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In this episode of Marketing Un:Learned, Ian Jindal talks with Luke Forshaw about unlearning the “new is best” dogma in consumer electronics and building a mainstream appetite for refurbished tech. From reframing second-hand as “renewed” to tackling e-waste, planned obsolescence and trust frictions, Luke shares how Back Market is turning circularity into an everyday choice rather than a niche crusade.
Drawing on his years working on Apple at Media Arts Lab and in entertainment and finance brands, he explains how social, creators and physical retail experiments are helping to normalise refurbished devices across categories—from iPhones and laptops to coffee machines, pizza ovens and retro consoles.
About the Guest
Luke Forshaw is Head of Marketing for Back Market in the UK, responsible for brand, performance and customer growth in one of the company’s newer but fast-developing markets. Back Market is a French-founded marketplace that sells refurbished tech, aiming to make “renewed” devices safer, easier and more affordable to buy while extending product lifecycles and cutting e-waste.
Luke Forshaw is Head of Marketing for Back Market in the UK, responsible for brand, performance and customer growth in one of the company’s newer but fast-developing markets. Back Market is a French-founded marketplace that sells refurbished tech, aiming to make “renewed” devices safer, easier and more affordable to buy while extending product lifecycles and cutting e-waste.
Before joining Back Market three years ago, Luke spent around seven years at Apple’s dedicated agency Media Arts Lab and has held marketing and media roles at Universal, Aviva, Beats, Red Bull and Vice. He originally studied English with ambitions to be a writer, discovering marketing through student work with Red Bull and Vice and staying with the discipline after graduating in 2010.
Episode Outline & Key Topics
The mission: making renewed tech normal, not niche
Back Market’s model and ambitions
Back Market positions itself as the world’s largest marketplace for refurbished devices, focused on prolonging the life of tech products and reducing climate impact from electronics waste. Luke unpacks three core pillars: sustainability (building a robust circular economy), quality (raising standards for reliability and experience in refurbished electronics) and accessibility (closing the digital divide by making high-end devices more affordable).
Back Market’s model and ambitions
Back Market positions itself as the world’s largest marketplace for refurbished devices, focused on prolonging the life of tech products and reducing climate impact from electronics waste. Luke unpacks three core pillars: sustainability (building a robust circular economy), quality (raising standards for reliability and experience in refurbished electronics) and accessibility (closing the digital divide by making high-end devices more affordable).
Beyond smartphones: from iPhones to air fryers and pizza ovens
While a majority of Back Market’s global purchases sit in smartphones (with iPhones leading in the UK), Luke explains why the business is pushing into laptops, tablets, kitchen appliances and “obscure” models like Ooni pizza ovens and Sage coffee machines. Wherever they add a new category, they see demand from consumers who want both sharper prices and more sustainable options, so the team is actively opening new lines and building demand around them.
While a majority of Back Market’s global purchases sit in smartphones (with iPhones leading in the UK), Luke explains why the business is pushing into laptops, tablets, kitchen appliances and “obscure” models like Ooni pizza ovens and Sage coffee machines. Wherever they add a new category, they see demand from consumers who want both sharper prices and more sustainable options, so the team is actively opening new lines and building demand around them.
Unlearning “new is best” in consumer tech
Challenging the upgrade treadmill and “vintage tech”
Ian and Luke explore how decades of marketing have equated progress and status with owning the latest device, and why that logic is breaking down. Luke argues that innovation deltas in smartphones and laptops are now often marginal for everyday use, price points are increasingly prohibitive, and many consumers are simply asking: “If what I’ve got works, why upgrade?”
Challenging the upgrade treadmill and “vintage tech”
Ian and Luke explore how decades of marketing have equated progress and status with owning the latest device, and why that logic is breaking down. Luke argues that innovation deltas in smartphones and laptops are now often marginal for everyday use, price points are increasingly prohibitive, and many consumers are simply asking: “If what I’ve got works, why upgrade?”
They also discuss the rise of “retro tech” on Back Market—from older iPhones and iPods to Sega Mega Drives—which has become one of the fastest-growing and most frequently sold-out subcategories, fuelled by nostalgia and a desire to switch off from always-on connectivity.
