In our quest to enable more consumers to trade in their pre-owned goods to save money and help the environment, we are keen give credit (where credit is due) to big companies who help encourage it too.

Sadly though, some for them are doing everything but openly discourage the market. On the one hand they offer a convenience service, but give a terrible trade in price with the other. We previously put the spotlight on Sony’s trade and save program which offers the same service:

The beauty of the service is that you can trade in your used electronics in the same transaction as buying that 52″  LCD TV you’ve dreamed of. In the wake of our harsh economic climate it’s also an ideal way for Best Buy or Sony to turn that dream into a solid sale.

But in reality customers aren’t saving any money at all. Quite from it they are being openly ripped off at a time when consumers can ill afford to be.

Like Gazelle, who operate independently from big name retailers, Best Buy provides a convenient user interface to achieve a fast trade in price. By checking on boxes like ‘Yes it has a power cord’ ‘ yes, it powers on ok’ and ‘excellent condition’, a customer can have a trade-in price estimated within a few seconds - all be it a very bad trade-in estimate.

A customer who is tech savvy enough to take advantage of the Best Buy or Sony Trade in program, shouldn’t have too much trouble in checking out comparable trade in prices on eBay, Amazon or even Craigslist.

Some automated trade in responses were nonsensical, however the example below is a fair example of the kind of mark up they expect from customers.

The gravy days of pre-owned resellers is no more as countless buy sell trade outfits count their losses in the wake of the nation’s tightening recession.

Once upon a time customers were happy to walk into a GameStop and accept a couple of bucks for a quick trade in. Not any more.

Recession hit customers are now paying closer attention to the true value of their trade-ins, and seeking local buyers on Craigslist who’ll pay much more.

Outfits like GameStop, who earn more of their revenue from pre-owned trade-ins than anything else, have seen their pre-owned markets deteriorate as more customers move away. One store manager in Palo Alto said “It’s hard to tell a local customers who needs to sell his games collection that we can offer him 30 bucks when he could sell them the same day on Craigslist for over $100…

“Cutting margins hasn’t really helped. Buyers on Craigslist are willing to pay much more than we can… when customers had money in their pockets, they wouldn’t think twice about trading in 5 games for a new one. Now they need the money and are prepared to look elsewhere for a better offer…” Located primarily in trouble hit suburban Malls, GameStop’s suffering is exacerbated as customers choose the internet over a costly car journey. Enticements such as no tax & free shipping make Spun, Secondspin & soon to be launched trade 2 save, more appealing than ever for customers wanting to get a fair trade for their stuff.

Traditionally, buy sell trade stores have done well in times of recession, however, with store overheads and staffing costs, stores need to make a significant margin of between 50-90% on trade-ins.

Online retailers like SecondSpin and Spun offer the same trade-in service online, but with margins of 50% or more for even the very latest games, they still don’t come close to competing with the direct selling power customers have on Craigslist.

“In a tightening market, pre-owned resellers are going to have to slash their margins or go out of business” says Denis Ramirez, CTO at trade 2 save “… but it’s easier said than done… with stores to run and staff to pay there’s just no tangible way to compete… they’re losing their market the same way Blockbusters lost out to Netflix… only specialist online retailers [with no store overheads]… will attract customers by paying more for trade-ins”

Trade 2 save (www.trade2save.com) - launching at the end of the year - will buy and sell games, movies, computing, electronics and music online only. With no store overhead, trade 2 save will offer customers up to 80% of the resale value of their trade-ins. Combining this with conveniences like free shipping and a warranty is the only way buy sell trade merchants can hope to compete in a new economic environment.

It’s taken a long time, and it’s still going to be a couple of months more possibly, but we are working night and day to get trade 2 save up and running.

It’s been difficult creating a bying and selling website with the level of sophistication as New Egg or Amazon without a team of 20 developers and a multi-million dollar budget. Our small team have big ideas though, and when finally launched, trade2save will stand out among other website where people go to buy or sell  pre-owned products, including console games, computer hardware, cellphones, movies and music.

So what’s the site going to look like?

