Best way to get the most out of resale of a lens?

[PaulWog]

Long story short, I put my 16-85mm VR up for sale on Craigslist about a week ago. No bites even at $500. I paid $700 + tax.

It's a well-recommended lens, and also a tough lens to sell. No one wants it, yet most people say it's great. Deep down I somewhat blame Ken Rockwell for making it a tough sell: He's a top Google search result, and for a beginner that's a deterrent right there.

Why am I strongly considering selling the lens? Aside from 16mm, I'd much rather mount a 35mm, 50mm, or 85mm prime on my camera. I like bokeh, I like fast lens capabilities. I *WILL* miss the 16mm end on my crop body, which I do need for landscapes, which is why I am not trying to undersell myself significantly. But a 16-85mm just for the 16mm end seems a little bit silly.

Is Craigslist the best way to sell a lens?

 

[Don Kondra]

No...

List it here, FredMiranda, DPReview and Nikonites to list a few.

Cheers, Don

 

[EIngerson]

Like Don said, post where your target audience is going to see it. Good luck.

 

[goodguy]

Sold lots of stuff on Kijiji and ebay.
On kijiji I sold my old Sony DSLR, Minolta lenses, Canon G10, Nikon 50mm lens.

I found Craiglist to be not so easy to sell through site.
I dont think the 16-85mm VR should be a hard sell, I dont know the resale value of this lens, go do you HW, see how much this lens sells for and then with the correct price put it on kijiji, I am sure it will be gone fast.

 

[robbins.photo]

Long story short, I put my 16-85mm VR up for sale on Craigslist about a week ago. No bites even at $500. I paid $700 + tax.

It's a well-recommended lens, and also a tough lens to sell. No one wants it, yet most people say it's great. Deep down I somewhat blame Ken Rockwell for making it a tough sell: He's a top Google search result, and for a beginner that's a deterrent right there.

Why am I strongly considering selling the lens? Aside from 16mm, I'd much rather mount a 35mm, 50mm, or 85mm prime on my camera. I like bokeh, I like fast lens capabilities. I *WILL* miss the 16mm end on my crop body, which I do need for landscapes, which is why I am not trying to undersell myself significantly. But a 16-85mm just for the 16mm end seems a little bit silly.

Is Craigslist the best way to sell a lens?

In my experience craigslist is wonderful - for what I call "no-duh" sales. What I mean by that is stuff that most anyone can look at and determine the overall condition of the item quickly and easily with almost no expertise. One of the problems with craigslist (at least in my locale) is that you've got more than a few people out there who sell stuff that is massively over priced or is not nearly in as good of condition as they claim. I used to buy laptops and "flip" them, basically purchasing stuff that I knew needed some repairs, I do the repairs and resell them after they were fully operational. As a result I bought a lot of laptops off of craigslist, and believe me it was more often than not that I go to look at the laptop and find out it had issues, sometimes very serious issues, that the seller didn't bother to mention in the ad.

Normally when I'd go to sell the laptops I'd sell them on Ebay - because selling something higher end/electronic on Craigslist was a royal hassle. People were incredibly suspicious and wanted to pick through everything with a fine tooth comb and frankly after seeing how craigslist was used by other sellers in my area I guess I couldn't blame them much. Also you have to figure that while us camera geeks are pretty prevelant here, were actually a pretty small portion of the population as a whole. So when your dealing with craigslist your limiting your market to only those camera geeks who live in your local area, which is further divided into only those camera geeks who shoot the same brand name that you do, which is then further divided into... well, you get the point.

 

[curtyoungblood]

It also looks like your lens is over-priced. A used copy of that lens is going much closer to $400 on ebay and both KEH and B&H have used copies for under $500. (B&H is significantly under $500).

 

[TheLost]

Its almost impossible to sell anything on craigslist any more. Check Facebook for local 'garage sale' and 'photo enthusiasts' groups... That's where most of the buying/selling is going on nowadays. You have to ask to join most of these groups... and its a (slightly) safer environment.

 

[Braineack]

Good pictures and price it to sell. I sold almost all my equpiment within a few days because I took, what I consider, good pictures of the product and priced it under anything else I found online.

I did have a hard time selling my D3100 however, and ultimately sold it to keh.com for a little less than I wanted for it.

Even on ebay, after I factored in all the fees and everything for my Sigma lens, it eventually sold in a day once I put it up. I wanted to clear ~$300, I bought it for $350 in June.

I listed it for $330 shipped on ebay (about $15 less than anything else on ebay). After fees and shipping I cleared $290. Sad thing is I had it on CL and the guy was kinda local to me--had he just met up and gave me $300 cash for it, I'd have made $10 more and he'd have saved $30.

 

[KmH]

Your asking price influences how many prospective buyers will consider pursuing what you have on offer.
Asking price is a function of how motivated you are as the seller. If you need a lens gone quickly, you have to start with a lower asking price than if you are less motivated to sell the lens.
Selling price is usually lower than your asking price.

A key point in salesmanship is justifying your asking price based on telling prospective buyers about the features and performance of what you are offering.
Well made images of what you are selling are essential for generating interest. People won't buy what they cannot at least see.
Lens images need to show the condition of the glass and the cosmetic condition of the lens body and mount.
Include any accessories that come with the lens, like a lens hood, filters, original packaging, user manual, etc. in the photos.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/buy-sell/244196-fs-nikon-12-24-mm-f-4-g-wide-angle-lens.html
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/buy-sell/222898-fs-sigma-150-500-mm-hi-power-zoom.html

In summary the Best way to get the most out of resale of a lens? is to make high quality images of the lens, use proven 'call to action' sales language in your ad, keep your asking price high, and wait for a buyer that will pay close to your asking price

 

[480sparky]

What you paid for it is totally irrelevant. It will be worth what someone is willing to give you.

So even if you paid a million dollars for the lens, if the best price you can fetch for it is $450, then it's only worth four hundred and fifty dollars.