IGWT Block’s Tessa B is planning to shake up the mobile phone resale space with a marketing push by former Ogilvy executive Andrew Weisselberg.
TessaB, a subsidiary of PCS Wireless, has re-launched its Glyde marketplace, a site which is essentially an online store for premium pre-owned phones.
But the Glyde launch is only the first step in IGWT Block’s plan to disrupt the mobile phone resale market, which may total roughly $39 billion in global revenue by 2025, according to forecasts from Persistence Marketing Research.
Weisselberg who is Head of Marketing & Customer Experience at IGWT Block told Campaign US that the company plans on introducing a blockchain layer to Glyde in early 2020 that will allow customers to ensure the secondhand phone they are buying is in good condition. Previously, the secondhand market suffered an image problem from buyers receiving poor quality phones.
“Peer-to-peer phone sales are inherently risky,” he explained. “If I’m buying a premium pre-owned phone, I would want to make sure I know the history of it.”
Because the devices are expensive, IGWT Block is making a tech stack that contains a blockchain registry and remote phone diagnostics app.
“The seller runs diagnostics on [his or her] phone and it will record those results on the blockchain, and since you can trust this data you can put it on the front end of the e-commerce site,” said Weisselberg.
This means buyers can test the history of that phone and see the full condition of it prior to purchase.
He added: “The blockchain piece is in beta, and we want to use Glyde as the successful case study.”
In addition to growing the secondary market, Weisselberg is also hoping that Glyde will have an environmental impact, as phones are recycled instead of thrown out once the user is ready to upgrade.
He said: “The average phone has three to four users. It becomes very expensive and has a huge carbon footprint. This is about dispelling the perception that a used phone is not of high quality. People are trading in phones that only used 20 percent of its usable life.”
The launch plan includes digital advertising, email, social media, SEO, and content marketing. Advertising will focus on the Facebook, Instagram and Google platforms. Audiences will be targeted with a combination of videos, banners, social media posts, search ads, and blog articles promoting Glyde.
Phone sellers will be enticed to download and run the diagnostic app with certain incentives in order to promote a larger ecosystem.
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