This 60 second trade2save launch video gives a sneak preview on the look and feel of the site along with a quick scan over the functionality. One unique feature of the site is that you’ll be able to buy and sell products in the same transaction. This is because trade2save will buy directly off of you for cash or higher value store credit.

trade2save is the first trading portal where you can either (1) sell instantly to trade2save or (2) add your product with your asking price to the product page.

trade2save charges no listing fees, no transaction fees and no variable closing fees . Trade2save will charge 6% commission on computer products and 12% commission on anything else.

Small Sellers have to pay up to 50% commission to sell on Amazon

Structuring the commission in this way makes it very cost effective for customers to sell one off items like a DVD movie or a cellphone. For example, sell a $5 dvd movie on trade2save to another customer and you’ll receive $4.40.

Sell it on Amazon for example and you’ll receive $2.46. That’s because Amazon and other portals charge a minimum transaction fee as well as as a variable closing cost (on top of the commission).

Small everyday sellers don’t get a good deal and are squeezed out in favor of the more profitable power sellers and merchants who provide ongoing business.

trade 2 save levels the playing field for small one time sellers. Whether your a Power seller or a small seller, you’ll be able to sell (and Buy) knowing that you’re getting a good deal and that there isn’t a middle man double dipping.

If you’d like to become a beta trader on the trade2save website, please let us know. What this will involve is buying products from us and selling products to us in the same transaction. We won’t be charging you and we will give you store credit as a thank you to use when we launch. This is so that we can iron out any problems with the site before we officially launch.

We’ll keep you posted on developments. For now it’s back to programming!!!!!! Doh!

I must have - I must have now - the instinctive response when Mummy wheeled your stroller past the Hershey aisle. The same instinct is alive and kicking as thousands line the streets today for the latest in electronics gluttony- the 3G iPhone.(SUPER-SIZE ME!)The iPhone is a phenomenal product - no question - and would have remained a phenomenal product unchanged for another few years  - but now it’s just another piece of junk pushed aside for a spanking new upgrade - the 3G iPhone.Let’s face it - features like GPS and 3G could have been included in iPhone 1.0 but were held back to (1) Create further record sales for a later model and (2) ensure that the original iPhone would be perceived to be obsolete as quickly as possible.It’s a prime example of the marketing employed by companies like Apple who have deliberately instigated the e-waste crisis. I call it deliberate because Apple and the other electronics giants are fully aware that greater amounts of e-waste is a direct result of their drive to make previous models obsolete as quickly as they can.How different is the new iPhone 3G from the iPhone 1.0? Surprisingly, not very much. Apart from having 3G and GPS.What else is new?

• Your inbox will be the same and act just as fast and soon you’ll be able to download software to make your iPhone 1.0 email faster and more secure.

• Your old iPhone supports ActiveSync just like the new one.

• Your old iPhone supports all the new enterprise functionality of the Blackberry.
• Plus you’re old iPhone (it’s just crazy to call this thing old) is going to be able to capitalize on all the new applications pouring out thanks to the long awaited SDK release (Software Development Kit).
• 3G streaming video will be faster, but none of the stuff I love to watch on YouTube will be there because of copyright protection - and of course in a Wifi area you’ll have no advantage over iPhone 1.0.

Oh yes- the old iPhone is about 2 mil thinner, so the 3G will feel a little bulkier in your pocket.I find 3G still sluggish compared to the broadband speed I’m used to in most Wifi Cafes… for a good all round review go to engadget.  A better alternativeMy advice is to stay with your original iPhone - if you really have to have the 3G model because you totally rely on the Edge for internet connectivity and not Wifi then at least wait 2 or 3 weeks until some mint pre-owned 3Gs are on the market.Then just sell your old iPhone and upgrade. This way you won’t be adding another new cell phone onto the market. Every time you buy a new cell phone you’re adding another onto the e-waste pile - and only 12.5% of that will be recycled.Later in the year we’re going to start trade 2 save. We’ll happily accept the iPhone 1.0 in graded conditions and sell pre-owned 2.0 and 1.0 iPhones in graded conditions, from like new, very good and good (all with a 1 year warranty). By trading in this way you’ll be able to upgrade without breaking the bank and without creating more e-waste.What’s more, trade 2 save will be a pre-owned electronics market place, where you can trade-in all your used electronics in working condition including all electronics, accessories, computer hardware, laptops, PCs, Gaming, Movies and entertainment.

