Planned Obsolescence A fireside chat
summary
Back Market rebuilds and resells refurbished devices at scale, buying back phones, replacing batteries and broken parts, and polishing cosmetics so older models stay functional longer. The marketplace runs 30,000 SKUs, 400 employees, aiming for €1bn GMV across 10 countries and serves high volume traffic (around 500k requests/sec), using a curation algorithm and grading system to normalize quality, show avoided CO2/raw materials, push repurposing before recycling, and enable B2B carbon-accounting opportunities.
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chapters (18)
- 0:00Fireside chat intro
- 1:09Focus on hardware refurbishment
- 2:57Back Market mission
- 4:01Back Market growth
- 5:26Refurbished vs reconditioned
- 6:30Trust in second-hand markets
- 8:15Grading refurbished devices
- 9:38Popular products on Back Market
- 11:02Buyer motivations
- 13:50Engineers joining for purpose
- 14:53Planned obsolescence impact
- 17:19Fighting psychological obsolescence
- 18:44UX in refurbished sales
- 20:51Recycling routes
- 22:14Recycling last resort
- 23:58Carbon footprint savings
- 25:21Corporate carbon compensation
- 26:44Join or support Back Market
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