Selling Disposed Empty Packaging Boxes For Profit

If you are involved in some way to the buying and selling of collectible items such as toys, fashion items and related items, you would know that the packaging of the collectible item adds a lot to the resale value of that collectible item.

This has become so prevalent that there are entire businesses that have been formed for the sole purpose of selling the used packaging of collectible items. There are even counterfeit packaging boxes being sold especially for fashion items.

But why is this so? This is because the packaging of a product, even the expensive ones are usually discarded immediately once an item has been bought. Most people see a product’s packaging as having no value and is only used as a wrapper for the product.

But there are items that become collectible overtime. It might take decades or just a few years, but some do. And people who have not thrown away the packaging of their items usually found that they can sell their item’s old packaging for a profit.

If you ever searched in the popular handicraft marketplace Etsy the keywords: “empty vintage boxes”, you would be shown a lot of used packaging items made of cardboard, tin and wood.

The same is true for such sites as eBay. If you use do a casual search on this e-commerce site, you would come across vintage and almost still new packaging boxes which are also either made of cardboard, tin or wood.

They range from a few dollars to more than hundreds of dollars with used fashion packaging boxes fetching the highest prices. I wonder how many of these so-called used fashion packaging boxes are fake? I really wonder.

This just proves that maybe the used packaging boxes still stored in your attic or basement have monetary value and you should think twice before disposing them. It might take a few years or even decades for them to appreciate in value, but at least they’re worth something.

The beauty of this sellable product is that many of them take little space for storing. Many product packagings can be folded and even stored in folders to preserve them. Just make sure that you carefully disassemble them so that you don’t damage them.

I found this e-commerce site called: picclick.com and found that: “empty PS4 console boxes can sell for US$ 30.00 and even hundreds!”. The plain PS4 consoles usually sell at a minimum for US$ 30.00.

The empty PS4 game themed consoles boxes sell for much more, usually hundreds of dollars more. But who are buying these empty PS4 game console boxes for sometimes hundreds of dollars?

According to an online seller who specializes in selling used empty packaging boxes, the buyers are not the actual owners of the PS4 consoles who want their PS4 packaging boxes back but the resellers of used and old PS4 consoles.

According to the reseller, used and old PS4 game consoles can be sold at a much higher price if they come in the original PS4 console packaging box. This is not surprising since a product that come together with its original packaging will have an aura of “quality” to it.

A product that is resold in its original packaging would be positively looked at by the potential buyer as “just slightly used”, “well taken care of” or well preserved This is the aura of a product packaging.

I’m sure that not only empty PS4 game console packaging boxes are being collected but also empty Playstation, Nintendo and similar empty game console packaging boxes.

But closely related to them and perhaps even more profitable are the empty video game packaging boxes themselves. This is because way much more many of them were produced as compared to the video game consoles themselves.

This can be best proven by looking at for example eBay Canada’s listing of Video Game Cases & Boxes. eBay Canada even has a facility where you can shop by gaming platform such as Nintendo, Microsoft Xbox, Playstation and Sega.

If you do a quick scan of the products being sold in the platform and assuming they haven’t been sold yet, the prices on these empty video game packaging boxes can range from a few dollars to several hundreds of dollars and often does not even include the shipping cost.

As we can see, there is a thriving market for these old video game packaging boxes otherwise the sellers won’t even bother listing them in eBay. Buyers of these empty boxes are usually collectors or people who sell to these collectors.

At least in the field of video gaming consoles and their associated video games, I can see why products associated to them are getting valuable. The world of video games is almost fully online with mobile games outstripping both the PC and video game console market.

Many people who buy these old video games and their associated product are predicting that these now nearly obsolete video game consoles and their associated video game would go by the way of many old yet dearly loved things: they become collectibles.

Another reason why these old video game consoles, their video games and other associated products are being bought by collectors is because many detest the fact that most video games now are online and can only be played usually on a subscription basis.

Many gamers still want to physically touch their video games and display them on their shelves. The same goes true for movies and music albums that are encased in DVDs. Many still want the feeling of physically owning these products in the age of subscription online content.

Since almost all product packagings are disposed of the moment a product is taken home and opened, the best answer would be: in the garbage bin. In fact, there are many Dumpster Divers who make good money selling these empty packaging boxes online.

Having lived in a developed and a developing country, I can say that dumpster diving in countries such as the Australia and America is way better as compared to let’s say some Asian countries who have no strong garbage segregation policies.

In Australia for example, recyclable garbage has a different bin to general garbage. This way, Australia is able to recycle a lot of garbage and does have garbage segregation terminals where they segregate garbage according to recyclability.

I don’t know if you can find such empty packaging boxes in flea markets of discount shops but as far as Australia is concerned and from my own experience only, these empty boxes are not being sold, maybe no one thinks that they’re valuable by themselves alone. This might change.

This just proves the saying that: “One man’s garbage could be another man’s gold.” For example, there are Fossil watch tin packaging box collectors. They may not be worth a lot but a combined collection could easily add up to a tidy amount of money.

You might have noticed that sometimes when you buy a product, the package also contain a manual, certificate of warranty and some other accessories which might be some other documents or even physical products such as a promotional keychain or toy.

You might think that these are disposable, but in the world of collectors they too are must have items. In fact, the more complete a product is in terms of its original product content, the higher is its resale value.

This is important especially in electronic and mechanical items. For example, there are many old watch manuals that are highly prized . E-Commerce giant for example eBay has a ”Watch Manuals, Guides & Catalogs section.

I thought I would only be seeing watch manuals, guides and catalogs of expensive watches but I was pleasantly surprised to also see manuals from such watch brands as Seiko which not many people consider as an upscale brand.

I even searched eBay for "Casio watch manual" and was also surprised to find that indeed the humble Casio watch brand has buyers for its manual. I even wonder if all of these watch manuals are authentic.

I highly suggest that you keep the old product packagings of the things you buy especially the branded and popular one. Time might come when they have aged enough to be worth of some value.

Though I have overemphasized video game consoles and their associated video games, the same can be said is true for other products like watches. It seems in our world of today, anything no matter how mundane they seem can have good monetary value to a person.

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