Also, I don't know if it would be good or not to post (partial) battery information (It has 49 cycles (but it is the original battery with 83% battery health)).
 
eng42ine said:
:apple: > About This Mac > More Info > Power

Thats how I check how many cycles I've put the battery through, don't know about the actual battery health. Mine just says Cycle Count: 15 Condition: Normal
Click to expand...

Thanks. I just checked mine. It says Cycle Count: 44, Condition: Good.
 
I am honestly not hawking my wares (eBay is way too efficient for me to have to worry about that!), but I happen to have my old MBP listed on eBay right now if you want to see how I'm selling mine. This is the second time I've had to list it because the first winner had some bad family situation come up, but per that auction, and in watching other auctions for similar MBPs I am really impressed with how these things hold their value. Almost $1k (my last auction ended at $985) is really impressive for an almost 4 year old laptop. Try that with an HP or Dell!!

So, as you might imagine, I highly recommend trying eBay unless you don't want to deal with shipping. I think it's worth it though, to tap into a much larger market.
 
I personally have a lot of experience selling expensive electronics online. My advise is this ... eBay is great if you have strong feedback numbers. Based on the fact you are asking for advise to sell I am going to go out on a limb and assume you don't. Also the eBay / pay pal fees add up on $500 plus items! Also the whole packing and shipping thing is a burden even for a veteran like me.

My advise is sell it locally on Craigslist if you are in a major city / Craigslist area. Meet at a public location and only take cash! This sounds weird but check each bill over (hold the hundreds up to light to see Ben Franklins face - there are $5 being washed and printed as 100's!).

When I post ads for Apple anything I DO NOT put an email address to reply to ... i list only a cell number. This does several things ... Builds confidence in your potential buyer that you ad is real and your not a scam ad ... It will keep the Nigerian Scam types away from you with their I will pay more if you take a cashiers cheque etc etc etc ... Also it will speed up the selling process as someone will call and you can cut out several back and forth emails and answer all their questions in one shot!

I hope this helps you!

Also hope you securely wiped your old computer with a min of a single pass wipe!
 
JodyK, you probably have far more experience than I selling on eBay, but I'll point out that the eBay fee (if you don't use Buy it Now) is maxed at $50, not including the nominal listing fee. But then, yes, almost 3% to PayPal (i.e. eBay again!) for accepting payment via that method. So, in my case, it'll be in the neighborhood of $85, assuming a sale price of around $985, er, again.

So, if not in a hurry, maybe the solution for getting maximum return is to first try listing on Craigslist for around what eBay is averaging, and then turn to eBay if the local market just isn't holding true.
 
JodyK said:
...there are $5 being washed and printed as 100's!).
Click to expand...

Read a Jack Reacher book a while ago where they were doing that. I've had a guy try to give me a scrunched up piece of paper with a crap scan and print £20 note on it. It was the wrong size, cheap paper and the printer was running out of ink. Ridiculous!
 
Thank you all, very much.

Jody, I don't have any feedback on Ebay, but my brother has strong feedback on Ebay,and I could sell it through his account, if I wanted. Nonetheless, it sounds like trying CL first, for a local sale in cash in a public place, would be preferable. That's wild to hear about such attempts at counterfeiting. I'll do my best to be on the look out for scamming.

Thanks, again.
 
i sell stuff on ebay quite a bit. I think i have about 30 feedback, all perfect. i've sold about 5 items in the $200 range. Its stressful. Don't ship international. I did that once for a a $200 pair of earphones. It was very stressful. Paypal is on the buyers side, not the sellers side no matter what they say. (it is very hard to win a paypal battle.) Use craigslist if you can. Its far cheaper
 
I am going to sell my MacBook once I upgrade to a MBP, so I am curious in the same thing (selling old equipment).

Has anyone sold to PowerMax? They gave me a good quote based on my specs and the physical condition of my machine. They said they don't pay until they get the machine, check it out, and do some other stuff, which made me leery.
 
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