Your trade in experience at the Apple store, was what they gave you reasonable?

[signuphere]

I'm guessing they will give you almost nothing like at a car dealer with your trade-in, so I get that part (maximizing profit on the resale, or buy low, sell high). They don't take current model trades (i asked) so say, you have an M3, forget about it and of course if it's really old, but even functioning, they give you nothing (e.g., mid '11 iMac, $0). Oh, he also mentioned that even one with say up-spec'd to 24 GB of RAM, that won't translate to more money to you.

Having said all that, what did you get for your trade and how old was your item?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

You can look up the max value at https://www.apple.com/shop/trade-in

 

[gary77]

In my experience Apple trade values are lower than competitors the trade off is you only give them just the device rather everything that was included originally both times I did a trade in I only have them the device (iPad and Apple Watch) and not the cables or plugs that came with it to me it’s worth it as saves me buying replacement cables

The most recent trade I did was the Apple Watch S8 and got £170 in credit

 

[cateye]

The reason to trade in with Apple is the ease of the process: It's pretty frictionless. If you do it in person at an Apple Store, even more so. However, as others have said, you're likely to get a lower value than the broader market, especially for Macs.

For other items, sometimes Apple is reasonably competitive. I recently traded in an Apple Watch Series 6 and Apple offered me a somewhat astonishing $130, which was $25 higher than anywhere else I could find at the time, and close to what they're fetching on the used market. Conversely, I recently dumped a 2017 27" iMac I didn't need—Apple would only give me $150 for it, but was able to sell it to Mac Of All Trades for $365.

Obviously, if the idea is to maximize what you're getting for the device, selling it on Swappa or Facebook Marketplace will always beat what a reseller or recycler will give you, but not everyone wants to deal with the variability or time commitment of that process, myself included.

TL, DR: I often take Apple's offer, even though they're generally not that great, because the process requires a minimal investment of time and effort.

 

[HDFan]

However, as others have said, you're likely to get a lower value than the broader market, especially for Macs.

Depends on the product. Sold a Mac Studio for $3600 more than Apple was offering on eBay. Sold a iMac Pro for a decent price of $3900, so it varies. As above in general you can sell for more with 3rd parties but at greater risk and convenience.