Planned obsolescence, forced upgrades and “the obsolete computer”
Luke describes Back Market’s more activist stance on parts of the tech industry it sees as unethical—from extraction and production through to marketing and planned obsolescence. He shares a campaign built around Windows 10’s end-of-support, where the team took an “obsolete” computer, deliberately broke it and then revived it with an alternative OS package to show students and everyday users they didn’t need to buy a new laptop just because software support had ended.
Luke describes Back Market’s more activist stance on parts of the tech industry it sees as unethical—from extraction and production through to marketing and planned obsolescence. He shares a campaign built around Windows 10’s end-of-support, where the team took an “obsolete” computer, deliberately broke it and then revived it with an alternative OS package to show students and everyday users they didn’t need to buy a new laptop just because software support had ended.
The broader goal is to keep devices in circulation longer—through cleaning, optimisation and workarounds to forced obsolescence—whether or not the user ultimately buys from Back Market.
Trust frictions: from “pub seller” worries to quality guarantees
Defining “refurbished” versus “used” and “second-hand”
Luke talks through research Back Market has done across its markets to understand both motivations for buying refurbished tech and the perceived barriers. In the UK, most people say they know what “refurbished” means, but when probed they often lump together buying from a friend in the pub, a stranger on Facebook Marketplace and purchasing via a professional marketplace.
Defining “refurbished” versus “used” and “second-hand”
Luke talks through research Back Market has done across its markets to understand both motivations for buying refurbished tech and the perceived barriers. In the UK, most people say they know what “refurbished” means, but when probed they often lump together buying from a friend in the pub, a stranger on Facebook Marketplace and purchasing via a professional marketplace.
Luke outlines how Back Market works with professional refurbishers who test and repair devices to “good as new” thresholds and backs that with warranties, free shipping and returns, and 30-day return windows—protections you do not get from casual peer-to-peer sellers.
Educating without boring: creators, partners and timing
Because quality messaging can be dry, Back Market leans on trusted voices—creators, partners and seller relationships—to “lift the curtain” on what refurbishment actually involves. Luke stresses that this is a long-term, segmented education job: if they tried to tell everyone everything at once, consumers would either drown in information or switch off, so the team focuses on who most needs reassurance and at which moment in their journey to address fears about devices being stolen, broken or uncovered.
Because quality messaging can be dry, Back Market leans on trusted voices—creators, partners and seller relationships—to “lift the curtain” on what refurbishment actually involves. Luke stresses that this is a long-term, segmented education job: if they tried to tell everyone everything at once, consumers would either drown in information or switch off, so the team focuses on who most needs reassurance and at which moment in their journey to address fears about devices being stolen, broken or uncovered.
Marketing unlearned: social, creators and circular behaviours
How social and creator strategy has changed
From a marketer’s perspective, Luke says the biggest change in his time at Back Market has been how social platforms and their algorithms have reshaped brand activity. The team used to run relatively disconnected upper-funnel education, quality reassurance and price-based assets across paid social; now they aim for a cleaner, more uniform thread in creative and talent, which is especially important when you are trying to signal quality and trust.
How social and creator strategy has changed
From a marketer’s perspective, Luke says the biggest change in his time at Back Market has been how social platforms and their algorithms have reshaped brand activity. The team used to run relatively disconnected upper-funnel education, quality reassurance and price-based assets across paid social; now they aim for a cleaner, more uniform thread in creative and talent, which is especially important when you are trying to signal quality and trust.
Instead of “cocaine marketing” with one-off mega-influencers, Back Market is building ambassador relationships where the same creators show up repeatedly, mixing organic and paid content so their audiences see consistency as well as reach. Creators are given more control over format, captions and hooks, because they understand how platform algorithms and keywords are shifting, and Back Market positions itself as the enabler rather than the script-writer.
Retention without fuelling overconsumption
Because Back Market’s mission is to fight e-waste and overconsumption, standard “it’s time to upgrade” CRM plays would contradict the brand. Luke explains that while they will follow up purchases with sensible prompts—trade-in offers, accessories, or adjacent category ideas for people clearly in a given ecosystem—they are equally likely to send service-oriented content, such as videos on properly cleaning a phone or laptop recorded with an ex-Apple Genius in Back Market’s lab.
