I’m hesitant to share this tip since it’ll mean more competition for everybody, but there is a way to buy older Kindles for relatively cheap that most people probably don’t know about.
If you’re looking to buy an old Kindle and don’t want to spend a lot, and you’re located in the US, you might want to checkout the ShopGoodwill website. You can also check a local store and you might get lucky.
I’ve been staking out that website for a couple months looking for a Kindle Voyage since I broke mine last summer, but I’ve decided to give up on that search. A couple turned up, but ultimately I decided I didn’t care enough to spend more money on a decade old device when I can just use the 12th gen Paperwhite. I do miss the smaller form factor of the Voyage, but the Paperwhite is good enough for me now that the screen is closer to the Voyage contrast-wise than previous versions.
At least the prices are lower than on eBay in most cases. You can still sometimes find good prices on eBay if you’re willing to stake out a search term for several weeks or months, and jump on a new listing from a sane regular person just looking to sell their old Kindle for a reasonable price. But eBay has turned into a cesspool of scalpers charging ridiculous prices for everything these days. Someone is currently asking over $400 for a “new” Kindle Voyage, but most are going for $70-$90 with shipping. Even broken ones are a minimum of $50. The Voyage was great, but it’s not worth that much to me, especially since most are going to need a new battery soon.
The one thing you have to take into account with the Goodwill website is shipping and handling costs extra, and the price seems higher than it should since they’re using Fedex instead of USPS. And frankly, their shipping prices don’t make sense. It costs about the same to ship one Kindle as it does to ship six. Every listing I’ve checked adds a minimum of $15 for shipping and handling. I checked on some other products and even if they’re light as a feather and could easily be shipped in an envelope they still charge $15 for shipping (maybe it’s a regional thing).
The other thing I don’t like about the ShopGoodwill website is most items use a bidding process that takes 7 days. Sometimes they have a Buy Now option, but usually you have to go through the annoying bidding process and hope someone doesn’t outbid you at the last second.
But if you’re the patient sort and you want to get an older Kindle for cheap, there are some good deals to be had on the ShopGoodwill website, especially with their “mixed lot” listings with multiple Kindles.
Personally, I would avoid the listings that show the dead battery warning on the screen unless you’re comfortable changing the battery yourself because there’s a good chance it’s shot, but that’s another way to get a good deal if you’re willing to replace the battery.
Older Kindles have always been pretty popular, but they’re going to be even more popular moving forward now that Amazon is using hardened DRM on newer Kindles to keep people from being able remove the DRM from their purchased ebooks. As long as it’s still possible to get ebooks off of older Kindles that’s going to drive up demand.
I think ShopGoodwill makes a profit on their shipping. The shipping cost more then the OOP book I was buying, but considering the age of the book and the quality, I accepted it.
All my e readers have come from thrifting. It’s my usual answer when people ask where to get a first ereader especially if they’re unsure they’ll like it. Goodwill and The Salvation Army are great places to mainly find all generations of Kindles with an occasional Kobo and in my case only B&N NST’s.
I’ve seen plenty of Oasis Kindles for surprisingly cheap prices. Far far lower then anywhere else. So low I sometimes wonder if the person making the listing even knows what they are. For instance two years ago I won a bid for a lot of 3 working unidentified Kindles. One of those Kindles was a Voyage in great condition no scratches anywhere and it came in a case. The other two were a like new condition newer paperwhite with the warmlight and a white regular kindle with some scuff marks and a scrape on the bottom bezel. My winning bid was 30$. I felt like a Kingpin.
If you are buying from their online stores, be aware it’s a bidding type system. No where near as cutthroat as Ebay thankfully with small usually 1-2$ bids at a time and not many people bidding.