It’s not all about eBay! Other popular sites for selling second-hand items

Miss Thrifty16 April 3, 2014

sell stuff online

Preloved – An online mecca for lovers of vintage and second-hand bargains. You’ll find it all here, from furniture to campervans. Sellers can list items, with photos, for free.

musicMagpie – Over the past few years a number of websites have sprung up offering to buy your old books, CDs, DVDs and more. Of these, musicMagpie is one of the longest established and best known.  You won’t be able to retire on the payout – most old CDs of mine have been accepted by musicMagpie for about 30p each – but if you are short of time this is a (relatively) quick, easy way to raise cash. I have never had any problems with payment.

Amazon UK – Do you have new or used books to sell? Open a seller’s account on Amazon UK and list them there. Listings are free, and you pay Amazon a commission whenever a book is sold. Be aware, however, that the postage fee for a book is fixed by Amazon at £2.80, so if your books are priced at pennies apiece, your profit margin may be slim.

Zapper – a newer competitor to musicMagpie, Zapper buys up DVDs, CDs, computer games and more. It also claims to accept more books at better cash prices than anyone else. So before you sell to musicMagpie or list any books on Amazon, it would be worth running your products through Zapper’s barcode to find if a better deal is on offer.

CeX – specialising in second-hand home electronics, including TVs, games consoles and computers, CeX has stores around the country. To get their prices for sale or exchange, take your item(s) into the store or obtain a quote and arrange the sale via the CeX website.

Published in association with the bank first direct, which has asked me to share some of my thriftiest ideas and inspirations with its customers.

P.S. Have I missed any secret gems? If so, let me know in the comments.

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16 Responses to “It’s not all about eBay! Other popular sites for selling second-hand items

Emma says:

Facebook selling groups are great too 🙂

April 3, 2014 at 4:06 pm

Amandah says:

Ummm, see I know about Amazon & CeX, but I’m a DIE-HARD eBayer:Seller & Buyer.
The first (and maybe last time) I took some of my DVDs to CeX, I thought it was April 1st.
Little amount is an understatement for how much they said they would buy these 5 DVDs for, and considering the prices they sell them at I just blatantly told the cashier “Thanks. (Not) But I’ll probably have better luck with eBay” and walked out.
I find Amazons P&P has gone up SO much in the past few yrs, but still bargains to be found. But I always price comparison with eBay first. 😉

April 3, 2014 at 6:38 pm

Miss Thrifty says:

@Emma – You are quite right. Facebook selling pages are the nuts! The quality & quantity seem to vary a lot area to area though. Hmm: maybe I should do a post that is basically a directory of top FB selling pages, county by county, with readers contributing their faves. Interesting…

@Amandah – Ah, I think it may be horses for courses! I find it difficult to make a good profit on Amazon at the moment, true, but I have also noticed a lot of people complaining that selling on eBay is not what it used to be. At least if you shop around a bit, you can find the best choice for you. I am not knocking eBay though: I love it too. 🙂

April 3, 2014 at 10:07 pm

I like eBay but I recently became obsessed with Amazon. I have bought a toaster, kettle and an alarm clock in the last month. I love it.

April 5, 2014 at 6:06 pm

I love Amazon as well as Ebay. I always prefer these 2 sites. thanks.

April 7, 2014 at 9:16 am

Scoperks says:

I really like etsy.com for selling handmade things, but the other sites you listed are great for used things. Artfire.com’s another great site for selling vintage items 🙂

April 7, 2014 at 2:34 pm

Kim says:

I put lots of DVDs on Music Magpie, most were coming up at less than £1 but when I listed a box set of No Angels (90s drama about nurses) it came up at £4. Got me thinking why, had a look on eBay and they were going for a fair bit – turns out they were hard to get hold of. Listed all series and made over £50 on them all because £4 stood out like a sore thumb on Music Magpie 🙂

April 8, 2014 at 9:09 pm

These all look very promising! Preloved in particular seems like an awesome alternative to Ebay. Have you had a lot of personal experience with these sites? Do you think any stand out in terms of quality? Thanks so much for sharing these!

April 9, 2014 at 7:07 pm

Ricky says:

I love selling on eBay. A few years ago I was buying and selling retro video games and made a small business out of it. I stopped as it was so time consuming because every item was unique which meant every listing needed to be unique. It took forever!

Another tip worth mentioning is niche selling sites. Amazon, eBay and the like are fantastic platforms for selling your stuff but depending on the item it might be worth going to the places that deal in those particular things.

http://www.bride2bride.co.uk is a great place to sell wedding dresses (I know this because of an impending wedding).

If you ever collected stamps or was given a collection then http://www.stanleygibbons.com is worth checking out. I know a couple of people who tried to sell collections on eBay and ended up getting a lot more money taking them to Stanley Gibbons.

Finally if you are a collector of comics and you want rid, I would in the first instance check with http://www.thirtiethcentury.free-online.co.uk. These guys specialise in buying and selling comic collections – they get offered more than they can handle but at least if you have that first issue of Superman you know you won’t get ripped off.

April 10, 2014 at 12:15 pm

Thanks for such a lovely blog post. I was looking for selling my CDs for quite sometime and I believe Zapper or Music Magpie will do the work for me. Thanks again. To enrich this blog post let me also share my experiences on two sites and they are Stuff U Sell and another Babyhoo. I used Stuff U Sell for selling furniture and I believe the price I received is beyond my expectation. Believe me I’m not promoting the site. The second one – Babyhoo – I used for selling some kid stuffs and also to buy some second hand baby items. That’s a good one too. I hope this information helps.

April 11, 2014 at 1:45 pm

Lea says:

If you’re looking for a good quality cheap baby stuff, look no more, this website babyhoo.co.uk will help you with buying and selling new and second hand baby clothes, baby furniture, baby toys, pushchairs, cot beds, baby blankets, baby bedding, baby highchairs and more kids stuff no longer needed and a hassle-free place for parents to find baby things close to where they live at affordable prices. You don’t pay for listed your baby items on the site. It’s completely free to join. Visit babyhoo website at http://www.babyhoo.co.uk

May 2, 2014 at 11:45 am

Well, I always used to access e-bay and amazon but I will surely try the new websites that you have mentioned because my dining table is posted on e-bay since 15 days, and I have not received any call regarding it. Posting my stuff on these sites will increase the probability of getting it removed asap as I am planning to buy new stuff for the home.

September 3, 2014 at 7:32 am

David nex says:

Wow great article there.I love shopping for second hand items on auction sites like ebay,Asos. I also loved Nextonly.uk Thanks for sharing this.

October 1, 2014 at 8:25 am

James says:

I always sell my unwanted items. Or my car boot finds online. I use http://www.stuff4saleuk.com cause its FREE and they have a local one to my area. Well worth it !!

October 28, 2014 at 5:07 pm

Chris says:

It’s not a secret, but Gumtree is pretty decent

May 30, 2015 at 5:11 pm

yoou says:

15p.co.uk The best alternative for ebay.co.uk

September 3, 2016 at 3:48 pm

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