Because Back Market’s mission is to fight e-waste and overconsumption, standard “it’s time to upgrade” CRM plays would contradict the brand. Luke explains that while they will follow up purchases with sensible prompts—trade-in offers, accessories, or adjacent category ideas for people clearly in a given ecosystem—they are equally likely to send service-oriented content, such as videos on properly cleaning a phone or laptop recorded with an ex-Apple Genius in Back Market’s lab.
The aim is to keep the brand top of mind and positive while encouraging longer device lifespans, rather than pushing annual replacement cycles.
Customers, data and cross-category insight
Even in a relatively young market like the UK, Back Market is learning from device and category combinations—such as buyers of premium coffee machines and vacuum cleaners—about tastes and likely appetite for “nice-to-have” items like pizza ovens. At the same time, Luke notes that many buyers may come once for a replacement smartphone after a loss or breakage and never return, so behaviour is far from the neat, vendor-driven upgrade cycles familiar to OEMs.
Even in a relatively young market like the UK, Back Market is learning from device and category combinations—such as buyers of premium coffee machines and vacuum cleaners—about tastes and likely appetite for “nice-to-have” items like pizza ovens. At the same time, Luke notes that many buyers may come once for a replacement smartphone after a loss or breakage and never return, so behaviour is far from the neat, vendor-driven upgrade cycles familiar to OEMs.
This mix of high-frequency ecosystem users and one-off problem solvers shapes how Back Market thinks about segments, cross-sell and the balance between revenue and mission.
Physical retail and the craft of refurbishment
Inside Back Market’s New York pop-up store
Luke walks through Back Market’s Broadway pop-up in New York, created in part because a majority of US consumers still buy tech in bricks-and-mortar stores compared with more online-heavy behaviour in the UK. As well as selling devices, the space offers device cleaning, on-site diagnostic machines, and a retro gaming area with classic titles, alongside events from telco panels to kids’ sessions.
Inside Back Market’s New York pop-up store
Luke walks through Back Market’s Broadway pop-up in New York, created in part because a majority of US consumers still buy tech in bricks-and-mortar stores compared with more online-heavy behaviour in the UK. As well as selling devices, the space offers device cleaning, on-site diagnostic machines, and a retro gaming area with classic titles, alongside events from telco panels to kids’ sessions.
The store is designed less as a hard-sell environment and more as a place to spend time around refurbished tech, see how grading and testing work in real time, and experience the brand physically.
Right to repair, iFixit and putting the workbench up front
The front of the store foregrounds cleaning and repairability rather than product displays, echoing a broader ambition to make fixing devices feel tangible rather than mystical. Luke talks about Back Market’s support for right-to-repair efforts in the UK and its collaboration with iFixit, whose mission is to provide manuals and repair sheets for electronics worldwide so consumers can keep devices going rather than binning them at the first fault.
The front of the store foregrounds cleaning and repairability rather than product displays, echoing a broader ambition to make fixing devices feel tangible rather than mystical. Luke talks about Back Market’s support for right-to-repair efforts in the UK and its collaboration with iFixit, whose mission is to provide manuals and repair sheets for electronics worldwide so consumers can keep devices going rather than binning them at the first fault.
The long-term vision is to make toolkits and know-how widely accessible, so that more people can repair their own phones, laptops and appliances and see refurbishment as a normal, empowered act, not a back-alley compromise.
Teenagers, ethics and the next generation of device owners
How 15-year-olds might see ownership and fairness
Luke is cautious about language around teenagers and tech, given concerns about social media harms and policy moves like proposed social media bans, but sees independence as central: teens rely on devices for education, social life and leisure, from laptops and tablets to phones and consoles.
How 15-year-olds might see ownership and fairness
Luke is cautious about language around teenagers and tech, given concerns about social media harms and policy moves like proposed social media bans, but sees independence as central: teens rely on devices for education, social life and leisure, from laptops and tablets to phones and consoles.
