Let Your Used Ski Gear Go: Be A Happy Hoarder

Tips from a happy (recovering!) hoarder: let your used ski gear go!

Moving is a drama at the best of times, as everyone stuck forever renting and sharing houses knows only too well. Less stuff you have the better these days. Especially big stuff like snow gear that’s not much use when you are not actually using it.

But the longer you stay anywhere, the more of a nightmare downsizing becomes.

For us, moving from a small house where we have lived for 38 years to an even smaller one, it all seems overwhelming.

I decided to start with our ski room/office for starters. We have been seriously accumulating snow gear for over 30 years, in a professional capacity – ie, companies would send us gear to review and test. So stuff has been piling up for a long time around here. Most of it very good stuff. And if it’s good gear, it lasts.

No kidding, we have one RipCurl jacket we got in 1991 that still looks great!

We got 3 items off Ripcurl then: an awesome onesie that made me feel like I was a real skier in my own mind back then, that lasted 3-4 years of hard use, plus another jacket number #2 son used as his favourite motorbike jacket till it got destroyed saving his skin in a big slide one night. But the one pictured here has held its colour and still does the job fine.

Or for more recent stuff, how good are XTM gloves?

Their Olympic Team gloves from 2014 in Korea have been my go to warmer conditions gloves ever since, but they are still in excellent nick. And they’re not for sale. Ever.

Have a look – we did a promo giveaway of a few pairs back then to go with our Olympic special feature.

I’d bet the other cover legends here, who earnt theirs the hard way, Russ Henshaw and Anton Grimus, have still got theirs too..

But 12 ski jackets is a few too many for any girl, so we had 8 ladies jackets to sell.

Keeping 2 jackets and 2 shell jackets left me with 6 to move on to new homes. Our logo series of Volkl Sensortex 20,000 shells from 2015 are tough as nails, super versatile and the ideal all round traveling jacket as well as on snow with pockets for passports and essentials. We kept one each, offloading the rest to buyers who will get plenty of mileage out of them.

Helmets seem to have been breeding in the wardrobe as well. A couple of Smiths, Oakley, Roxy, Head, Giro.

Some had to go, and turns out Smith helmets are in demand: real skiers know how good they are, second hand or not. The vents are the best for Aussie conditions where you can cook more often than not. For me it’s a toss up between Smith, Giro and Oakley, but the mount I have on the Giro works with GoPro and TomTom cameras so I stuck with that and de-cluttered the rest.

Of course skis take up the most space of all, so offloading excess pairs of those is essential. So far so good on that front.

Which brings us to the $64 (or more) question.

How do you price used ski gear?

Rule 1, something is only worth what someone will pay for it. So thinking because you paid a small fortune for it new it will be worth a big percentage of that used is la-la land stuff.

My rule of thumb is anything in near new, or actual new, condition is not going to be worth more than 50% of the new price anyway – there are always discounts happening somewhere.

So 30 – 40% is a better starting point for a faster sale. For example, for your $300 jacket in excellent nick $90 – $120 is reasonable to ask. Putting $250 on it is wasting your time. Whereas for that $800 jacket $250 would be ball park.

Boots and skis are the most size dependent, there is no room for error/subsequent expansion for boots. For really big or really small sizes that means it’s going to be harder to find your perfect match. So take a hit – 25% or so is OK for used boots and skis.

Desirable expensive items like Douche Bag luggage will sell well if it’s in reasonable condition, especially now with travel back on the menu.

The older gear is generally the cheaper to go when pricing it though, especially if the wear and tear is evident.

Most items will have a market at the right price. Like well worn ski pants that still have life left in them might be a perfect alternative to Aldi stuff for parents with fast growing teenagers for example. $10 or $20 for pants, $30 or $40 for a jacket – reasonable pricing brings results.

After a few days of online and a weekend lounge room store I can vouch for the combo deal effect.

Odds and ends like gloves and goggles I have been cleaning out for next to nothing to round up other gear purchases. Much better to get rid of a swag of stuff than be left with cheap individual items.

After our carpark sale in Jindabyne we’ll off load whatever is left to op shops; winter clothing is always handy in Canberra/Snowy Mountains climates.

The right FB groups will help sell your stuff quicker – these days Gumtree seems to be overrun with spammers.

Shout out to Jindabyne Notice Board for that, great group. Our growing Snow News Australia group kicked in too.

Are we officially ex-ski gear hoarders now?

Hmmm. Looking around me the can’t sell that stash remains fairly large. I seem to still have 4 jackets, 2 pants, 2 XTM gloves, 2 pairs of boots etc.

So cured would be stretching it, not perfect, but we are pretty much down to one small wardrobe’s worth anyway, with all our thermals/socks/sundries in one tub that will sit underneath the stuff on the hangars.

Probably a 70% – 80% gear reduction overall. A good start.

Now for the rest. Anybody need some furniture? Washing machine? Enyclopaedia Britannica 1984 full set with free atlas?