Author Topic: Where to sell old video games?  (Read 3989 times)

Morning Glory

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Where to sell old video games?
« on: February 03, 2018, 03:18:52 PM »
I cleaned out a closet and found an old Nintendo system and a bunch of games that hadn't been unpacked in our last 3 moves. I cleaned them up a bit and found out the system and most of the games still work. Yes, I need a face punch for not getting rid of them years ago, but a quick search revealed that some are worth $10-$20 each now so  my question is where to sell? Has anyone used Price Charting to sell games? How does it compare to eBay? I have never sold on eBay and I have heard it is difficult to get started. Any other websites you can recommend?

Syonyk

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Re: Where to sell old video games?
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2018, 09:04:39 PM »
I know some individuals who might be interested, if you had a list of games.  No idea what they'd pay, but they'd likely buy the whole lot at once for a decent price.

bender

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Re: Where to sell old video games?
« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2018, 09:31:39 PM »
I sold all my old video games on EBay.  It was quite easy. 

1.  Research your product to see if it has value.  Maybe set a minimum $10 recent sold price to be worthwhile.
2.  Take pictures and list your item for sale at a specific price with 'buy it now'.  I didn't deal with auctions, only fixed price sales. 
3.  When someone buys your item, they pay you via PayPal.
4.  You ship the item promptly and pack it well.

Pro tips
- Reuse shipping boxes / envelopes you receive when you buy online.
- Use your kitchen digital scale to weigh packages and pay/print your own shipping labels.  This worked great for me when shipping games.  If you keep the whole package under 1lb. It can ship 1st class mail for under $4.
- If your games are all $10 or less, and you just don't want to deal with it, sell the whole thing as a bundle.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2018, 06:46:53 AM by bender »

birdiegirl

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Re: Where to sell old video games?
« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2018, 09:18:13 PM »
eBay is probably your best bet.  If there are any Gamestop stores near you, they will buy back a lot of systems and games, but you probably wouldn't get as much for them.

FrugalKube

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Re: Where to sell old video games?
« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2018, 10:33:41 PM »
Do you have a local Mom and Pop video game store? You could take them there. Price charting is a great resource. Craigslist, offerup or ebay are also good places.

ooeei

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Re: Where to sell old video games?
« Reply #5 on: February 05, 2018, 06:26:18 AM »
I've old quite a few old games on eBay. I use small manila envelopes usually, as they are either a cartridge or a CD in a case, so don't need much protection. Not sure of the dimensions but it just barely fits an xbox one game case. I basically wrap it all the way up in packing tape to reinforce the package.  eBay handles the shipping label creation and payment for you, and the process is fairly painless. They take 10% and Paypal takes a bit as well, but it's very easy.

Look up past "Sold" listings (it's a filter option when you search) and see what it's normally selling for, and price it around or a bit under that. Looking at what people who haven't sold yet have it priced for (normal search results) tells you basically nothing, as people put games up for crazy prices and let them sit for months at a time very regularly.

I'm a red panda

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Re: Where to sell old video games?
« Reply #6 on: February 05, 2018, 06:27:59 AM »
Ebay is slow, open to some fraud (buyers who claim a problem, and screw the seller)- but you are likely to get a better price for rare games. (I occasionally use ebay for things.)

We ended up taking our games to Half Price Books, we made way less that way, but they all go out of the house, and we got more than we expected we would have for our games and systems.  I wish I had taken a few of the highest value games and sold on ebay, but I just didn't have the energy.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2018, 07:27:59 AM by iowajes »

ketchup

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Re: Where to sell old video games?
« Reply #7 on: February 05, 2018, 07:58:19 AM »
I sold most of my old video games about five years ago.  eBay for anything with value (>$10) and the rest (only a few) went to Half Price Books with a giant lot of old books, CDs, and DVDs.  Half Price Books gave me probably only a couple bucks each, and everything pretty much sold for market value on eBay (and plenty for more than I originally paid for them, actually).

ooeei

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Re: Where to sell old video games?
« Reply #8 on: February 05, 2018, 08:42:04 AM »
Ebay is slow, open to some fraud (buyers who claim a problem, and screw the seller)- but you are likely to get a better price for rare games. (I occasionally use ebay for things.)

We ended up taking our games to Half Price Books, we made way less that way, but they all go out of the house, and we got more than we expected we would have for our games and systems.  I wish I had taken a few of the highest value games and sold on ebay, but I just didn't have the energy.