Today’s teenagers have grown up with tech from early childhood and are more attuned to sustainability, fairness and ethics; in his view, that makes them less accepting of forced upgrades, high prices and opaque obsolescence than previous generations. Refurbished and renewed tech can give them more freedom to choose what they actually need at a price they can afford, without feeling obliged to conform to a single “latest model or loser” narrative, and that aligns closely with Back Market’s mission.
Resources & Links
Back Market – https://www.backmarket.com
Back Market – https://www.backmarket.com
Creators and Guests
What is Marketing UnLearned?
Marketing UnLearned explores the challenges the leading-edge digital marketing poses to established and received wisdom.
All new initiatives, until proven, are subject to scrutiny and challenge: the ‘waddabouts’, the statements of inertia, the “why bother?”, the deprioritising questions. Within these challenges there is often a grain of truth, but in this series we’ll take the challenges head on and learn how the exemplars deliver persuasively - perhaps changing our thinking along the way.
In partnership with Epsilon our first series will focus on innovation in the areas of retail media, digital advertising, CRM, and personalisation. We’ll speak with 10 expert practitioners who have moved beyond the optimised and well-know digital marketing processes. More than a simple ‘always sunny at 30,000ft’ case study, we’ll put the challenges to our guests and hear how they were overcome, how their thinking developed and learn about the ‘new state of the art’. While we may UnLearn some pieces of accepted wisdom, we’ll replace them with new, effective learning. Everyone wins with Marketing UnLearned.
Ian Jindal (00:01.575)
Hey, hello everyone and welcome back to the studio where once again we're recording marketing unlearned. This is the podcast series that explores the challenges for leading edge digital marketing and how we can challenge established and received wisdom, but of course replace it with newer, better wisdom. So it's about what needs to be unlearned, but of course relearned. So in the studio today.
we have Luke from Backmarket, a company that is challenging our ideas of new nurse of life cycles and waste in electronics. I'm going to welcome Luke to the studio and ask him to tell us a bit more about him and Backmarket. But of course, give him an extra thanks because he's joining us after throat surgery and so has an attractive husky and slightly different tone to his voice. Luke, thanks for joining us. I really appreciate you making the effort.
Luke (00:58.456)
Thank you for having me in and thank you for the intro.
Ian Jindal (01:00.543)
That's good. We've set up the sort of Hollywood whisper. But now just tell us a bit about you and for anyone who's not familiar just give us the thumbnail on Backmarket.
Luke (01:05.966)
You
Luke (01:14.592)
Of course. So, hello everybody. My name is Luke. I work at back marketing as the head of marketing for the UK market is a, an overview to back market before an overview to myself. so back market or a French company, we sell refurbished devices with the largest marketplace of its kind in the world. And essentially we want to make buying renewed tech safer, easier, cheaper, and more accessible for everyone. The goal.
The MO of the business is to prolong the life of tech products and also to reduce the impact of climate waste. So we do this through three channels. look to keep sustainable, create a robust circular economy to help solve the mounting e-waste crisis, hit quality. So redefine the standard for quality, reliability and customer experience within the refurbished electronics industry, and then accessibility to essentially close the digital divide by offering
high-end affordable tech that anybody and everybody can purchase. So I joined BackMarket three years ago last month. I've been working in tech marketing for a while. So before being at BackMarket, I worked for Apple's marketing agency at Media Arts Lab combined. had around seven years there. And before that, I sort of worked in marketing and media for Universal, for Aviva, for Beats.
And it was when I was at university studying English, wanting to be a writer that I essentially stumbled into marketing for the Red Bull and Vice magazine, loved it and have stuck with it ever since I left uni back in 2010.
Ian Jindal (02:55.711)
Great, well look that's a big shout out for all English grads who are listening and thinking what can I do with my life? It is of course the most flexible of degrees. Now the interesting thing before we go too far...
is to just think about the product categories you serve. Because my first experience with you was when my kids started sending me URLs for how I could buy them a newer, better iPhone than I'd intended. So they were, if you like, my gateway to your mobile phone business. But it does seem that most things that have a plug attached are also coming into scope. So, you know,
air fryers, video games etc. It's quite a broad product range you cover now.
Luke (03:48.942)
Yes, it is. And that's something that we're definitely looking to push ourselves into. I guess, firstly, shout out to your child for having such good taste. And secondly, their approach to use the brand, to use backmarket is fundamentally a well trodden path. We find it's market contingent, but sort of between 50 and 80 % of our purchases globally.
