It was just a few weeks back, when Amazon India launched the Used Books Store and now the country’s most popular e-commerce player is ready with yet another bang. Amazon.in has now launched a used and refurbished mobile phone store.
This move is aimed at those who want to use the latest phones but don’t have the budget to shell out thousands of rupees for owning the latest hardware. These are the people who look for either great deals on popular e-commerce portals or buy from Olx and Quikr.
Used Smartphones Are Classified Into 3 Categories
In this used mobile store, Amazon has classified the used smartphones into 3 categories- Like-new, good, and acceptable.
‘Like-new’ smartphones are those which don’t have any visible dents and scratches, work perfectly, and come with accessories including data cable, earphones. ‘Good’ phones have slight dents and scratches, are under fully working condition along with a perfect display, and might come with some accessories.
The ‘acceptable’ category of smartphones would list those mobile phones that have visible dents and scratches, might have a cracked display, and may not come with factory packaging and accessories.
All these kind of phones may or may not come with up to 6 months of ‘Seller Warranty’.
Refurbished Smartphones Would Also Be Up For Grabs
Amazon would also be selling refurbished smartphones on this online store. The refurbished phones are those phones which are restored to their original condition (no scratches or dents) by the professionals and come with all the accessories.
Regarding the shipping, Amazon mentions that shipping would be free of cost and would have delivery timelines similar to regular products. The customer can also return either used or refurbished phones in case they didn’t like it.
The payment options for this used and refurbished mobile phone store includes cash on delivery (CoD), internet banking, and credit/debit cards.
Amazon also claims that the customer can get up to 50% savings on buying the used smartphones from its platform.
We had a quick look at the refurbished smartphones on Amazon.in and to our surprise, none of the phone was listed at 50% of its current market price. So may be Amazon is using the launch price for doing the calculations for estimated savings.
For instance, the market price of a new Samsung Galaxy J7 2015 is currently around Rs. 13,490, but Amazon lists a refurbished Galaxy J7 at Rs. 11,999. Now who would buy a refurbished phone with 6 months warranty just for saving Rs. 1,500? It doesn’t make any sense to me.
Amazon needs to revise its pricing strategy if it wants to be successful at selling the used and refurbished phones too. India is a price sensitive market and if the customer aren’t offered significant discounts for buying the used and refurbished products, they won’t buy them.
What are your thoughts about it? Would you consider buying a refurbished phone just for saving a couple of thousand rupees? I won’t.