While fraud does happen, I've sold around 100 things on eBay ranging from cell phones to video games to pocket knives, and I've never had a fraud issue. Even if I did, I suspect the loss would be paid for by the extra $ you get from selling on eBay vs elsewhere unless you're selling something very high end and expensive. I think fraud on eBay is generally way overblown due to selection bias, and generally not something to worry about when you're just clearing out old stuff you don't want anymore. If you are buying/reselling it does need to go into your profitability calculations, but that's not the case for me or OP.

Selling a game for $30 on eBay with the small risk of fraud vs $5-15 elsewhere for no fraud is an easy choice for me. If I was selling a $500 item one time I might not risk it though.  Craigslist is the best of both of those worlds if you're in the right city, but incredibly inconvenient and unreliable, and not worth it for something you can sell so easily on eBay IMO.

I'm a red panda

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Re: Where to sell old video games?
« Reply #9 on: February 05, 2018, 09:25:43 AM »
Ebay is slow, open to some fraud (buyers who claim a problem, and screw the seller)- but you are likely to get a better price for rare games. (I occasionally use ebay for things.)

We ended up taking our games to Half Price Books, we made way less that way, but they all go out of the house, and we got more than we expected we would have for our games and systems.  I wish I had taken a few of the highest value games and sold on ebay, but I just didn't have the energy.

While fraud does happen, I've sold around 100 things on eBay ranging from cell phones to video games to pocket knives, and I've never had a fraud issue. Even if I did, I suspect the loss would be paid for by the extra $ you get from selling on eBay vs elsewhere unless you're selling something very high end and expensive. I think fraud on eBay is generally way overblown due to selection bias, and generally not something to worry about when you're just clearing out old stuff you don't want anymore. If you are buying/reselling it does need to go into your profitability calculations, but that's not the case for me or OP.

Selling a game for $30 on eBay with the small risk of fraud vs $5-15 elsewhere for no fraud is an easy choice for me. If I was selling a $500 item one time I might not risk it though.  Craigslist is the best of both of those worlds if you're in the right city, but incredibly inconvenient and unreliable, and not worth it for something you can sell so easily on eBay IMO.

If you are listing the games individually, I think you are right. I wanted them to go more quickly though, and not list each one individually.  The chance of fraud on a large lot scared me too much though; that would be a multi-hundred dollar loss if a buyer claimed an issue.  (And I have had it happen- on a baby clothes item; they claimed it was something totally different then I sent, and took a photo to submit with the claim of the "item" they received of something I have never even owned, so I know I didn't ship the wrong thing. Wasn't worth the cost in shipping to have them return it to me. So I ate the cost.)

We averaged about $10 a game at Half Price Books.  Some of those games may have gone for $30-50 on ebay; others about $5-10.  So we did do significantly worse at HPB, but it took zero effort, so that was nice.

I wouldn't bother with Craigslist for games. But I hate craigslist.

JLee

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Re: Where to sell old video games?
« Reply #10 on: February 05, 2018, 09:31:03 AM »
Take the time to look through all of the games and make sure you don't accidentally sell something that's extremely valuable for a few dollars. Earthbound, for example.

Morning Glory

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Re: Where to sell old video games?
« Reply #11 on: February 05, 2018, 11:40:35 AM »
Thanks everyone, there's no Half Price Books in my area so I will give eBay a try, at least for the higher value games.  I might try to sell the lower value games in lots of 4. There are probably 50 games in there, and I haven't even gotten through making sure all of them work. The system itself I will probably try to sell locally on my work's classified page to avoid packing and shipping. I have promised myself that it is not going back in that closet.

BettyBrenn

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Re: Where to sell old video games?
« Reply #12 on: February 18, 2020, 07:51:42 AM »
I remember the times when I played on Nintendo.. That was a really good times.. Right now it's time for Lol and Wow that requires a lot of time to grow up the lvl of our character which is not so cool like in the old times.

Sibley

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Re: Where to sell old video games?
« Reply #13 on: February 19, 2020, 09:20:34 AM »
There's a small indie game shop near me, they cover games, dvds, some vhs, etc. I've bought various from them, and have sold a couple duplicates. For me, ease of disposal was higher priority than the sales price. But I've been told they pay better than Gamestop.

 

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