Trade-in site Gazelle is ending trade-ins
Gazelle, one of the longest-running used smartphone buyers in the US, has announced the end of its core trade-in program, which let phone owners mail in phones and other electronics devices in exchange for cash.
The news, revealed in an email Gazelle sent to some customers on Wednesday and shared with The Verge, means any prospective Gazelle customers will have to receive a quote and initiate the trade-in process by January 31st, 2021 (allowing 30 days to mail in the phone) if they want to take advantage of the program. The service will shut down officially on February 1st, while any active trade-ins will be honored, the company says.
This isn’t the end of Gazelle’s business. Gazelle’s parent company ecoATM, which has been around since 2006, operates kiosks that let you get instant cash for a used device, and the Gazelle website is now used as a retailer for selling those devices at reduced prices after they’re then refurbished. (The catch is that ecoATMs may not pay out as much as the traditional Gazelle mail-in program, which typically has offered more than $300 or so for a prior year’s flagship like the iPhone 11 Pro.)
Gazelle doesn’t give a reason for the decision, but there are a few major trends in the US mobile business that point toward a general decline in the benefits of cash trade-in services. For one, many more people now than in years past lease their smartphones instead of buying them outright, a broad shift from the days when US carriers offered reduced price phones in exchange for firm two-year contracts.
Now, it’s quite easy to pay a modest monthly fee for a phone through a program like AT&T Next Up or Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program, with the option to trade that device in for a new one after a designated amount of time. Unless you decide to pay off your leased phone early, you can’t turn around and sell it to Gazelle — and you wouldn’t necessarily want to do that as it doesn’t make much financial sense.
Additionally, Gazelle’s early business boomed on iPhone trade-ins back when selling your phone to get the latest Apple product was a popular strategy for early adopters. Now, Apple has a robust trade-in program of its own (in addition to the leasing program) that pretty much gets you the same result.
Gazelle, one of the longest-running used smartphone buyers in the US, has announced the end of its core trade-in program, which let phone owners mail in phones and other electronics devices in exchange for cash. The news, revealed in an email Gazelle sent to some customers on Wednesday and shared…
Recent Posts
- More details emerge about Apple’s plans for AI in iOS 18
- Rabbit R1 Review: Skip This AI-Powered Hardware Assistant
- Instagram’s ‘Add Yours’ sticker now lets you share songs
- Star Wars should learn from Andor and stop making Disney Plus shows that are so obsessed with the Jedi
- Tesla’s Supercharger layoffs couldn’t have come at a worse time
Archives
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- December 2011