eBay Smartphone Trade-Ins Spike After iPhone 5 Rumors

The closer we get to the rumored announcement day of Apple's iPhone 5, the more inclined your average iPhone-owning Jane and John will be to sell their antiquated devices in the hopes that they'll be able to pick up a brand-new Apple smartphone.

But don't take our word for it – try eBay's.

According to representatives from the popular online auction site, speaking to CNET's Josh Lowensohn, the company saw an upswing in users looking to trade their smartphones in via eBay's "Instant Sale" program following last week's iPhone 5 announcement rumors.

In Instant Sale, one merely has to submit what device it is that a person wants to sell, describe an accessory or two that might come with it, describe the condition of the device, and accept eBay's proposed offer. If a user agrees, eBay handles all of the shipping arrangements (and costs), and a user receives his or her cash via Paypal.

Basically, the program is eBay's answer to third-party "buy my stuff" services like Gazelle or any of the innumerable trade-in programs offered by manufacturers themselves.

And, according to eBay, its Instant Sale service saw a 70 percent bump in smartphone submissions last week, undoubtedly prompted by new rumors that Apple's big iPhone 5 announcement event .

Users submitted more than 100,000 smartphones to eBay's Instant Sale program, and chief among them – for Apple devices, at least – was the 16GB version of Apple's iPhone 4S.

That's hardly an "antiquated" device by any stretch of the imagination, but it does fit the pattern previously seen whenever Apple announces a new iteration of its popular smartphone. Just last year, 89 percent of the devices submitted to eBay's Instant Sale program within three days of its iPhone 4S announcement were iPhones themselves. In total, eBay received more than 375,000 trade-in offers during this brief timespan.

According to last week's rumors – first generated by the website iMore and later confirmed by a number of other reports – Apple will likely unveil the iPhone 5 on Sept. 12 for a sale date of Sept. 21. Joining the iPhone 5 announcement festivities will also likely be the announcement of the rumored iPad Mini, but there's been no word as when that device could hit store shelves.

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For more tech tidbits from David Murphy, follow him on Facebook or Twitter (@thedavidmurphy).