EBay Instant Sale celebrates Earth month with limited-time Apple pricing

By Jeff Hughes Published April 18, 2011

Global online marketplace eBay announced that their Instant Sale program will be offering limited-time pricing for broken iPhone, iPad and iPod trade-ins. The offer will last until April 30, and is in celebration of Earth month. Those that trade-in their devices, broken or not, will receive a $5 eBay gift card as well as a matching $5 donation to Global Green USA — the American arm of Green Cross International.

A user’s broken iPad could potentially be worth up to $150 , an iPhone up to $100 and an iPod $50; but of course, a device that is slightly working will garner you higher returns than the same device broken with liquid damage.

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Instant Sale’s Apple product focus doesn’t mean that eBay is becoming a an Apple reseller, Instant Sale has partnered up with recycling firm CExchange, which provides the free shipping for these broken devices. CExchange refurbishes these broken products to sell on eBay, and eBay gets to collect it’s commission from the sale. CExchange handles trade-programs for RadioShack, Wirefly and Crutchfield along with the eBay’s Instant Sale. The electronic recycling firm also has a no export policy, so your conscience can rest assured that no electronic waste is being exported to developing countries to be broken down with hazardous methods.

The Company’s Instant Sale program began in the fall of 2010 and since then has had more than 3.3 million trade-in offers. Smartphones, tablets and mp3 players tend to be Instant Sale’s most popular devices, with iPhones netting 71.3% of the total trade-ins. EBay claims that users have done enough to offset emissions from flying around the world 155 times; 40% of Instant Sale users were encouraged by the program to be more environmentally conscious.

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I'm a SF Bay Area-based writer/ninja that loves anything geek, tech, comic, social media or gaming-related.

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