Upgrade Your Life, Photographers. Don’t Sit On Your Gear: Sell It!

How much clutter is there in your life? Don’t you wish that your photography gear was better than what you have? Now is a great time to change that situation with a little help from MPB.

Despite the manufacturers’ cries of despair, did you know that worldwide the photographic industry is still expanding? It’s currently worth over $41 billion and growing by around 4.4% per year. More than half of that industry is from camera gear sales.

Yet, in this world of continuing austerity and inflation, the cost of new gear is increasingly out of reach for many of us. But when we see a new camera or lens, we still feel the urge to buy it to improve our chances of getting the best possible shot. But what we want is often knocked back by spiraling living costs.

That is especially true when we want to start our photographic journey, equally so when we want to upgrade from an entry-level camera and lens combination to something better that will help us take the images we work hard for. Price labels are daunting when we want to own something that is better quality than what’s available at the low end.

It’s that investment that seems overwhelming. However, after we have bought the equipment we need, photography can become an inexpensive activity; once you own the camera, clicking the shutter costs next to nothing.

Is there a way to get around those prohibitive initial costs? Definitely, and a possibility to save us money at the same time.

There's Value in Our Clutter

In the Western world especially, we have the habit of accumulating stuff we no longer use. In America alone, there are estimated to be more than five billion unused items sitting in homes. Typically, we move stuff to a cupboard when we no longer need it. We keep it because it might come in handy one day. But a year later, when the cupboard is full, we shift it to the garage. But we know, deep inside, it’s never coming back into the house again. It doesn’t stop there. Shockingly, one in five Americans pay for storage, mostly for keeping stuff they will never touch again. That includes camera gear.

Most people mistakenly believe they are no good at selling. That misbelief, in turn, leads to low self-esteem. Not only that, but having that junk piling up is bad for our mental health too. Moreover, there is a fear of losing out by getting rid of things that we paid good money for, as we would make a loss on them.

However, that unwanted stuff is costing us financially just to keep it. Also, it eats away our valuable time to maintain and clean it. Most importantly, over time, it is gradually degrading, becoming obsolete, and losing value. Economists would call it a deadweight loss, an inefficient allocation of our resources.

We can turn that around.

What You Have Stored Away, Someone Else Needs

There’s a TV show where people have abandoned and stopped paying for storage, and the unwanted contents are sold off. The buyers usually make a reasonable profit from selling the things they acquire that way. So, there is no reason at all why we cannot do the same with our superfluous belongings.

That stuff in our cupboards, drawers, and garage will be needed by someone. By selling your ephemera, you could help someone else who could not afford to buy those things new. At the same time, you are doing a little bit of good for the environment. Why use up our planet's limited resources to make things unnecessarily when they're already sitting in your cupboard or garage?

Instead of letting that old bike rust in your shed, sell it for a few dollars to someone who needs it. That old laptop in the back of a cupboard could be used by a student working their way through college.

The jacket you’ve only worn once because it didn’t fit will be perfect for somebody else. Then there’s that ugly vase that your Aunt Doris gave you for Christmas five years ago; it could be someone else’s delight.

A great way to simplify your life is to go through your home and get rid of things that you haven’t used for a year. If you combine that idea with the thought that anyone can sell things and almost anything will be bought, you can see you have an opportunity to make some cash.

There's also the great feeling of knowing that the person you sell it to will be happy for having found something they really wanted but probably could not otherwise afford.

What About Your Redundant Camera Gear?

There’s a good chance that if you are reading this, you are a photographer and also have photography gear kicking around that you never use. Just like that bike, laptop, jacket, and Aunty Doris’ vase, someone will want that gear. This is where MPB comes in. They are the world’s largest dealer in used photographic equipment and offer you a fair price for used cameras and other equipment, including lenses, bags, tripods, gimbals, filters, drones, and batteries.

The process is easy. You fill in the short form on their website describing the gear you are selling. Then, they offer you a fair price based on the description, collect your gear, and pay you. It’s a hassle-free and, most importantly, a safe way of getting paid for that dead weight that would otherwise be losing value.

The secret is, when you’ve sold your old gear, put the money aside and use it to buy what you are hankering for. So, when you’ve added that cash you have saved up from selling your old bike, laptop, jacket, and not forgetting Auntie Doris’ horrible vase, you are well on the way to buying the new equipment you want.

Remember, you can make huge savings on your purchases too by using MPB to buy an upgrade to your camera gear. Furthermore, what you buy doesn’t have to be that old. Over the last few years, there have been huge steps forwards in camera technology, and the great news is that there are plenty of recently released cameras on the MPB platform, and we may want those advancements. Other people are selling the latest models of every brand to MPB for you to buy.

Perhaps, what you have in mind with the money you made isn’t buying new camera gear. Maybe you can use it to pay for a vacation so you are shooting somewhere new instead of your usual backyard. If you do, you can thank that old camera you sold to MPB, the bike, the laptop, the jacket, plus Aunt Doris’ old vase when you are standing at your ideal location for the photoshoot of your dreams.

Upgrade complete!