I had a plan
A three step plan – to get into a pro-level drone like a DJI Phantom or Mavic. The plan was this;
- Buy a small cheap (£50) done for some fun flying – learn how to fly it, take some video, have a laugh. Convince Mrs C that this was a good thing!
- Step up to a better quality, more versatile, more feature-packed drone for maybe £250. Get some much better footage and some still photos flying outside. Prove the potential to make and sell images and video.
- Upgrade to a big-boys toy – depending on finances, either something like the new DJI Spark (£600) or go higher to the DJI Mavic (£1200) or even DJI Phantom 4 (£1800)
Step 1 went well
I got my Hubsan H107C that we had flying in Scotland and buzzing round the house.
Then I had an idea
I owned a mint condition Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS Mark II that I bought with some money that my Nan left me when she passed away. I bought it because it would be a while before I’d have that sort of money to spend on a luxury item again.
But in the end, I didn’t use it very much. In fact the times I did use it were largely because I made myself use it because I hadn’t been using it. Coupled with this lens I also had the 1.4x and 2x Mark III extenders which again I wasn’t using.
So I decided to look into part-exchanging them to raise the money to jump straight from Step 1 to Step 3.
I contacted three reputable companies here in the UK; Wex, MBP and Park Cameras. The best offer came from Wex – which was great because they (and Park) also sold the drone. After a bit of negotiation over the offer price, I agreed terms with Wex and set things in motion.
Nice and Easy
They emailed me a packing label and arranged for collection. All I had to do was box up the items securely and within a few days I had enough credit in my Wex account to pre-order the new Platinum edition DJI Mavic Pro ‘fly more combo’ bundle, plus some spare propellers and have a few pounds left over.
Unfortunately, the UK release date for the Mavic Pro Platinum kept slipping further and further out and then came Black Friday. Wex reduced the prices of the original Mavic Pro by a further £250 so it was now over £350 cheaper than the Platinum.
It was at this point that I decided I didn’t want to wait any longer. So I contacted Wex to change my pre-order to a Black Friday deal. Within a couple of hours I had an email saying that my new Mavic was ready for shipping and would be with me the next day – awesome.
The whole process was really easy and communication from the team at Wex was great. They were super helpful, especially when I couldn’t find the box for the old lens!
If you have some equipment that you’re not using any more, I’d definitely recommend looking at trading in/ part-exchanging and I’d definitely recommend Wex.