Ian Jindal (03:58.368)
Don't decoubage them.
Luke (04:17.405)
within the smartphone category of which iPhone and Apple devices are sort of the market leaders in our space in the UK. It's around on average 65 to 70 percent. So the majority of people using backmarket do buy smartphones, but because of the company ambition to, you know, create stuff that's more accessible, to create things that are more affordable and to tackle the mounting waste problem, we need to do that not just in smartphones, but in other categories as well. So we do have tablets and laptops and then
Ian Jindal (04:18.846)
Hmm.
Luke (04:45.867)
As you allude to, there's kitchen appliances like air fries that we started selling the platform and we're pushing into more obscure models like the uni pizza oven, the sage coffee machines. We're finding that whatever category we push into, there's a demand for it and people are looking to buy something that's more affordable, but also that's more sustainable. And at the moment, we're just very open to adding new category lines to the website and building demand on it from our side.
Ian Jindal (05:12.383)
So let's jump now to think the core unlearn and relearn theme for me at least, is unlearning this
notion that has driven technology sales since probably the 1970s. This idea that new is best and that getting the newest, most best-ter-est, most recent exclusive item is somehow a mark of society's progress and our socioeconomic position within that. So it's very interesting that
As we've seen the vintage movement pick up very much in clothes, no one had ever said to me, Oye, and I really like a vintage phone. There was something very sort of deerstalker and briar pipe about somebody who had a non-sweater. It was kind of tendentious to be anti-technology progress. But as we've just said in the first few minutes, the led, in my experience, by the kids, but
by no means limited to them, there is this untapped desire for newish good products which seems to be antithetical to the idea of tech progress. this must be something you've dealt with. So how do you explain this idea where newness isn't the main consideration for tech products?
Luke (06:35.618)
Mm-hmm.
Luke (06:50.541)
So I think on that, there would be two sort of two routes, two considerations that I would have in that space. There's one is buying new needed. know, it's your, it's as you allude to like, would have been brought up on new is best. There's a new phone coming out every year. There's a new games console coming out every three years. You you need to get the latest and greatest. And I think there's a realization that that isn't really the case. It's because
maybe the level of innovation for smartphones, laptops isn't quite what it was, you know, years ago, an extra few megapixel on a camera. You don't really notice if you're taking your pictures to keep on your phone, to send your partner to put on Instagram, you can't tell the difference. Um, or at least I can't anyway. Um, there's also the pricing getting the latest is, is often very expensive and quite prohibitive to a lot of people. And then there's also just the
understanding that if what you've got works, why do you need something just because it's the newest? And I think there's consideration and appreciation for that across the board. We're definitely seeing not just driven by, you know, sort of people feeling the crunch of their finances at the moment, but also a growing interest in sustainability, a growing interest in sort of not being led by what big tech, etc. You know, we're looking to encourage you to consume. So
Ian Jindal (08:08.115)
Hmm.
Luke (08:16.331)
people are taking a bit of ownership back from the tech consumption that way. Your point on the de-historical and the pipe, there's also like a real growing interest in retro tech as we call it. And it's one of the biggest growing subcategories on our platform. And it's also quite often sold out because it's so popular. And what I mean by that is that could be old model iPhones. It could be an iPod. It could be a Sega Mega Drive. There's like a real lead into nostalgia and people wanting that.
Ian Jindal (08:29.567)
Yeah.
Luke (08:46.007)
comfort of one, either playing something or interacting with something that they did 10, 20 years ago, but also having the ability to switch off, you know, not just be contacted or contactable all the time, leading into something that allows you to enjoy the tech device and what it offers rather than have a tech device that offers you everything. So I think there's like a real growing one for that level of, yeah, sort of, leading into, yeah, as said, through the retro tech.
Ian Jindal (09:07.848)
Yeah.
Luke (09:15.39)
narrative.
Ian Jindal (09:16.517)
It's interesting because I am a fully fledged apple addict and have been
since I don't know my first Apple Mac back in 1988 so you that dates me but a couple of years ago I missed because I was traveling the first day order for the new iPhone the new iPhone Pro and then just thinking about this podcast I realized I am rocking with great style an iPhone 14 Pro which is three versions
Luke (09:48.045)
Same.
