rebuy: More than ten million used products given a second life

In 2022, 121,000 smartphones were refurbished

Around 430 thousand consumer electronics devices were sold
Thanks to the provider, almost ten million media items remained in the economic cycle

The triumph of the circular economy continued last year - despite the difficult macroeconomic environment and a high inflation rate. The biggest beneficiary of this trend: the environment. While global online retail had to cope with a decline in sales for the first time, the recommerce sector recorded positive growth. The Berlin recommerce pioneer rebuy reported a growth rate of around 13 percent and record sales of over 200 million euros for the past financial year.

In total, rebuy remanufactured 193,000 devices for resale last year; 121,000 of which are smartphones. An important pillar of the company's success is its grading location for smartphones in Berlin-Falkensee, which is considered the most modern in all of Europe. At this location alone, 85,000 smartphones were analyzed and evaluated using automated processes. In total, the recommerce pioneer sold 430,000 electronic products. Bestseller: The Apple AirPods Pro (1st generation).

Circular economy saves resources

The circular economy makes an active contribution to environmental protection: through the reprocessing and resale of devices, over 210 tons of electronic resources were recycled in 2022 alone. rebuy carries out all steps of the value chain in-house, which ensures consistently high quality and allows a 36-month guarantee to be granted on all electronic products. Last year, around 1.4 million customers sold and bought used products via rebuy.

“The sales figures show that the circular economy is becoming more and more mainstream in society. The individual motivations are very different. They range from the desire to lighten the burden on your wallet to the conviction that you are doing something good for the environment by buying and selling used things. We want to continue our profitable growth in the current financial year,” explains Philipp Gattner, CEO of rebuy. “To meet the expected increasing demand for used products, we are working to configure the highly automated smartphone grading processes for not only Apple but also Android devices. We are also currently doubling our storage and logistics capacities at our media location in Berlin-Rudow.”

In total, rebuy bought almost ten million used books, games, CDs and DVDs last year, which are valued, stored and ultimately sold again at the Berlin-Rudow location. rebuy is currently doubling the capacity of the location to 14,000 square meters, which means that up to eight million items can be stored there. Literature plays by far the largest role. Over 2,000 copies of Kurt Krömer's book "You may not believe everything you think" alone were traded via rebuy in 2022.

rebuy is reporting black figures for the fourth year in a row and now employs around 630 people at five locations.