Dipanjan Purkayastha established Hyperxchange in February, 2016. He has 20 years’ experience working in the Tech space across US & India. He has focused equal parts of his career growing businesses and sales teams, as well as structuring large investment banking transactions. His previous corporate role was Vice President of Tech Mahindra.Dipanjan is guest faculty for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at leading institutions like IIT- Delhi and IIM- Calcutta. He is an Engineer from NIT Kurukshetra and MBA from SP Jain Mumbai.
With the growing business, awareness, and acceptance of the refurbished products in India, the industry reached 70 million mark in December 2021, with a 35% YOY growth. The pandemic modified the financial situation of many, making it hard for individuals acquainted with a particular sort of way of life to re-conform to being, if not economical, more moderate in their use. Thus, many of them were glad to pick the refurbished option, both to save some money and to make a pro-climate choice. As we enter 2022, it is important to understand where the industry stands currently and what are the trends to look forward to:
Last-mile delivery to tier-2&3 cities
Handling and conveying an online order is complex business. When an order is placed, it goes through several phases across inventory, QC, pick/pack processes and multiple logistics hand-offs before the delivery is complete. One of the most significant and the last advance of this cycle is “Last-mile delivery”, especially the light of quicker delivery timelines being offered to consumers. It includes dispatching the items to the customer through local nodes, rather than from a centralized hub. Development in online business has prompted a requirement for big business focused last-mile delivery benefits that are accessible on request. The developing requirements of the customers such as visibility of the delivery cycle, fast delivery on-demand, and so forth have driven the operations business to think of an effective framework. With viable last-mile delivery, the refurbished business centers could focus on route enhancement, assessing the critical parts of pick-up points, drop-points, weight, volume, cost of the vehicle, arrangement, and the delivery time, and so forth – especially in Tier-2 & 3 zoness, where traditional distribution networks aren’t well-developed.
Omnichannel distribution system
It is impossible for B2C players to overlook the recent changes that have shaken the whole business segment: influx of technology, millennial buying habits, the rise of D2C, and so forth. Customers need to purchase in the manner that is convenient, wherever they are the moment. Consequently, an omnichannel experience is the most effective way for brands to wrap their customers in an immersive experience of the brand. Today, it isn’t about having a presence on the web or offline alone, everything must be interconnected. Omnichannel let’s customers to experience the products and services of the brand across a continuum, rather than at a traditional point of sale, enhancing the relationship right from the get-go and building a deeper mind-space.
Brand-owned refurbished platforms
Looking at the skyrocketing demand and increased focus of consumers in buying planet-friendly sustainable products, it is safe to say refurbished products are here to stay. However, until further advancement just a small bunch of brands stand apart in this industry as early purveyors for providing top-end quality, through in-house refurbished platforms. One thing is for sure – brands must not overlook the industry trends. There is a need for refurbish electronics among buyers, brands only need to find out if putting resources into in-house refurbished platforms would be simply one more source of expenditure or it very well may be an important method for improving the client experience, make brand a local name and show more economical accreditations in an undeniably competitive environment.
Increasing global competition
The worldwide refurbished mobile phone market fell 9% (on-year) in 2020 owing to Covid-19 lockdowns and related monetary impediments. The data for 2021 is still in works, but given the demand on the ground, everyone expects a huge growth turnaround in refurbished electronics, as work from home norms explode device demand, while semiconductor chip shortage reduces new product sales. Be that as it may, not all portions of the market declined in 2020 – Indian refurbished space continued to scale at phenomenal pace, with top players like hyperXchange posting 8X growth in revenue. As one of the world’s biggest phone markets, India is probably going to keep fabricating a solid case for worldwide competition. While there are a set of refurbished market leaders, new players are moving into India, while some Indian players are making global forays.
Sustainability
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, customers have become more mindful of the sustainability. And refurbished electronics carry the flag when it comes to making ground-level impact through consumer action. Consider this: every time a customer purchases a refurbished phone instead of a new phone, it results in an effective reduction of 19kg in greenhouse gas emissions. And for every additional year consumers continue to use that phone, the planet sees a reduction of ~ 12kg in emissions. Now consider that leading refurbished brands like hyperXchange sell anywhere from 1-5 million refurbished phones every year, and reuse more than 80% of these phones for 2 years or more, the savings in emission alone is in megatons! Given this reality, organizations are creating products utilizing recyclable materials which can be reused, fixed, or refurbished. Also, refurbished items are sold at lower cost with a year-long warranty, making it a budget-friendly, guilt-free choice for today’s consumers.
Even though it is difficult to decide how precisely the refurbished electronics market will progress in the long run, it will secure a praiseworthy spot in the Indian mobile industry, if not disrupt the current business models. The advancement in technology makes all of it work. E-commerce platforms are pushing deals of their refurbished products by alluring crazy deals. As individuals continue to find ways to tackle economic frailty, exploring wide variety of refurbished electronics, apparel, furniture, home merchandise and vehicles sold for a portion of the market cost is a more appealing choice than giving out cash for new items.