Somewhere in your house there's a shelf, a box or a milk crate of CDs you haven't played in years. Maybe you're moving. Maybe the shelf is in the way. Either way you want them gone, and you'd like a bit of money for them.
Here's the honest version first. Most second hand CDs sell for $1 to $5 each in Australia. Harder-to-find albums go for $15 to $35. A box of a hundred CDs is rarely a windfall. What you end up with depends less on where you sell and more on how much effort you want to put in. Selling the box to a shop takes an afternoon and pays the least. Selling one CD at a time pays the most and takes the longest.
We run one of the places on this list, so treat our opinion of ourselves with suspicion. Everything else here is as fair as we can make it. If you're on the other side of the counter, our guide to where to buy CDs in Australia covers that.
Record stores that buy CDs
Plenty of second hand record stores buy CDs from the public. Dixons Recycled Records in Melbourne pays cash for CDs at its Blackburn and Northcote shops, and most cities have at least one shop that does the same. Ring first. Some only buy certain genres, some only buy on certain days, and some have more CDs than they can sell already.
This is the quickest way to turn a box of CDs into money. You walk in with the box and walk out with cash, or store credit if you'd rather. Nobody to message, nothing to post.
The trade-off is price. The shop has to sell your CD again for more than it paid, pay the rent, and sit on the ones that never sell. So it offers a fraction of the shelf price, and it may pick out the ones it wants and hand the rest back. That's fair. It's just worth knowing before you carry the box in.
Best for cash today, and for a box you never want to see again.
eBay
eBay has the most buyers in the country by a long way. It's also cheaper to sell on than it used to be. eBay Australia now charges no selling fees to Australian sellers with up to $25,000 in sales over twelve months, which covers anyone clearing a shelf.
The work is in the listing. Photos, a description, a postage option, questions from buyers, then the trip to the post office. That's fine for a CD worth $20. For a CD worth $3 it's a lot of effort, and there are often thirty other copies of the same album listed below yours.
You can also list a whole box as one lot. That saves the effort, and it reaches people who buy in bulk to resell.
Best for CDs that are worth something, and for big lots.
Discogs
Discogs is a database of millions of releases with a marketplace attached. The people shopping there often want one exact version of an album, such as the Australian pressing or the one with the bonus track, and they'll pay for it. If something in your pile is unusual, this is where its value shows up.
You match each CD to its exact release in the database, which takes some learning. Sellers pay 9% of the item price plus postage, with a payment processing fee on top. Many buyers are overseas, so expect to post overseas and work out international postage.
Best for the rarer CDs in the pile. Most everyday albums won't fetch more there than anywhere else.
Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace
Free to list on both, and free to sell when it's cash on pickup. This is the best place to sell a whole collection in one go. "200 CDs, $50 the lot" gets replies, often from dealers and market stallholders who buy in bulk. There are also Facebook groups where people buy and sell CDs.
Selling single CDs this way is harder work. You get "is this still available?", offers of half price, and pickup times that come and go with nobody at the door. For a $5 CD that's a lot of messages.
Best for selling the lot locally, fast.
Op shops
Strictly speaking this isn't selling. Salvos, Vinnies and the independent op shops take CDs as donations and sell them for a dollar or two. You get no money, but you get your shelf back in ten minutes and the money goes somewhere decent.
If your time is worth more than $2 a CD, there's no shame in it. Have a look through the box first, in case one of them is worth listing.
Best for the ones nobody else will pay for.
CD Sauce
This is us. We're a startup and we're just starting out. CD Sauce is an Australian online marketplace for buying, selling and swapping used CDs. We built it so Australians could sell their CDs one at a time for the smallest fee we can manage.
Listing is free. When a CD sells you pay 50 cents, and the buyer pays 50 cents on their side. That's the whole fee, whatever the price.
To list a CD, scan the barcode and the site fills in the album details and finds the cover art. Pick the condition, set your price and your postage. Buyers see one delivered price with postage included, and most sellers charge a flat $5 for postage.
The buyer pays before you do anything. There's no haggling and no meetup. You post the CD, and the money goes to your bank through Stripe a few days after it's delivered. The first time you sell, Stripe runs a one-time ID check, which Australian law requires before anyone can pay you. You can list your CDs before you do it.
You can also mark any CD as open to swaps and trade it for one you'd rather have. Swaps are free.
Now the honest part. We're small. eBay has far more buyers than we do, so a CD can take longer to sell here. And we only do CDs, only within Australia.
Best for selling CDs one at a time, for a flat fee, without meeting strangers in a driveway. Here's how selling works.
Which one to pick
- Cash today for the whole box. A record store that buys.
- The whole collection gone this weekend. Gumtree or Facebook Marketplace.
- A CD that's worth real money. eBay, or Discogs if it's an unusual edition.
- A big lot to someone who resells. eBay.
- Everyday albums one at a time, posted, for 50 cents a sale. CD Sauce.
- A swap instead of money. CD Sauce.
- The ones nobody wants. An op shop.
Plenty of people use two or three of these. Sell the good ones one at a time, take a box to a shop, and drop the rest at the op shop. That's a decent Saturday.