Which site is best for selling DVDs? Make money with movies

If you’re a cinema fan, particularly one from ages past, you probably have a DVD collection, right? Maybe it's Blu-ray, if you stayed up to date on the latest tech.

One thing's for sure: It's probably not getting a lot of use now. Maybe you break out an old favourite on a family movie night or have a trilogy you marathon every few years, but most people don't watch their DVDs these days. Streaming, the internet, and even gaming provide too many constant distractions.

Read on to find which site is best for selling DVDs, looking at how easy it is to offload your media and how generous the payment at the end is.

You don't have to get rid of your collection, of course. Maybe it has immense sentimental value. If it’s just gathering dust and taking up space, however, you can make cleaning work for you. There are plenty of websites that let you sell DVDs online and make some spare change.

There are limits, though. You're not going to become a millionaire unless you have a particularly rare collection. Still, any money helps, and this is a hassle-free way to clear space and profit slightly in the process. 

How to sell DVDs online

Like most things, selling your old DVDs is made easier by the internet. You can find a few places to trade them in person, with CEX being the most well-known in the UK. However, you typically get the best prices and the most convenience via the World Wide Web. 

Whether you're looking for money or just to have minimal stress while you offload your collection, choose from the list of websites and apps here to have the easiest time making cash from your films.

There are two main methods for reselling your unwanted DVDs on the internet, depending on which sort of site you go for. Online marketplaces, many of which you'll be familiar with, offer a more hands-on approach. You list your DVDs for sale, take photos, set the selling price, and handle the transaction yourself. When you sell, you ship your DVDs to their waiting new owner.

In recent years, a new type of app has appeared to make the process much less hands-on. There are countless places online that want your good-condition movies to resell to customers themselves.

These app often take your DVDs' barcodes, send you a free postage label (or offer a free home collection service), and handle the challenging part for you.

Between these two broad approaches, you'll be covered however you want to sell DVDs. If you want to be the one selling them one by one and pocketing all the money, you have options. If you just want to clear some space and let others handle the hard bits, there's a blooming industry just waiting.

The best apps for selling DVDs

It may seem like the age of physical media is over. However, there is a dizzying array of places that accept your DVDs – too many to go through them all yourself. That's why we've broken down the best here.

We can't say which ones suit your needs perfectly. All we can do is let you know which ones are the most convenient, which offer the best prices, and any other perks or quirks they offer.

Keep reading to see which DVD-selling platform is the one for you.

As you need more than £5 worth of items before you can actually cash out, this means you need to sell musicMagpie a lot of DVDs before you can profit.

Remember that musicMagpie are on TopCashback. When you sell enough through them to profit, we top up your earnings with cashback. It’s a little extra, totally free.

On top of that, it's harder to get your movies to World of Books than in some other places. If you're not selling them 5kg of product (a lot of DVDs!), they don't offer their free home collection service, only drop-off with Collect+ or InPost. Check how far you'd have to travel to take advantage of this.

Despite these drawbacks, World of Books are a reliable and stress-free DVD-selling service who are happy to take your old films off your hands and can pay via bank transfer or PayPal for maximum convenience.

World of Books are also on TopCashback. Low sale prices matter less when we give you a little extra on your profits for free.

Zapper

From there, you benefit from free shipping with their prepaid shipping label. As soon as you send off your DVDs, your work is done. You just wait for the money to arrive.

Similar to other apps, there is a minimum value of £5 on a trade you send Zapper. However, their prices are often more generous than similar apps, making it less of a struggle to reach this threshold and make money.

Zapper are also known for rejecting items. This may be because of quality or because they simply have too much of it in stock. Nonetheless, they do recycle the items they reject – so you know you're getting rid of them in an ethical way.

Another knock on Zapper's ease of use is their long response times. Even outside of peak times or holidays, they can take a while to respond to orders. The generous deals come with the drawback of this not being instant cash.

WeBuyBooks

WeBuyBooks accept most good-quality DVDs, even accepting some with minor cosmetic scratches. However, their courier service does require you to wait around at home, potentially inconveniencing busy sellers.

The best listing platforms for selling DVDs

Sometimes, you want a little more control over how you sell your stuff and the price you sell it for. If so, listing platforms take a far more traditional route of you putting an item up for sale and buyers approaching you.

They're not all created equal, however, whether in ease of use or potential profits.

eBay

That said, it's still a more hands-on selling experience than you'll find with sites dedicated to reselling DVDs. You still have to list your own projects, handle bids and offers, and mail the movies out to buyers yourself.

eBay's prices are often high, although it depends on the demand for individual movies. Luckily, in a recent change, there are no longer fees for private eBay sellers. It's still a lot of effort, but you don't need to worry about transaction fees slashing your dividends. This helps keep eBay one of the best places to sell DVDs for cash, at the cost of some inconvenience.

Facebook Marketplace

The local focus of Facebook Marketplace makes your life easier than other marketplaces in a few ways but comes with its own challenges. In most cases, the buyer will be close enough to pick your DVDs up directly, cutting down on hassle, carbon footprint, and postage fee in one fell swoop..

