The new pre-owned electronics marketplace, trade2save, will be launching imminently. Last week our 1st parcels went out to some of our earliest beta testing customers. The first parcel sent out was to Kevin Patrick, Manager of Business Development at USPS San Francisco. Jesse Wakefield of trade2save.com (pictured here with Kevin’s parcel) dispatched said parcel with diligence, efficiency and delight. The trade2save team then carried the parcel to USPS and spent the rest of the day celebrating at the Clay Oven Indian Tandoori Restaurant on Church Street Noe Valley. Only the hottest curry on the menu could do for such a special occasion.

Trade2save plans to specialize in buying and selling pre-owned electronics to encourage customers to trade-in their electronics so they can be reused to help cut ewaste – before they become obsolete.

Trade2save will also sell new products so long as customers  trade-in.

To encourage more trading-in, trade2save will be making new products available to customers as well as used electronics, providing that they trade-in at least 20% of the value of any new purchases made.

Customers can track their Carbon Footprint and earn valuable Carbon Points

In addition to paying the highest cash or trade-in prices available on the web, trade2save.com will also give Carbon Points for every pre-owned product bought or sold. On our website, customers can track their carbon footprint as every product has been given a carbon offset total. For example, we have calculated that a Thinkpad has a carbon footprint of 950 lbs of CO2. When a customer trades his in, we sell it on to someone who will buy it instead of a new one. This reduces demand for a new Thinkpad by one unit. If it is resold again, it reduces that demand by 2 and so on.

So his carbon offset total increases by 950 lbs. These Carbon Points can be redeemed in a number of ways. As well as trading them in for more store credit, when you reach certain levels, it will qualify you for special status, such as 10% more store credit for your trade-ins, and special gifts.

Every electronics product, be it a PS3 or an iPhone has to be manufactured, exported and eventually discarded as ewaste. By incentivizing a pre-owned market and making it more secure for buyers and sellers, ewaste streams can be significantly reduced. Currently the electronics industry has yet to be able to recycle more than 15% of an average product – this compares to an average car being over 90% recyclable.

Trade2save has been a massive development project, but we hope that the end result will wow you as much as it has wowed us. For a sneak preview of the beta site still under construction have a look.