Well, it's 2015 and the industry has evolved. In fact, in 2014, two of the top four carriers even had a phone trade in "pricing war" play out in national TV ads. In addition, I see at the games (and hear on the radio) major league baseball players in my hometown of Kansas City advertising buyback and phone recycling programs. Now, my friends are telling me how much credit/cash/discounts they got back on their old devices. Phone buyback programs are a part of the mainstream in the wireless industry.
My latest report (Buyback and Trade-in Program Market Overview and Program Assessment: Evaluating the state of the mobile device reclamation market) discusses this evolution and more.
The report highlights three categories:
- Carrier overall ratings for AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon
- In-Store ratings for Apple, Best Buy, ecoATM, Target and Walmart
- Online ratings for Amazon, Best Buy, Gazelle, Target and Walmart
As the industry continues to transform and the device life-cycle lengthens (and strengthens), vendors will need to expand services or partner with others to expand offerings. For instance, vendors will need to improve their repair and refurbishment capabilities to meet the preowned device demand. Business users will need additional life-cycle management support, especially as wearable and IoT devices evolve. These types of ranking reports in the future may take a different form. Rather than highlighting only one aspect of device life-cycle management, we will expand these assessment reports to include more of the value chain players. Stay tuned.
To find out how to purchase the new report, please contact Kate Pearce at [email protected].