How to sell your old systems

At press time, I own the 3 systems currently being supported by Nintendo; A Wii, a DS Lite, and a Classic NES Edition GameBoy Advance SP. The unique status of my ownership is that I didn’t invest any new money into them, i.e. I didn’t spend any money on them that wasn’t already poured into video games long ago. I did this by selling my old systems and games on eBay. There isn’t a lot of magic to selling your old stuff on eBay but when it comes to old systems and games; there are things you can do to get the best return on your old investments. For this example, I will use my most recent sale: selling my GameCube stuff to get a Wii.

Step 1: Decide what your are selling
When looking at any of the newest game systems but especially the new Nintendo systems you may consider keeping some of your software and accessories because they will be compatible with your new system. For example: I owned 4 GameCube controllers; 2 regular and 2 wireless Wavebirds. I needed to provide controllers to make the system an attractive package, but I could also use those controllers with the new Wii. I decided to keep the Wireless ones and package the regular ones with the system. I also had a pile of games, many of which I wanted to keep. I decided to keep only the games that I knew 1) I still enjoyed playing and 2) there wasn’t a superior version available on the Wii in the near future. For example, I did sell my two favorite Cube games, Zelda:The Wind Waker and Metroid Prime because I knew they would never be used again once I got the Zelda and Metroid games for Wii. Mario Kart, on the other hand, wouldn’t be available on the Wii for some time.
 
Once you decide what you are selling and what you are keeping, you are ready for the next step.

Step 2: Determine how to packe the items you are selling
Should you sell everything individually? Or all together in a Lot? On one hand selling everything in a Lot can be advantageous when time is scarce. But if you have basic eBay skills my research shows that a combination of both will give you the biggest returns. I would almost always suggest against selling everything individually. In addition to the additional time it will take to manage all of those auctions and sales, you’ll find that the less coveted items may not receive a bid that makes your time worthwhile.
 
Put your system and necessary accessories together as one item. Then browse eBay to see how the games you have are selling, and put them into two categories:

1) Games that are valuable enough to sell individually
For instance: My Zelda Collector’s Edition Disc was going for over $40 on eBay at the time I sold it. Packing it with the system could only hurt its chances of getting sold; there were people who wanted this game and they generally already had a system to play it on.

2) Games that you will package with your system
For instance: Madden NFL 2005 was not a bad game by any means, but it is a hard sell when Madden 2007 is in stores, and even GameStop was selling 2005 for $4.99. At the time, there were copies of Madden 2005 on eBay that had not gotten their initial bid of $1.99. Madden 2005 was much more valuable as an enhancement to the sale of my system than a sale on its own. I chose a minimum price ($15 in my case) and packaged everything that was selling for under that with my system.

Step 3: Make your items look better than the others
When you list your items on eBay, you don’t need all the extra bells and whistles eBay offers. I would suggest gallery (show the picture on the search screen) for all items and subtitle for your system to describe some of the games. Here are some general tips to help you list your items:

Make sure that you mention you are selling multiple products and offer to combine ship. People looking for games (and especially systems) may be in the market for more.

Start each of your auctions at $0.99. It seems crazy and risky but the free market will take care of you. The low starting price will get more people emotionally involved with the auction. Not to worry, if you have only listed your coveted items there will be a bidding frenzy if it is still $0.99 near auction close.

If the new systems are compatible with the old games you are selling, put that new system’s name in the title. For instance: Zelda Ocarina of Time Master Quest for Cube/Wii. I still listed this in the Cube game category, but the name of the new system attracts more users.

If you have extra accessories, package them creatively. For instance, I already packaged 2 memory cards with the system, and had an extra one. Since I had unlocked everything on Mario Golf, I put my game save on that extra card and included it.

List marquee games and the number of games on the title of the system. Super Mario Sunshine, Zelda: The Wind Waker and Metroid Fusion all were selling on eBay for under $10, but they are still the name brands that helped sell GameCube systems. Since they were being packaged with the system, I made sure to put the words “Mario”, “Zelda”, and “Metroid” in the auction title. Also having 17 games in addition was a real selling point and the number 17 should be front and center; for example: Complete GameCube System+17 Cube/Wii Games Mario, Zelda

The Outcome
My games each sold for around $20, which was a couple bucks above the average going price. Mario Golf did better because of the memory card, and the Zelda Collectors discs did better because they were more valuable.
 
My system and games sold for $227.50. Not huge but I consider it successful in this regard:

The games essentially went for $10 each, which is 20%-100% more than what they were going for individually.

The system essentially sold for $67.50, which is about 50% more than what it was going for individually.
 
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