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Comment by brundolf | Hacker News Reader

Apple's trade-in prices have always been lowballed, but they aren't normally this extreme. Usually you get just enough that you might choose to take the loss instead of dealing with Ebay or something

But I wouldn't be surprised if this one is just a weird edge-case in their formula with no eyes on it (and one that probably serves a vanishingly small number of customers, who would want to casually trade-in their $50k machine instead of finding the best price they can get on the open market)

For reference:

The OP is looking at a 1.8% trade-in value on a 3 year old machine

Whereas I can currently get 16% trade-in value on my 4.5-year-old iPhone XS

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The trade-in values tend to be reasonable for off-the-shelf configurations (and especially base configurations). Not great, but reasonable. It’s when you start stacking build-to-order options that the price grows much faster than the trade-in value.

Yeah that makes sense too

Exactly. The BTO options are basically zeroed out for the trade in. If you're someone who plans to upgrade their machine frequently using the trade-in, go with one of the primary configurations.

One of the issues is also that there's usually no good way to search for exact configurations when looking for traded in machines. Meaning that it's harder to convey the value to the end customer.

The search seems like an easy problem to solve. A set of options to select when you offer up a machine for trade is viable for any self built system. For Apple, they could just link your original purchase data so could be even easier.

They don’t want it back! Like luxury cars, the market for $50k computers is shallow. No company is buying it.

So you need to find someone with a credit card willing to drop $10k on an old computer. Why would someone do that?

Hell, in my professional life I’ve purged devices with $5m of depreciated value because the replacement cost of a new thing was less than the operational cost of keeping the old thing running.

Apple may not want it back because they don't want to deal with refurbing and reselling a niche product, but somebody out there would certainly want it for a decent fraction of the original price. Hardware doesn't get obsoleted as fast as it did 20 years ago

That’s why eBay exists.

If you trade in your old BMW, you’ll get less $ than if you sold privately, but you’d also have less hassle.

It's only two datapoints, so perhaps not interesting. I've noticed the Google Store is now doing this as well - almost overnight trade-in values have tanked.

I traded in my son's cracked screen Pixel 3 XL 64GB in December for a new Pixel 7. I received a $271 refund, which was $6 higher than their on-line estimate. I was puzzled then.

I was even more puzzled now when I needed a new phone and had a perfectly good condition Pixel 6 Pro that I was offered $122 on a few days ago. I opted to sell it instead.

Either manufacturers/carriers were juicing trade-in offers for sales, or some bottom has dropped out of some market. I've always assumed some third party like Assurant or whomever are the ones actually purchasing these phones to refurbish and sell onward.

I'd recommend trying to sell anywhere but Ebay. FB Marketplace, Swappa, even Craigslist.

I recently sold on Ebay after a few year hiatus. I cannot believe the haircut you take these days. I sold an item for $360.00 flat. Ebay gave me $308.00. Since when have they charged 15%?

1. In the UK at least they have an 80% off sellers fees roughly every fortnight.

2. All the rest you end up dealing with people asking if it's available only to then disappear (why they ask in the first place I don't know), or you wait around for the one who's supposed to be coming, but then doesn't. eBay is a much better experience.

For FB and Craigslist, granted.

Swappa at least has been great to me. And the selling fees are substantially lower.

Swappa fees are low, but you have to pay sales tax. I prefer Craigslist or Facebook.

Can't comment on swappa because it isn't in the UK. Everything I've tried except eBay is full of time wasters though.

Between eBay and PayPal fees, I believe it's been at least 13% for decades.

That may be where it diverged. In my case at least, ebay paid me directly. Perhaps they just moved finance in house and tacked on previous paypal fees onto selling fees.

In the past, you had to pay Ebay fees and Paypal fees, and shipping. Did that 15% include the payment processing? I do think their fess are too high, but they are well within the normal range for marketplaces.

Just wait until the buyer falsely claims they didn’t receive the item. Or that it’s broken. Or that it’s not as described. I rarely sell there any more because it’s just not worth the hassle.

Recently sold an item on ebay. Buyer opened up a dispute with ebay saying the item didnt work. I provided a return label. Buyer then claimed the post office couldnt return it because the item had over 100 mg of mercury in it (a new one to me...). Photos he provided were of the item unpowered & in perfect condition. Ebay ruled in my favor!

Then the buyer then just went through his bank and refunded that way. In the end I am out $240 + $20 for a "payments dispute fee".

I worked for a university here in So Cal. Our lab fell on hard times and we were scrapping equipment. We had a Crimson series (if memory serves) server that had originally cost like 40k. My boss was screaming at me to sell it for something (think early 2000s).

I had to explain to him that we could pay to have it recycled for $85.

I thought the trade in on the iPhone 10 was pretty good when I took advantage of it last year. But that was via T-mobile and came with a 2 year contract. I also traded in my apple watch for a new one, and though the $100 was pretty decent compared to the $250 I paid for it.

But for my second-gen iPad Pro, it is basically considered scrap. So not very consistent at all.

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