WALL-E is one of the better animations to come out of the Disney Pixar creative collaboration.

It’s a heart warming tale of WALL-E, a Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class unit. The lovable robot manages to stay functional after 700 years of service by recycling bits of other WALL-E robots which have perished over the centuries of cleaning up the Earth.

A thousand years earlier in the 21st Century, the Buy ‘N’ Large corporation had (miraculously) taken over every single service on Earth, including the government. They are to blame for the rampant over production and subsequent pollution that ensues - turning Earth into a wasteland of e-waste and junk - void of humans, who generations later, remain living lethargically on a space cruiser many light years away.

The Buy ‘N’ Large corporation is a more acceptable bad guy to portray than the dozens of consumer brands who benefit from today’s throw away society.

A more realistic landscape (the one we see today in Asia) would be the mountains of e-waste filled with broken Sony plasma screens, Panasonic DVD players and colored iPod shells. This later imagery would never have gotten passed Disney’s largest stock holder.

The real message to be taken from this summer’s No. 1 blockbuster is that most of what makes up e-waste today is non recyclable and has absolutely nowhere to go.

    only about 12% of the e-waste we produce is recycled. The rest will joint the mountains of e-waste which one day might challenge the Himalayas.

We see the pictures of Chinese villagers picking their way through circuit boards and recovering the poisonous alloys and by-product, but this only makes up about 12% of the junk that we ship to them. The rest stays strewn across the countryside on e-waste dumps which closely resemble the make believe ones depicted in WALL-E.

If the electronics we produce today are largely non recyclable, why is the drive towards recycling them so prevalent, when a drive to re-use them or make them last longer goes relatively unheard?

So long as the green back is more powerful than the green lobby, more funds will be driven towards green perception than green reality - The burying of the National Computer Recycling Act is testament to this. Only when every bit of electronics is recyclable (and this includes Xbox, Playstation, Wii too) will we be able to start slowing the acceleration of e-waste dumping.

Until the Utopian vision of green electronics magically appears - which will be decades away at best - consumers need to look at other ways to lower the rising tide of e-waste: Buy a pre-owned or used computer, digital camera, cell phone or any electronics device when you can.

When you buy something new you add to the e-waste pile - when you buy used you don’t.

Sell pre-owned or used as well. If you don’t use your old computer, DVD player, cell phone, digital camera or camcorder any more, trade it in or sell it pre-owned  or used so that someone else will buy it from you instead of buying it new and adding to e-waste themselves.

For additional trust, buy used off of a pre-owned retailer who is willing to give a one year warranty on your purchase. That way, you have as much confidence as buying new.

With companies like trade 2 save launching to give consumers more confidence in the pre-owned and used consumer electronics market, we hope that more consumers will take matters into their own hands and prevent the e-waste catastrophe so beautifully animated in WALL-E.

For those of us who don’t enjoy the eBay experience and just want to trade-in our old laptops for an upgrade, Sony Style has the answer. You can trade in your old laptop or desktop using their online calculator to get credit towards any new purchase at Sony Style.

The trade and save format is proving very successful at Sony and fits in perfectly with their environmental program.

Sony are keen to voice their environmental credentials…

     Sony does not want anything to go to waste which could potentially harm the environment if improperly disposed. At the same time, Sony wants to make recycling beneficial and convenient for you. That’s why we offer the Sony Notebook Trade-in Program. We’ll not only dispose of your notebook in an environmentally safe manner, we’ll also give you credit towards a new VAIO PC.

So we took them at their word. I have an old Pentium 3 Dell Laptop so was keen to learn how much trade-in value they’d give me for the laptop they were going to responsibly dispose of for me.

