2_0_DiscoverGermany_July 2015_Issue28:Scan Magazine 1
26/6/15
11:42
Page 66
Discover Germany | Business | Asgoodasnew
Extending the life cycle of electronics ReCommerce is an innovative, current trend in Germany which seeks to prevent the waste of resources. asgoodasnew electronics GmbH is Germany’s pioneer and market leader in this field: since 2008, they seek to intelligently rework electronic devices, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops or cameras. TEXT: NANE STEINHOFF | PHOTOS: ASGOODASNEW ELECTRONICS GMBH
“Normally a smartphone ends up in a drawer after 12 to 18 months and is replaced by a new one even though it’s still fully functional. This is wasting of resources. We established a product condition in between ‘new’ and ‘used’: like new! In the state of new devices technically, but significantly cheaper,” Kamil Fijalkowski, Press and Marketing Director of asgoodasnew electronics, explains. asgoodasnew electronics GmbH was founded by Christian Wolf in his living room in 2008. After his studies at the Europe-University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), he got a job at the Deutsche Telekom Laboratories in Berlin where he was responsible for the develop-
66 | Issue 28 | July 2015
ment of commercial models for mobile services. He regularly received new mobile phones and the devices piled up unused in his drawers. Thus, the idea for the asgoodasnew electronics GmbH came to his mind. Today, the business intelligently links all areas of ReCommerce and has grown to have 100 employees in size in only a few years. The company is located in Frankfurt (Oder) and Berlin and serves hundreds of thousands of happy customers throughout Europe. The purchasing process asgoodasnew’s purchasing brand is the online platform wirkaufens.de - an inno-
vative webpage where one can easily and quickly sell their used electronic devices. “Customers especially appreciate the simplicity and rapidity with which they can turn their electronic devices into money,” Fijalkowski notes. Additional customer advantages are exceptional safety through certified data erasure from all smartphones, tablets or laptops, free and insured shipping or collection, no fees or other costs and the fact that one can sell several items at once. Money is directly transferred into one’s account within a couple of days and one can immediately find out the value of one’s item thanks to fixed prices and no auctions. “We also offer this service to companies which want to sell bigger quantities to us and where our service helps to refinance new IT investments, for example,”Fijalkowski adds. After buying, asgoodasnew professionally reworks the devices and resells or recycles them.