Pune-based HyperXchange, a online-to-offline electronics recommerce business, came to life in 2016 when Satanik Roy met DipanjanPurkayastha with the idea to start a marketplace for reused products. Today, HyperXchange has 10 retail stores across Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune. It has partnered with Syska to find the right partners for opening more retail stores across the country. The average flagship device value is around Rs 10,000 and it sells around 15 of these devices per hour. It aims to leverage this figure to 15 devices per minute in the coming days. “There is only a 2-3 % margin in new mobile business, whereas in refurbished mobile business, it is possible to get a 15-20% margin,” says Dipanajan Purkayastha, CEO, HyperXchange.
According to a 2016 Deloitte report, global sales of refurbished smartphones was expected to increase from 56 million units in 2014 to 120 million in 2017, growing at a CAGR of 29%. A large part of this growth was predicted to occur in emerging markets, such as India, South Africa, or Nigeria, which gave a strong reason for players like HyperXchange to venture into this business.
Purkayastha believes that, culturally, Indians have always been fine with reusing products and if services are provided to ensure that these products are delivered to them in perfect condition, it will definitely be a success story. “Winning people’s trust and providing convenience with respect to using reused products is the tougher task,” he says. “We all are concerned about the logistics, the condition of the product, and after sales support when we think of getting a refurbished product. In fact, we are not worried about buying a reused product but all of the above things. Our main aim when we started out was to provide these assurances to our customers.”
Hence, HyperXchange provides doorstep delivery and pickup with 24 hours customer care support. The online-to-offline business model makes it convenient for customers to order online and/or walk into one of their stores and make their purchase. On top of all this, HyperXchange provides a 12-month warranty and a 9-month buy back option. It also provides a standby phone when a customer has to give his/her phone for servicing or exchange.
HyperXchange team has raised an undisclosed amount of funding ahead of its Series A funding, which is expected in a few months.By the end of August 2018, the start-up expects to tie up with university campuses in the USA to include gaming consoles in its portfolio. It also aims to be the largest refurbished mobile seller in the country by 2019.
“In future, we will deploy AI for quality monitoring, checking product repeatability and to improve user behaviour through our app,” he says.
Srinath Srinivasan