Strangely I got this response:

     We are sorry but your notebook is ineligible for trade-in

But I thought that…

     Sony does not want anything to go to waste which could potentially harm the environment” and that you “not only dispose of (my) notebook in an environmentally safe manner, (you’ll) also give (me) credit towards a new VAIO PC.

Oh well. I suppose my old laptop is just too old to be recycled.

But hang on, I’ve also got this mint condition used once IBM Core 2 Duo with 2 GHz, 200 Gig Hard Drive, Blue tooth, DVD +-

Ah… Sony’s Value Calculator is much more interested in disposing of this terrible piece of unwanted e-waste. In fact, they’ll even give me a whopping $413 trade-in credit for it!!

That’s amazing! Because according to eBay, I should be getting $1650 for it used! Thank you Sony - We’re really happy you’re heart is in the right place when it comes to the environment.

I wonder if some of the laptops on eBay are actually from Sony Style? What a business! 400% mark up for what they buy them for from Joe public. They only make 15% mark up on new stuff. They should go into the trade-in business. Oh yes - they have.

Of course, Sony’s trade and save venture will soon be having a little unwanted competition in the form of trade 2 save, where people will be able to trade-in their used laptops and other consumer electronics for decent prices. They’ll be able to buy and sell in the same online store or trade for an upgrade. Trade 2 save will only buy, sell or trade used or pre-owned products in graded conditions, including computer hardware, consumer electronics, cell phones, gaming and movies. Because trading pre-owned consumer electronics and their consumables is a sure fire way of tackling e-waste.

I find it amazing that a company like Sony can so proudly brag about their trade in / re-cycling program on the one hand, and yet refuse to take anything in that they can’t sell on eBay for 4 times the price!

At a time when everyone is looking for ways to save money, what could be better than saving money and helping to save the planet at the same time. This is what you can do when you trade in your old model and upgrade it to a model you want which is pre-owned and works and looks perfectly fine.

OK, so you won’t have the self gratifying pleasure of pulling a virginal iPod out of the factory sealed sleave for the very first time, but hey, you’ll have a staggering effect on the global e-waste crisis, if you and a few million other Americans thought the same way.

And after a few days of owning it, you’d have forgotten you bought it pre-owned in the first place!
Upgrading to stay ahead is paramount for tech enthusiasts, many of whom are now upgrading their first generation iPhone after just 6-8 months of use.

You’d be surprised what you can find pre-owned. Many people may use a cellphone for a month, or even less and want to get something else, or perhaps a newer model has just come out. Maybe they were given a free upgrade by their phone company and are quite happy with the one they’ve got.

Virtually anything that has been on the market for a few weeks is available pre-owned in a like new condition.

So why does buy it pre-owned reduce e-waste and your carbon footprint? Buying it pre-owned means that you are reducing the demand for that product by one unit.

And if you go ahead and trade it in or sell it to someone else down the line, you are reducing the demand for a new one to be sold to someone else by another unit again (because he’s buying a pre-owned one off you instead of a new one from Best Buy).

When you trade it in and purchase another pre-owned, again, you are reducing the demand for another product too – and so the cycle continues. Now imagine a few million consumers having the same idea?

Each MP3 player, for example, takes roughly 300 lbs of CO2 to produce. Then there’s the small matter of transportation by road and shipping to the store (from China usually) and ultimately to you. Millions of products – millions of upgrades, millions of tons of e-waste every year, the cycle is endless.

When you buy pre-owned instead of new it means that at the end of the product’s life, there will 3 to 4 times less of that product ending up as e-waste, because as you have reduced the demand, less is being produced as a consequence, especially when you are one of thousands of consumers wanting to save money when they upgrade, and reduce their carbon footprint in the process.

But it’s not just millions of tons of less e-waste every year. China’s demand for oil projected over the next decade has created the speculative price surges we see today. What most people don’t know is that this isn’t totally the blame of Chinese People lining outside the Cadillac showroom in Beijing.

Manufacturing is the biggest single consumer of oil in China, and the biggest (and fastest growing) sector of manufacturing is, yes you guessed it, consumer electronics.

