Trade-in programs are very popular among our brand partners – a third of them offer this option as part of their resale programs. When we first started supporting trade-ins earlier this year, we focused on allowing customers to complete the entire process from the comfort of their homes. That was a great starting point, but there was so much more we wanted to do to help our brand partners reach more customers and grow their trade-in programs faster.

So, together with our brand partners we set to work on a number of major updates to our trade-in solution. Today we’re excited to share the results of our efforts.

In-person trade-ins

The first enhancement we focused on was allowing the trade-in process to be completed in person.

Many of our brand partners have a retail presence, and they welcome the opportunity to personally interact with their customers. Customers who share that preference can now drop off their trade-in at designated locations instead of shipping them. The added bonus is that doing so also saves customers the shipping costs, and its reduces the environmental cost of shipping.

When customers arrives to drop off their items, retail associates can quickly review the customers’ online submissions in our brand portal and mark them as received. If the customer didn’t submit the trade-in online first, retail associates can quickly create and account for the customer (if one doesn’t already exist) and log the items being traded in.

Once items are marked as received, they can be reviewed and processed at the brand’s convenience just like they would be in a mail-in situation. Customers are automatically issued store credit by email at the end of the review process.

Sell traded-in items alongside new items

The second enhancement we focused on was giving our brand partners the option to choose to sell traded-in items directly in their Shopify stores.

The process for listing a traded-in item for sale in the brand’s Shopify store is almost completely automated. After an item passes review and is tagged for resale in our platform, we create a new product in the brand’s Shopify catalog that is copy of the original product but that is specific to the traded-in item and has “pre-loved” added to its name. The pre-loved product remains in draft mode until the brand is ready to sell it, at which point, all it needs to do is publish it.

Sell traded-in items alongside new items

If you’re thinking about launching your own trade-in program, or if you’d like to learn more about our resale platform, please message us.