Ian Jindal (09:50.424)
off the kind of cutting-edge technology a modern podcaster should aspire to. And just something broke. thought, actually, I just don't really care enough to worry about it. So I'm sure I'll upgrade at some point. But it's for me that broke that, I'm waiting for the new one because I missed it and all of sudden my life was no worse. in terms of buying secondhand, let's look at how we
work on the custom psychology because you know my my son then 15 says dad here's the iPhone I want um I'd rather get the basic one you're to buy can I have this better one um here's the link so I looked at BackMarket it was the first time I'd been there and my first thoughts were oh it's stolen it's broken it will break um it's got other people's you know DNA on it through all these kind of reservations um
I had. So let's just look at the world from your perspective because you know I've probably put some things out, I you call them trust frictions, the things you worry about. So tell me how you've approached taking away those frictions so that people can embrace with enthusiasm buying from you.
Luke (11:18.098)
That's a great question. well, fundamentally it's a work in progress, but how we've tackled it to this point is what we've done is we've worked with various survey partners through our UX team in-house, Tallunna being one of them. And what we've done is we've spoken with people across different categories in every market that we operate. And we've looked to understand what are their influences or what's their reason for buying refurbished tech.
Ian Jindal (11:23.412)
Mm-hmm.
Luke (11:47.501)
And then also what's their barrier? Like, why would they not look to buy refurbished tech and everything that you allude to? Is it stolen? Is it going to be broken? Do I have any cover, et cetera? These will come up an awful lot. There's two things that we approach this with. One is educating on what refurbished means. And if we look at the UK market as our benchmark, we find that it's in the 90 % of, you know, sort of 90 plus percent of people that are asked in the UK, do you know what refurbished means?
they say yes, but then when you actually drill down into it, used secondhand refurbished, they're all kind of bundled together. So if you bought from a friend down the pub, if you bought from a stranger on Facebook marketplace, that's considered the same level of threshold as if you bought from backmarket and not to sound like someone who's drunk the Kool-Aid. The difference from that is as we work with professionals who one ensure that every device is refurbished and repaired to operate at a hundred percent, you know, sort of good as new.
threshold, but then we offer a warranty. offer free shipping, like sort of reception and returns. And we also offer a 30 day returns window as well that you don't get from buying on Facebook. and exactly. Yeah. It disappeared. so that's, that's kind of what puts refurbished tech on a bit of a pedestal. And obviously sort of alluded to upfront back market with a, with the leaders in this marketplace, but by no means the only brand.
Ian Jindal (12:58.973)
No. All for the guy in the pub who never comes back in again.
Luke (13:16.948)
in the space and it's on us as refurbishers to educate. This is what refurbished means. To how we do that, it can be quite a dry message. You know, not just trying to raise sexy brand awareness and then entice people to purchase through a price-based approach. We need to educate on quality and the way that we do that, it's through, you know, sort of trusted voices, maybe with creators, it's partner and seller relationships that we have to help educate on like...
giving a peek behind the curtain as to what does refurbished and the refurbished process actually mean. And it's not really something that you can do overnight because there's a lot of boxes that you need to tick. And I think if we tried to do everything, we would just either drown consumers or bore consumers. So it's about trying to identify who needs to be sort of educated on this and at what point. And from when the company launched, was it 11 years ago in France, around four or five years ago in the UK,
there would have been people and consumers that would have come to the platform anyway, because they'd be influenced by price, people that would have come to the platform anyway, because they'd be influenced by the sustainability of it. But now we're at the point of growth where we need to be connecting with people that might be interested in tech, but have that barrier. And that's where education and quality sort of becomes a little bit of a fundamental component of our marketing. that's where we're at at the moment. We've got a really sort of well-trusted large
consumer base, but to push beyond that, we need to educate on everything you've said. It's not stolen. It's not broken. There is coverage. There is a warranty. And hopefully that should then sort of enable us to one, put ourselves on a little bit of a pedestal versus buying used is like a broader category, but also start trying to maybe entice people that always buy new that maybe they're not quite as as you're allude to, like they're not quite as interested in getting your iPhone 17 as they were.
