The smartphone device exchange market in India has undergone significant transformation over the past few years. With the increasing participation of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and innovative platforms like Servify, the reselling ecosystem is becoming more organised, transparent, and trusted by consumers.
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In an exclusive interview, Melville Fernandes, VP – Fulfilment Centre at Servify, sheds light on how device exchange programs are shaping the industry, building consumer trust, and the opportunities that lie ahead.
In India, the trade-in/device exchange market has changed a lot in recent years. More and more OEMs/brands are recognising its immense power as a strong affordability lever to drive sales of new devices. This is particularly perceptible in the smartphone space, followed by other handheld devices like laptops and tablets. Increasing participation of OEMs/brands in the exchange programs coupled with attractive offers for customers have helped organise the sector, which was mostly unorganised, till recently.
Servify has developed an exchange tech platform of its own. The beauty of our platform is that it unites all ecosystem players relevant for running such exchange programs on the same plane, ensuring complete transparency to all the entities involved. Devices traded on the Servify platform go through an automated functional check ensuring the right price is offered based on the actual device condition. The data erasure process followed by Servify (Certified by ADISA/ISO/AAA/NIST) on each device traded in on its platform ensures complete data privacy.
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Devices sold in the second hand market are based on trust factor and there is no warranty or affordability (EMI schemes) available on such devices, which is a huge risk. Today, many organised resellers in the market who purchase pre-owned devices through our platform offer warranty on the products due to greater assurance of quality, thereby helping build customer confidence on such devices. We believe that soon OEMs will start to support warranty on pre-owned devices and offer EMI schemes/offers on them, thereby increasing product penetration further.
With most OEMs offering Exchange Bonus and EMI schemes on purchase of new devices, the cycle time for upgrade is reducing fast; this is aided further by massive technology enhancements, especially in smart devices. Earlier, customers held on to their devices for long periods before considering buying new ones. That time to upgrade to a new device has shrunk considerably today, which has created more opportunities for device exchange than in the past.
As brands offer increasingly lucrative deals on device exchange, coupled with participation of organised players to facilitate those programs using technology, customer awareness is increasing by the day. This is leading to more customers participating in the exchange programs today than ever before. As the market gets more organised and the challenges highlighted earlier get addressed by the industry operators, we believe more customers will feel comfortable to exchange their old devices against purchase of new ones. Both the offline and the online channels present great potential for growth of trade-in/exchange volumes.
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In conclusion, it’s no surprise that as the device exchange market in India continues to evolve, platforms like Servify are going a long way in building a trustworthy and efficient reselling ecosystem. By uniting key players and ensuring transparency and quality assurance, they are addressing consumer concerns and encouraging more people to participate in exchange programs.
With technological advancements shortening upgrade cycles and increasing consumer awareness, the future holds significant growth potential for both online and offline channels in the trade-in market. The transformation from an unorganised to an organised market not only benefits consumers with better deals and services but also propels the Indian refurbished gadget industry’s overall growth.
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