Four Things You Can Do with Your Old Smartphones

Many homes are accumulating electronic waste, including old appliances and mobile devices. Unless you want to collect old smartphones, you need to do something with them. Old smartphones can be badly damaged or too outdated that they can no longer run newer apps. If you have more than a few unused, old smartphones, here are things to consider:

• Exchange offers by manufacturers: Smartphone manufacturers may release two or more new smartphone models within six months. They may have limited exchange programs to trigger an interest into a new model. If you are a big fan of a phone manufacturer, then you should consider participating in this program. There’s no harm in exchanging your old phone with a new one, especially if the original manufacturer is offering it. You may need to spend some amount of money to get the new phone, but it won’t be as expensive as buying a new smartphone model. Of course, if you have money to spend you can try potsofgold.com to see what your luck is like.

• Buy-back programs: Under the Smartphones category of various e-Commerce platforms, like Amazon, Shopclues, Snapdeal and Flipkart, you may find the buy-back option. Under this program, your phone could be bought back at a pre-decided flat value. You may not get a lot of money with this program, but it’s better than letting your used smartphones become useless bricks in your drawers. So, what will happen to these old smartphones? It appears that used smartphones with relatively good condition will be refurbished and resold again by these e-Commerce websites. Others could be recycled or donated, depending on the goal of the buy-back programs.

• Traditional sellers: Some smartphone stores buy and sell used smartphones. Many people aspire for high-end models, but they can’t buy these devices due to the prohibitive prices. You should sell to stores only if your smartphones are still in good condition. They should still be fully functional and can still run latest apps with reasonable performance.

C2C platforms: There are online platforms that allow smartphone owners to sell their old devices to other customers. eBay and OLX are ideal platforms to bypass sellers or intermediaries, so you can interact directly with actual buyers. Often, you can sell your used smartphone at slightly higher price, because your sell it to an actual user. Even at that price, potential buyers still find that the price is still lower than what they find in stores. However, you may not know how many days, weeks or months before someone buys your used smartphone. The price of a used smartphone model will become progressively lower, so you need to sell it as soon as possible. If you wait for another year, your used smartphone could become dirt cheap.