Years ago we wrote an article on the pros and cons of eBay vs. Hand-me-downs. We were curious to see whether older, inefficient methods could be replaced by newer, more efficient ones. Our results were mixed. It turned out that you never receive much for used items, and it takes a while for the value of the sale of these items to appreciate when relying on interest bearing accounts.
Nevertheless, it might help to have more efficient markets. In this case, more specialized. Our two examples involved old clothing and an old video game. Well, now there are markets precisely for these two categories. Storkbrokers.com is a website where you can sell your baby’s old clothing (and possibly other items of your young kids to be featured soon), while Gazelle.com is a place where you can sell your old electronics. Both allow you to sell to other users, although Gazelle offers to buy it from you for a cheap price as well.
We have also been notified that a new website called Keepio will be able to do both. This may seem like a step away from the specialization, but it deals with many of the other inefficiencies of eBay, namely the extraneous charges, the chaotic website, the inability to keep track of your total inventory, as well as the inability to advertise each sale on Facebook and Twitter.
All in all, it looks like our analysis may need a revision in the near future.