As you're selling directly, you're also free to charge what you want (or can haggle for), not take what an app is willing to offer. As a result, you can get fair prices for your collection.

However, this comes with downsides. You need to handle the minute-to-minute of listing your items, taking good photographs, and talking with buyers. Facebook Marketplace also has a problem with time-wasters and similar sorts due to its informal nature.

These factors together wipe out a lot of the convenience over other methods. However, Facebook Marketplace can provide a sweet spot between hands-off selling to an app and shipping your DVDs all over the globe for a bit of spare change.

Amazon Marketplace

Unfortunately, this is no longer an option. Amazon Trade-in no longer accepts DVDs, only old electronics. You now have to register as an Amazon seller to sell your used DVDs, which is no small feat.

This requires you to have genuine stock, with receipts showing at least ten copies of each film you want to sell from either manufacturers or distributors. Amazon also has strict requirements from sellers in terms of compliance and product quality.

As a result, Amazon is beyond most people looking to make pocket change from shifting the stack of DVDs on their bookcase. Although its prices are very competitive when you sell directly, and its market reach is unparalleled, it's far more suited to businesses than secondhand sellers.

Trading in your DVDs in person

The internet makes everything convenient from the comfort of your own home, but it's not the only way to do things. There are high-street shops that will pay for your old DVDs.

CEX, the popular second-hand video games and tech shop, is the most prolific example. They will take almost any DVD off your hands as long as it's in sellable condition. You can trade it in for small amounts of actual cash or slightly larger vouchers to spend at CEX.

They also offer this service online, but prices are very uncompetitive with the apps mentioned above. It's most worthwhile if you're looking to get rid of your DVDs without the hassle of transporting them long distances or if you really want some CEX vouchers.

If it's less about the money and more about not consigning your DVDs to landfill, you can always take them to a charity shop. You won't get anything from this, but it does give them a chance of going to a good home. In many cases, it's even more straightforward than online selling. You can just leave a box of them there and leave (although you should try to only donate good-quality items!).

Tips for selling your second-hand DVDs

With the right app or website, it really is straightforward to offload your disc collection and profit handsomely. However, there are a few things to keep in mind if you want to stand a chance of making money this way. Even if it's small amounts of cash, it's much better to have £10 than not have it!

 Get cashback

Did you know, TopCashback will give you even more money when you sell your DVDs? Follow our link to musicMagpie or World of Books, and you get your profits topped up for free.

You don’t need to buy anything or spend any money. You’ll get cashback just from following our link to the website and selling like normal. With the fairly low margins from selling DVDs, every bit helps. Also, crucially, it’s free money!

 Sell in bulk

In this day and age, most DVDs don't sell for much. You're likely to get less £1 per one unless you go out of your way to sell each one yourself. On top of that, most websites and apps have minimum orders they accept. The solution is to sell your DVDs by the caseload. In most cases, picking and choosing won't suffice, you'll need to get rid of lots at a time.

If you don’t have enough yourself, consider offering to shift a friend or relative’s DVDs as well. Even if you have to split the small amount you make, it’s efficient, helps you reach the minimum sale value, and a nice thing to do.

 Shop around with particularly rare items

The key word is that most DVDs don't sell for much. Collector's editions and particularly rare films can genuinely be worth a lot of money. Most websites and apps reflect this, paying significantly more for them compared to the bulk of your collection.

If you have one of these (Googling unusual films in your collection can help identify any), don't just offload it with everything else. Shop around and see where offers the best deal. Maybe even consider selling that one on eBay, even if you use another service for the rest.

 Consider shifting a few other items

Very few places only accept DVDs. If you're having a clearout, why stop at your DVDs? Selling old books is a very lucrative second-hand market and another way to cut down on bulky items on your bookshelves. Old video games are another item, easy to transport alongside DVDs, and often sell just as well.

 Only bother with DVDs in good condition

With your DVDs lying around, bar the occasional watch, they might well be in varying qualities and conditions. Fundamentally, nobody wants to buy a scratched, caseless, or damaged DVD. Most websites will refuse to take your DVDs in anything other than good condition and reject them out of hand.

When preparing to sell DVDs, give them each a once-over, particularly for scratches on the disc. Any that have more than cosmetic damage probably aren't worth the effort to send off. The exception to this is with Zapper or World of Books, who recycle any they can't sell. This is an eco-friendly way to dispose of them.

Disc-over a hidden treasure trove

There's more spare cash sitting on your bookshelf and in a box in the attic than you think. If it's been a while since you watched your movie collection, consider: is it worth more gathering dust or making you some spending money?

With just a few clicks, you can find out how much cash you're just sitting on at home.

There aren't many ways to declutter your house that result in cash for you, so embrace this one with open arms. It's good for your living space and good for your wallet, even if you won't be able to afford dinner at the Ritz with how much you make.

If you need something to replace your departed DVD collection, consider TopCashback's range of entertainment deals. You can get yourself a bargain on streaming, gaming, and much more. All it takes is a TopCashback account, and we give you money back on any entertainment purchase you make through our site.