Today I made my way to the used sporting goods store to sell some old skis I found in my garage. In yesterday's post, I ran through my thought process as I decided where to sell the skis. The big question for today is: How much would I get?
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| Can You Get Rich Selling Used Skis? |
The skis were made in Austria and seemed to be in good condition, but I had no idea how much they were worth. I briefly searched on eBay to get some idea of how much they could sell for, but I didn't find anything similar.
So this was going to be somewhat suspenseful. I realized that the skis were pretty old- but maybe that would be a good thing. Maybe they were collectible, or maybe even antiques. Perhaps I would get really lucky and find out that I was the owner of some really valuable skis...
I carried the skis into the Play It Again Sports shop. The man at the counter had me fill out a standard form with my name and address. While I filled that out, he measured the skis and checked out the locking mechanism on them. It was clear he knew how the skis were supposed to work.
I finished filling out the form about the same time he finished examining the skis.
"Okay," he announced. I knew that the big reveal of the value of the skis was about to happen. It reminded me of Antiques Roadshow where people take old items in to be appraised and are sometimes pleasantly surprised when the value turns out to be really high.
"I have a lot of skis and there hasn't been much snow, so I'm going to offer you store credit," he began.
This was not very encourgaing, but I was curious to know how much store credit we were talking about.
"Okay," I said.
"I would sell these for $20. They are an older style with a gravity-operated mechanism, but it still works. I can give you 40% of the price, $8 in store credit," he said.
This was not the big payday I was hoping for! I told him I wanted to think about it for a minute. I walked over to the ski section and did in fact find similar skis priced at $20.
I decided that I didn't want the skis, I would never use them and they were taking up space in my garage. It seemed that the price he came up with was reasonable based on looking at the other skis for sale. If I could get $8 that I could use to pay for a birthday present for my kids, or bicycling gear, etc. then I should go ahead and sell them.
I walked out with a $8 store credit certificate in hand.
It pays to sell unneeded items instead of throwing them away. I got something for the skis, someone else will get to use them, and the store will make a little bit of money and stay in business. It seems like everyone gets a (small) win.
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