Refurbished technology marketplace Refurbed has expanded its product line to include refurbished home appliances, adding robot vacuums, blenders and coffee makers.
The company, which is aiming to build an Amazon-style retail offering for refurbished products, offers a 12-month warranty with its products, which undergo a 40-step refurbishment process to bring them back to factory settings. They are also up to 40 per cent cheaper than buying electronics new, and Refurbed offers a 30-day trial of the household products.
Refurbed’s Irish marketing manager Pádraig Power said the addition of household appliances had been in the works for about six months.
“We’ve solidified some suppliers now within the last few months, which is why we’re happy to finally launch it in Ireland,” he said. “It’s just being launched in the German and Austrian market now, so it’s great that we’re doing it in tandem.”
The addition of the category is part of Refurbed’s plans to expand its range into new markets.
“We will be expanding the products that we have, and continuously working on getting more supply and more varieties of products within the household appliance and kitchen appliance sphere,” Mr Power said. “That’s something we’ll be continuing over the next few months.”
Refurbed added gaming consoles earlier this year to its website, a category that has shown some success. “It’s going really well, we have seen that they’re kind of a staple product,” Mr Power said.
”We are seeing steady sales with gaming consoles every single week. One of the main things that we wanted to do was to let people know that we had gaming consoles early enough in the year so that it’s now in people’s minds for the gifting season. We’re really happy the category is definitely standing on its own two feet, and we expect it to do quite well now throughout Q4 as well.”
Refurbed says the refurbishment process reduces carbon emissions by 70 per cent compared with manufacturing new electronic devices.
“The business in general, is flying. We’re far surpassing anything that we did last year, even that we were doing a few months ago,” Mr Power said. “One in five of our customers every month is a returning customer. I think a lot of people come for a phone the first time. Once they see how good it is, they come back for a different device – whether it’s a gaming console, a laptop, and now hopefully household appliances.”
Founded in 2017 by Peter Windischhofer, Kilian Kaminski and Jürgen Riedl, Refurbed launched in Ireland in March 2021, following a $17 million (€14.3 million) Series A raise in 2020, and aimed to tap into a growing interest in Ireland in more environmentally conscious, affordable technology.
