Refurbished electronic market set to grow by 18% year on year.

A perfect storm is brewing for consumer electronics marketplace. The items it specializes in — refurbished smartphones, PCs, tablets and the like — are in high demand as professionals and students work from home during the coronavirus pandemic. In many regions of the world, unemployment has skyrocketed, so consumers are increasingly budget-conscious. Finally, by extending the lifecycle of consumer devices, e-waste — and the pressure to continually upgrade electronics — is reduced.

The online e-tailer, headquartered in Paris, launched in 2014. Awareness of e-waste—the metals, chemicals, plastics and other elements in discarded electronics — was escalating as an environmental concern.

“Few people were aware that consumer electronics were creating 50 million tons of e-waste and only 20 percent of that was being re-used,” said Serge Verdoux, managing director of Back Market in the U.S. “Back Market envisioned a platform dedicated to high-quality, refurbished electronics that would make restored devices mainstream.”

The global market for refurbished phones, PCs and appliances is estimated at $80 billion.

Back Market, which entered the U.S. in 2018, has millions of paying customers; is growing annually by more than 100 percent and has raised $120 million from Goldman Sachs,  Aglaé Ventures (the venture arm of Groupe Arnault), and Eurazeo Growth. With the advent of the Covid-19 epidemic, sales doubled between March and April this year.

Many businesses, including electronics distributors, provide refurbish/recycle services and products. These B2B transactions largely occur between long-term, established business partners. Consumers are more wary of renovated items, so Back Market partners with professional refurbishers that meet exacting quality standards.

“We’ve developed 15 quality metrics that we track, starting with the order,” said Verdoux. “Was the order shipped on time? Was it the right order? Is the item fully functional? If something goes wrong,  how responsive was the refurbisher? We track all of our sellers this way.” These metrics are also integrated into the pricing of the products.