Gumtree reveals who the real early adopters are

Whenever there’s a new iPhone, all the early adopters and easy upgraders come out of the woodwork, but one of the online classifieds companies has revealed that yup, it’s true, we love selling old models to buy the new ones.

Believe it or not, but apparently we have no problem parting ways with our gadgets. Maybe we’re just not forming the same relationships with our materials goods as we once did when products weren’t refreshed on a half-year or yearly basis.

In any case, classifieds site Gumtree has sent through some interesting information about how easily we part with old products for new ones, and while you can expect that Apple owners are doing it, it’s not just a case of apples versus every other fruit.

In fact, while there was a 95% spike in iPhone listings ahead of the launch of the iPhone 6 — and with a little more of an increase (62)% immediately after it came out in September of last year — owners of the Sony PlayStation 3 were just as eager to ditch their older console ahead of the PlayStation 4 release in 2013, with an increase of 33% in PS3 listings shortly before release.

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Apple’s iPhone 6 grabbed plenty of classifieds from people wanting to upgrade. Expect the same to happen in September of this year when another iPhone is announced.

Coffee machines are also affected, but not as aggressively, with a new Nespresso machine — the Lattissima Touch — causing people to want to sell their old coffee machines in March of this year, though the numbers of people keen to sell haven’t increased as significantly in the past month. Perhaps they’re just waiting for a review (we’ll have one very, very soon).

But the most expected result comes from the products where hype literally surrounds them, and in the past six months, they have, for the most part, been Apple products.

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The Apple Watch had people ready to sell their other smartwatches in droves. 

Case in point, the Apple Watch, which we liked and were hyped for, and apparently plenty of other people were too, with Gumtree reporting an increase of 220% for the number of smartwatch ads that went online ahead of that Apple Watch proper announcement in early March, and back down to 58% once people had seen it and started peering at the prices.

But even the Apple Watch couldn’t beat a computer, with recent laptops going on sale quickly because people were uber-hyped for the ultra-thin MacBook. That super slim laptop garnered so much attention, that Gumtree listings for MacBooks rose in one month by over 400% — 430% to be precise — rising again by another 43% the month after.

So who are the real early adopters?

It seems Apple owners rate up there, but whenever something that looks great is on its way out, those of us who aren’t part of the Apple customer base aren’t far behind.

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Lots of people apparently want to update to the super-slim Apple MacBook.