Ian Jindal (14:51.453)
Hmm.
Luke (15:13.26)
two, three, four years ago. And maybe if you have a 14 Pro and you want to upgrade, like maybe the 15 is just as good for what you need it to do. So yeah, it's an insight, like an interesting challenge. It's an insightful challenge, but it's definitely one that we're looking at in the next, I don't know, like one to five years as a company, I think.
Ian Jindal (15:28.03)
Hmm.
Ian Jindal (15:32.32)
And I was thinking about some of the things I've bought secondhand rather than refurbished and a lot of the audio gear or photography gear I've accumulated over a lifetime is now seriously old.
In my younger days, I worked at the BBC and the replenishment cycle there is measured in decades because if you buy really good quality, it lasts and the standards didn't change that much. So my audio interface is 22 years old. It just works. And so there are lots of things where there's, if you like, a drive for change, which isn't just new hardware, but is new software.
And so, you know, my old iPhone is still running, thank goodness, the latest iOS quite well. But other things, you know, like your air fryer doesn't get updated, your coffee machine doesn't get updated. So do you see that there's even like a divergence in the marketing and the trust building you need to do where things have an inbuilt clock, where the software is driving change as much as hardware developments and capabilities?
the twos.
Luke (16:53.515)
I do. I think it's, it's an interesting thing to try and articulate sort of as a refurbished platform, because there's one, we're coming at it from the angle ultimately of we're a platform, we sell tech devices when people purchase from us and buy refurbished, fabulous, because they're not buying new, but there's also an arm of our business and their, their, their approach is essentially, it's a bit of an activist angle, if you would, where they're looking to raise awareness and understanding to
parts of the tech industry that we don't consider particularly ethical and whether that's in the production, whether that's in the mining, the marketing of the devices, it also leans into the planned obsolescence as you're allude to with software or sometimes the forced obsolescence as it can be considered. And that fundamentally as a consumer is not a very friendly thing that we have in part of us. Like I've had it before, a ring doorbell that I've bought has essentially been rendered useless overnight.
It can happen with iPads. can happen with phones. And we recently had a campaign on the back of the windows 10 planned obsolescence that came into effect in October. We created an obsolete computer as we called it, where we got it hacked and broken. We could use as an example, a Chrome Linux package that made the device start operating again. So whether or not, you know, Microsoft would consider that an official sort of way to use their device.
Ian Jindal (18:19.422)
Yeah.
Luke (18:22.917)
who knows, but like from a functional perspective, if you're a student writing, you know, essays at university, you're not needing to go out and buy a new laptop because the tech still works perfectly well. And that's what we're trying to sort of drive a bit of an education piece on as well as like, yeah, if you want to buy refurbished tech, that's fabulous. We're here for you equally. If you don't, and you want to make your tech last longer through cleaning, through optimizing, or through trying to duck out of planned ops lessons as and when it's implemented.
looking to try and keep tech in circulation for longer. That's ultimately for the greater good and that's something that I think would really benefit consumers across the board if we weren't having a new device being needed forced upon us every few years.
Ian Jindal (19:06.034)
Yeah. OK, before we go on to looking a bit more at the customer, let's just reflect a second. So in your career to date, it's been very much marketing driven. So you start at the top of the funnel, drive people through, you get a transaction, pat on the back, job done, start again. What has been the biggest change as a marketer that you've learnt?
in your time at BackMarket? Is this something that a technique or approach you never had to use before or that has started working that didn't? From a marketing professional's perspective, what has been the change in this more circular worldview?
Luke (19:55.499)
But I think coming at it from a purely marketing perspective, and I hope this answer doesn't feel very cliched, but I think just the way that social has grown and developed. I mean, it's been happening over the last 10 years, but really over the last couple of years with the way that the platforms create algorithms, push you towards different bits of content as a brand, how you navigate that, either from an organic perspective.
into how you interact with your consumers, you interact with other brands through to how you leverage it from a paid perspective. Is that running your brand ads? Is that running UGC content? Is that combining the two? Is that running stuff organically through paid means that you're not looking to amplify yourself? It's become such a multifaceted touch point and discipline that it's, it really feels like it's developing on every single campaign that we run. And that also fluctuates by market as well. So
Ian Jindal (20:33.952)
Hmm.
