Selling broken items for parts

ThinkingOfLinking

I've read other peoples' posts here and the thought of selling on broken items had previously never crossed my mind. I have an item in mind which I am planning to list as broken/not working and suitable for parts but are there any problems with doing this?

It's an electrical item which basically broke down and died mid-use one night. I don't know what's wrong with it so can't say for sure which part/s work other than knowing that the power supply itself is fine.

I would have binned it so am planning on selling it at starting from 99p (plus the appropriate postage charge).

Is there anything I should consider before listing it? Is there anything I can do to protect myself other than making sure it's clear beyond any doubt that the item is not working so nobody can buy it thinking it works and then want a refund because it doesnt....

jabdc5

when selling broken items I put this at the start of the description....

I've written this is in seven different languages below because I still get folks who buy these then leave poor feedback because they are broken!

Ok folks, THESE ITEMS ARE BROKEN!!!

Avertissement ! TOUS ces joueurs sont cass!s ou sont endommag!s !

Waarschuwing! zijn ALLE deze spelers gebroken of beschadigd!

Warnung! diese GANZEN Spieler sind gebrochen oder sind beschädigt!

Προσοχή! όλοι αυτοί οι παράγοντες είναι σπασμένα ή χαλασμένα!

Avvertimento! TUTTI questi giocatori sono rotti o sono danneggiati!

¡Advertencia! TODO que estos jugadores son rotos o son dañados!

Aviso! TODOS estes jogadores são quebrados ou ! danificado!

ThinkingOfLinking

Thanks; any other insights? How much do broken audio items tend to go for? The item in question is about £300 when new and working.

prowla

List the item as SPARES/REPAIR.

Describe the fault, and be clear about what happened and what you know is broken; I once bought a spares/repair mobile phone to get the screen off, but the description did not say that (it described other faults, which didn't matter to me), and so it went to dispute and I was refunded.

There will likely be people who will be able to repair it no problem.

As a forinstance, a Sky box with a broken hard disk just needs a new one plonking in. Alternatively if somebody has one one with a duff power supply, then they might be interested in one that just powers up but doesn't work, so they can pinch that part from it.

Crowqueen

Last year I sold my old faulty iPod and got a reasonable amount, though obviously a fraction of what it cost new (17% in fact, which was better than the 5% offered by the trade-in sites).

I'm actually more confident selling a faulty item than one which has had a lot of use. I don't want to have to refund £60 after two weeks because the item died on someone. I'd rather keep £17 and know the item was as-described.

As long as you are completely upfront about what works and what does not, then you should not have any problems. Some people think that just saying "does not work" is OK - even in multiple languages - but specifying the faults is much better because it gives any buyer a good idea of whether it is good for them to be able to fix or cannibalise.

ThinkingOfLinking

To be honest, I don't know what doesn't work, only that the power supply DOES work. The rest of the unit seems dead to me but I'm not qualified to take it apart or hazard any guesses as to what the actual problem is. It literally died one night whilst being used...just made a horrendous noise out of the blue and went kaput.

Crowqueen

Flickering_Ember wrote: »

To be honest, I don't know what doesn't work, only that the power supply DOES work. The rest of the unit seems dead to me but I'm not qualified to take it apart or hazard any guesses as to what the actual problem is. It literally died one night whilst being used...just made a horrendous noise out of the blue and went kaput.

It might help if you told us what it was - if anyone has any experience of similar items they can tell you what the best way to describe it is.

At the moment what I would do is describe the power supply as working and picture the unit - with a selection of different angles and close-up photos of its physical condition - and mention that it is completely dead.

May even be better not to say "spares or repairs". The eBay wording is "for parts or not working", which is probably more accurate in your case.

Steer100

I am pretty certain (although I may be wrong) that I know what item this is. If it is (and i won't mention because OP hasn't and it's not my place to) then I suggest looking at a repair kit which there is one big seller of on ebay, about 6 quid from memory!
Then you can sell it as faulty/refurbished and explain that it is fixed.
As far as the difficulty of fixing it goes, I won't lie to you, it takes a good few hours but the repair kit comes with easy to follow instructions.

However I will just mention, that if it is the product I am thinking of then make sure it is more than a year old as there is an automatic year warranty!

Hope this helps, but may not be even the product I am thinking of!