E-commerce is good, but is Recommerce better?

August 27 2020

Over the last few years, the cost of smartphones has skyrocketed. It’s no longer uncommon to see phones priced at $1,000 or more, making buying a new handset quite the investment. Thanks to the ever-growing used smartphone market, though, it’s rather easy to take the sting out of increasingly higher prices.

Platforms that focus on refurbishing and reselling those electronics have seen skyrocketing growth as well. Searches for this type of ReCommerce platforms have doubled over the last 3 months.

ReCommerce (also known as Reverse Commerce or Re-ecommerce or Reverse Marketplace) is a practice of purchasing and selling of old goods over an e-commerce platform set up just for this purpose.

Re-commerce companies actually buy the obsolete and undesired products, refurbish them, and reintroduce them in the market.

These companies have set standards for pricing and have designed software to determine product prices based on set metrics like age, wear and tear, and market demand.

As the world economy stutters, we’re starting to see a spike in interest in both selling and buying used electronics. A rising stock of this trend is Gazelle, which has seen significant growth over the last 6 months.

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ReCommerce Companies:

Back Market doesn’t refurbish devices in the house. Instead, it partners with certified sellers and lets them list their items on the site. The startup requires a 12-month warranty in order to reassure sellers and sell on the platform. There are now 1,000 certified sellers using Back Market to sell refurbished goods. Refurbishment used to be a fragmented industry and Back Market is aggregating offer and demand on a single online platform. It is currently live in the U.S., France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the U.K., and Austria.

ecoATM, LLC -- doing business as Gazelle -- is an eCommerce company founded in 2006 that helps people donate used electronic devices, such as cellular phones and mobile phones, smart tablets, and laptop computers. The company, in some instances, may offer money to consumers for used or broken smart devices.

Letgo is a company that provides a website and app that allows users to buy from, sell to, and chat with others locally. From its launch in 2015, the company charged for its services, earning no revenue, as part of its strategy to grow quickly. As of June 2018, the listing service remained free, but the app added a paid beta feature allowing users to place their sales items above organic search results.

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Since last week, PrivCo has added:
1,108 Companies | 175 M&A Deals | 160 Funding Activities

Funding & Deal Highlights:

Shef, a homemade food marketplace that enables cooks to sell meals in their local communities, announces that it has raised $8.8M in seed funding from investors including Y Combinator, Craft Ventures.

Octane AI raises $4.24M in funding. The round was led by Bullpen Capital along with participation from General Catalyst Partners, Boost VC, FJ Labs, and others. Octane AI provides an all-in-one platform for engaging quizzes, data collection, and personalized Facebook Messenger and SMS automation.

Science 37, the industry leader in decentralized clinical trials, announces it has closed an oversubscribed $40M funding round. Science 37 will use the new capital to support its rapid growth, expand its technology platform, and accelerate its global expansion efforts-further strengthening its ability to help sponsors execute decentralized trials and enable patients to participate in trials from anywhere, without the burden of traveling to a traditional clinical site.

Craft, the enterprise intelligence company, announces it has closed a $10M Series A financing round to build what it characterizes as a “supply chain intelligence platform.” With the new funding, Craft will expand its offices in San Francisco, London, and Minsk, and grow remote teams across engineering, sales, marketing, and operations in North America and Europe.

Lambda School, which runs virtual 9- and 18-month (part-time) computer science courses for $30,000 — currently covering data science and full-stack web development — with payments for the course based on a sliding scale that only kicks in after you land a job that makes at least $50,000, raises $74M in equity in a Series C round.

Present Life, a new global wellness and beauty company, has launched to create and acquire plant-based brands that do not compromise on performance and do not harm the planet. Present Life’s growing portfolio of brands will span a wide range of price points and positions - from familiar main-street retailers to luxury doors, on and off-line.

Celsius Holdings, Inc., the parent company of fitness energy brand CELSIUS, announces that it has raised $22M in private investments from two global institutional investors.

FARO Technologies, Inc., a global leader for 3D measurement, imaging and realization solutions for 3D Metrology, AEC (Architecture, Engineering & Construction), and Public Safety Analytics, announces that the Company has acquired Advanced Technical Solutions in Scandinavia AB ("ATS"), a Swedish-based leader in 3D digital twin solution technology.

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