ZeroWaste - A Reverse Commerce Platform for Customers to Sell Their Old Electronics For Cash

ZeroWaste was founded by Prateek Goel & Dixit Singhvi. The startup commenced its operations in January, 2014. Started as an e-waste management company, ZeroWaste pivoted its model to ReCommerce one in October 2015.

ZeroWaste is a ReCommerce platform of used electronics, which provides an online quotation to its customers, after getting answers to a certain set of questions based on the product. The startup facilitate the logistics of the product and pay its customer in cash during the pick-up. This is how ZeroWaste sell old and used electronics.

The Steps are as follows:

A customer who wishes to sell its old electronics shall visit ZeroWaste. As the customer chooses the desired product to be sold, some relevant questions regarding the product are flashed.

These relevant questions specify the Brand, Age, Capacity, Size and Conditions of the products etc.

Based on the information gathered above, a market based price is generated.
If customer agrees with the price offer, then a free home pick up is scheduled as per convenient day and time.

ZW follows the pickup request and technician is sent to the customer’s address for the physical verification of product within 48 hours for a successful verification.

Once the technician verifies the conditions as per all the pre-mentioned details, the customer liquidated in cash and the order is successfully closed.

Team BWDisrupt Interacts With Prateek Goel, Co-founder, ZeroWaste And Spoke To Him

Genesis

On a business trip to Ghana, Prateek came across an extremely mind disturbing condition, when he experienced that the country became the biggest and preferred E-waste dumping hub of the world.

On his way back to India her realized that the conditions here were not at par as well. There was a huge gap between the consumer of old/used electronics and its recyclers/refurbishing agents. Moreover, the present unauthorized sector of second –hand electronics was not only providing lousy services but also wasn’t following the environmental benchmarks of handling the E-Waste in a right and safe way.

This was the eureka moment for me which gave birth to ZeroWaste, a company which provides an easy and convenient solution to sell one’s old/ used electronics in a responsible way. The purpose was to eventually help in maintaining a sustainable environment with a growth prospect.

Unique Key Features of ZeroWaste

The concept of waiting till the sale of electronics just died as we came up with easy and assured buyback guarantee.

Customer doesn’t have to bear annoying negotiations to sell their product as they are provided with an online valuation of the product. They just have to fill some details regarding the product to generate the price based on an algorithm.

Customer gets instant cash at their doorstep with a free home pick up facility and that too in just 48 hours, which ensures convenience to the customer.
Verification of the product is done by the skilled technician.

Differentiation Factors

The difference we have brought to the table can be measured in terms of our pricing which has always been more than our competition. Being a service aggregator, maintaining the Turnaround Time has been our USP and we are striving hard to better ourselves by the day.

The pricing generated by our algorithm is not only based on the mentioned conditions of the product but also the market operating price, which is regularly revised after relevant surveys by our analytics team. Unlike other channels, Customer convenience has always been a priority for the ZeroWaste and by keeping this thing in mind we have given the shape to our platform which is adorned with quick and user friendly service offering.

Funding

Our friends and family have served as our source of funding till now. We are planning to raise about Rs. 10 crore, required for extending our operations, customer acquisition and technology.

Monetization

We partner with least 8 active vendors, having their own similar line of electronics business, in each operational city. Whenever an order is placed by the customer on our website, we forward that lead to the vendor in that particular area from where the pickup has to take place.

The vendor picks up the product after verification and pays price of the same to the customer which was quoted on our website. Our revenue generation model is commission based on that order value.

Challenges Faced

Every new venture has to face a few tough challenges at the initial stage of building up a brand.

One of major challenges is lack of trust among the customers, which got a blow over the time because of dubious channels with no transparency in their work.
Another challenge is the lack of information about refurbished goods among customers and entrance of dealers in the market who deal in such products.

Present Status and Future Plans

ZeroWaste is currently offering its services in Jaipur, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Surat and Ahmedabad. It has served over 5,000 customers since inception. We are planning to expand our operations in other major cities like Mumbai and other metros by the end of 2016.

We are currently facilitating sale of Refrigerator, Television, Air Conditioner, Washing Machine & Smart Phones to our customers. Other products like Laptops, Tablets, Microwaves, Owens are in the pipeline.

We are also working on our customer based mobile application on play store which is quite a necessity for quick assessment of our platform in today’s mobile enabled world.

Market Size & Opportunity

Total Market for Sale of Used Electronics was Rs. 35,000 crore in 2015 which is expected to grow to Rs. 60,000 crore in 2020. ZeroWaste is trying to organize the highly unorganized market of the Re-Commerce; basically, it is bridging the gap between the customers and the service providers including refurbishers and recyclers.