Buying an iPhone (old or new) is as exciting as buying a car. If you are a gizmo geek and want to own the latest iPhone while keeping the budget in check, trading in the old for the
new is a good idea. This may seem like a daunting task, but E-marketplaces like TrueGether make it simple to resell your iPhone and earn some quick cash. The website offers competitive pricing across the market.
The important thing is to create an eye-catching listing, figuring out the actual value of the phone, getting it ready for resale, and more. Here are five important steps to execute before sealing a profitable deal on your used iPhone.
Backing Up Data
Be sure to properly back up your phone in order to prevent data loss. Also, ensure that any personal or sensitive information like passwords, banking details, messages are also transferred to your new phone and erased from the iPhone that you plan to resell.
The steps for Data backup include:
- Deactivating Find my iPhone by navigating to settings and turning the slider off. This will ensure that when a new user is trying to activate the account, they won’t be blocked. You will need to sign out of iCloud and iMessage too. Also, delinking other peripherals like the Apple Watch through the iPhone app is advised. Though this is a very powerful anti-theft feature of an iPhone, it will deny access to a new user when they try to use the phone.
- Save up your photos on Google Photos or Dropbox and save your text messages on an app like iMazing on your Mac
- If you are switching to another brand other than Apple, you will need to deregister your number from iMessage by navigating to Settings->Messages and turning off the switch
- Once you are sure that all your important data has been backed up, reset the phone by navigating to Settings->General->Reset->Erase All Content and Settings will clear any residing data from your iPhone
Unlock Your iPhone
If an iPhone is unlocked from its previous network carrier, it is worth more during resale. Selling an unlocked iPhone means that the person who would be using it has more flexibility in terms of their carrier and you can rest assured that your account with the carrier won’t be misused.
If you are selling to an iPhone trade-in company, this feature can be very useful. You can also use your iCloud account to unlock the iPhone if you forgot to do so while selling it.
Erase Your iPhone Account, Home Screen and Passcode Screen
If you have not erased your home screen or passcode screen from your iPhone, you must do the following:
- For iOS 10 and higher, sign out of iCloud and then erase the device by navigating as follows: Go to Settings -> Choose General -> Click Reset -> Finally Erase All Content and Settings
- For iOS 9, the user has to navigate to Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings and enter your Apple ID for confirmation
Once the home screen and passcode screen are deleted, your iPhone will be ready for activation.
Erasing an iPhone Using iCloud
Connect your iPhone to a cellular network to carry out these steps.
-
- Navigate to iCloud.com/#find.
- Sign in to your Apple account with your User ID
- Click on All Devices
- Select the name of the device that you are selling
- Click on Erase iPhone
- Once the iPhone is erased, click on Remove from Account
- Restarting the phone will prompt for a new account setup
Double checking this can be done by Logging in to Find My iPhone at http://www.icloud.com/find. After logging in, check to spot if your old phone is being listed on Find My iPhone. If it is not listed, you’re all set to sell your iPhone to a new buyer.
Using Find My iPhone App for Erasing Your iPhone
You can install Find My iPhone App on another iPhone, log in and use it to erase your iPhone on the old phone’s account. Follow these steps for the same.
- Launch the App
- Sign in with your Apple ID
- Select the phone you are selling
- Tap on Erase iPhone on both the iPhones (one with a garbage icon and the other with a pop-up saying ‘Erase This iPhone?’
- Renter your Apple ID
- Tap Erase
- Tap Remove from Account
- Restart the phone and start the setup
Do Your Research
Depending on the condition of your iPhone, you can demand a profitable price from the buyer. It is always better to keep your device functional in terms of its touchscreen response speed, inbuilt applications, camera quality, and the operating system. The physical attributes also need to be up to the mark without scratches, water damage, damaged screen or phone edges etc.
Depending on your iPhone’s current condition you can research on what the trending price of the particular model is and which reselling website would offer you the best profits in terms of the payback and what the percentage of their commission would be.
Websites like eBay charge a heavy commission on the listing and the sale as well which becomes a little cumbersome for the seller. On the other hand, TrueGether(best place to sell online besides eBay) does not charge for product listings and only charge a marginal after-sale commission. Choose your reselling platform wisely.
Create an Irresistible Listing
Succinct descriptions, detailed and apt specifications and clear images of your iPhone are aspects that could draw a buyer to your listing page. Ensure that the descriptions are SEO compliant, the title should also be simple while including important search keywords like Used iPhone, iPhone for Resale, etc.
If you have the accessories intact, then including the details of the same in your description and images will be useful. Including the color, carrier, model, and storage information as the main keywords will help in ranking your page high on search result pages.
Conclusion
Buying an iPhone is far easy than selling one, but it can become easy if you do it the right way, through the correct platform. The steps mentioned above will make your phone buyer-ready and would fetch you more resale value. One rule of thumb to follow would be to always unlock your iPhone before it is sold online.