Steve Jobs would love you to upgrade every time he brings out a new iPod or iPhone. Well, providing you trade in your old model (and keep it nice for the next person) and then buy a pre-owned upgrade that someone else may have had for a few weeks or months, then you’ll be doing exactly what he wants and saving money and the planet in the process. Not sure he’d be as happy as I’m suggesting though.

Trading portals like trade 2 save will enable consumers to buy, sell and trade their used electronics, computers, games and movies - with more confidence and for better value so they can upgrade readily while still saving money and reducing ewaste.

We’ve all been stung on Craigslist or eBay - an iPod that turns up without the insides, or nothing turns up at all - these so called harmless little frauds that go on thousands of times a day which no one really talks about (it’s a fact that most people would prefer not to admit that they’d been duped in such a way)

But more recently, some particularly nasty things have been happening. Nancy Grace recently highlighted the tragic case of a nanny going missing after answering an ad in Craigslist, and now the couple here who have been caught out thanks to their ignorance of thinking they could get away with a crime and not get traced via their IP address.

Just to recall, Brandon and Amber Herbert placed an ad in Craigslist which said that all the belongings at a house were free for the taking - they then joined in with others to claim goods.

Though this is a comical end to a particularly nasty hoax, the fact remains that the public at large are extremely vulnerable to crime that takes place as a matter of course on auctions sites like eBay, and yes even Craigslist.

The pre-owned industry on the internet would be vastly bigger if there were any effective measures to protect us from con merchants who have now made the art of a con into a multi-million dollar online business.

Perhaps if the portals (who are worth billions) were made responsible for fraud that took place on their sites (like an online retailer would be responsible if they sold you something, took your money and it never showed up).

I think they would be spending much more time trying to solve the issue which has done nothing but escalated exponentially over the last few years.

In an era when the public should be encouraged to be greener and buy pre-owned products, it’s hardly surprising that the market is so tiny compared to the new market.

People have got to feel more confident about online pre-owned purchases if they are to start doing it regularly. The second hand car market would never have taken off in this state.

When we launch trade 2 save will be attempting to increase confidence in the pre-owned electronics market by acting as a retailer as opposed to a third party portal who have no legal obligations to either sellers or buyers. Customers will be able to buy, sell and trade Games, DVDs, consumer electronics and Computer Hardware, confident that they aren’t subject to a scam.

trade 2 save will buy the products, test them and grade them, and then sell them on as pre-owned with a store warranty that customers will be able to trust.

With eBay and Craigslist having done so little over the past decade to tidy up their acts, it could well be that customers start turning to a new breed of pre-owned online retailer who they can trust and save money with.

Trade 2 save are calling on IT managers throughout the USA to consider carefully their ‘new’ buying practices when comes to their firm’s IT requirements. The call goes one step further than the Forrester report written by analyst Galen Schreck “Five Green IT Trends That Will Impact the Infrastructure and Operations Professionals.” Schreck cautioned that IT managers need to take proactive measures now and address tomorrow’s growing environmental concerns.

“…expect sourcing and procurement teams to continue making green demands on suppliers …(sourcing) executives will likely have a large role in ensuring that suppliers meet these requirements…”

CIOs are turning to service providers to help them meet their green goals; the report predicts that the green IT service market will expand to $1.75 billion by 2010.

End-of-life management of IT equipment is continuing to grow in importance, “Don’t be surprised to see green business initiatives stretch beyond the data center to other parts of you company.”

The report also gave advice to address the growing wave of environmental concern and learning more about current energy consumption in order to take steps to lower it.

Denis Ramirez, trade 2 save CTO, criticizes the report for falling short of the mark. Ramirez “the proper disposal for recycling of old computer equipment and the efficient use of energy is a given which doesn’t necessarily need preaching… what does need more focus is environmentally conscious purchasing of pre-owned electronics and computing which cost less and give a company a negative Carbon Rating… if US firms purchased just 10% of their computer equipment pre-owned or refurbished, it would cut e-waste by millions of tons each year.”

trade 2 save is being launched at the end of the year specifically to encourage more Americans to buy and sell pre-owned or used so that computer hardware and consumer electronics last longer by being used by more than one person in its lifetime.