Selling a Mac

You want to sell your Mac .. how do you go about doing it? Here is some information.

There are 3 ways to sell your Mac.

Option #1 Bring it to a store and sell it
Option #2 Sell it on Y! Auctions
Option #3 Word of mouth

Option #1 - By and large, this option will net you the least amount of money and personally I would only suggest it if you really need money fast, don't care how much you get, or don't with to bother with the hassle of options #2 or #3. Many foreigners have quipped that stores will buy your used gear for 1/4 what you paid, then turn around and sell it for 1/2 the price new. Unfortunately that seems to be the truth. You will almost never get a good deal from selling to a store. All stores that buy used gear have a book with current market prices in them, but these prices tend to be VERY generous. Their price book may say that a 12" PowerBook will get ¥100,000 for example, but chances are you'll get much less.

What condition is your machine in? If you have scratches, pain chipped-off, missing feet, dents, dings, etc. then expect to get less money. If you're missing the box, manuals or software then expect to get even less. One store told me that without the original CDs, the selling price would be halved.

Option #2 - Auction it off. This is my preferred method as you can get a lot more for it than taking it to a store. Here are some tips for auctioning:

Take pictures of the item, and take GOOD ones.

Describe the item properly and thouroughly. Processor speed, memory, hard disk size, optical drives, etc, etc. Do you have the original box? Manuals? All the cables? Are there any problems?

Don't set your starting price too high. Yes you paid ¥230,000 for your PowerBook when it was new, but that was years ago. The computer industry is a strange animal where prices drop constantly. Don't be offended when people don't want to pay ¥180,000 for a 4 year old machine.

Yahoo! Auctions Japan can be found here: http://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/ (Japanese only)

Option #3Your last option is by word of mouth. Go down to the Nagoya Internation Center and post an ad for your machine, or advertise it with your company or people that you know. The benefits of selling this way is that you can usually get a good price, and the buyer can inspect the goods before buying, thus (hopefully) avoiding any problems later on.