Luke (20:53.778)
I would definitely say in the three years that I've been at BackMarket, the way that we use social is the one that's changed the most. And even looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, the way that we're looking to use it next year is building on learnings that we've had from 25 and before, but it's needing to do it in a new way based on the way that these platforms are evolving and growing and changing, which is meaning that the way that consumers interact with the platforms and consuming content on them is changing as well.
Ian Jindal (20:59.879)
Alright.
Ian Jindal (21:14.152)
Mmm.
Ian Jindal (21:20.807)
So give me an example if you can and I realize it's a general point but just to bring that to life.
Luke (21:27.594)
So I think an example of that would be that we, as a brand, whenever we ran paid campaigns, for example, we looked to leverage a combination of brand created assets and UGC created assets. I mean, let's do that at different touch points. So upper funnel, you know, we'd maybe do something that talked about what refurbished tech is. We then might have assets that look at, you know, sort of reinforcing the quality thresholds of what refurbished tech offers versus.
buying other from a use perspective. And then we'd push down into something that's pricing based or affiliate based from a social perspective. These will be run by the same teams, but they can be quite disconnected. And what we found is one, there's a bit of a thread that we can leverage through. mean, this isn't reinventing the wheel, but it could be using the same creative talent. It could be using the same brand led designs sort of throughout. So it creates this sense of, cleanness and
the brand being uniform, which in an industry where we're trying to create a sense of quality and trust, looking sleek and professional definitely helps. But then the build on that is how then we work with creators and you know, you can leverage massive scale by working with one creator. Hypothetically, we couldn't afford him, but someone like Ronaldo who just got my new iPhone from back market use code.
Ian Jindal (22:28.851)
Yeah.
Ian Jindal (22:53.148)
Yeah, yeah, I am the goat.
Luke (22:54.25)
CR seven. Yeah, exactly. I'm the go get, get 5 % off. And what that would do is that would almost be like a bit of cocaine marketing. You know, you get a massive spike, they'll then be a drop and the longevity there maybe doesn't really exist. And it doesn't build this threshold of quality and trust that you would want to do because it's a one-off it's, it's a gun for hire. So the way that we've worked with creators has almost moved to more of like an ambassador program so they can create content that lives organically, but then we put it through into paid, which is great.
Ian Jindal (23:11.454)
Mmm.
Luke (23:24.446)
But we have a level of consistency that we look to deliver through the funnel, but over a period of time as well. So you'll see the same creator sort of work with us on like a role in quarterly, hopefully annual basis, which within their followership creates a sense of trust and recognition, which is what we wanted to deliver in the first place. But it's leveraging the way that they use their captions, words in the video to sort of, sort of feed through how they see their performance change on social platforms based on, you know, sort of
Ian Jindal (23:29.255)
Interesting.
Luke (23:53.459)
algorithm updates, keyword updates, et cetera. And it's us as a brand seeded control with what the creator would recommend because one, they're the natives on the platform. It's their audience that they want to connect with. And we're the brand enabling them to create that content rather than us trying to spoon feed them what they want to say. So it's, it's, it's, a, that was totally different to how we worked 18 months ago, but we found that it's worked for us. It's now then trying to figure out, okay, cool. Now we're trying to build our brand platform at the same time as working with ambassadors like.
Ian Jindal (24:08.99)
That's an interesting position. Yeah, very interesting.
Luke (24:23.412)
Do we combine the two? Do we do it on a market by market perspective? How do we leverage the different platforms? And that's obviously what you would say on X. If you're on X, it's totally different to what you would say on TikTok. And it's us as a company now appreciating that we need to finesse how we approach social, which...
Ian Jindal (24:28.574)
Yeah.
Ian Jindal (24:42.366)
That is interesting. There's not just one big, you know, sort of amorphous lump of people, but the modalities in different channels do change. But then let's also think about the modalities of the customer because in a tech world, we are obviously tracked from purchase to repurchase. And that obviously...
would go along the normal upgrade cycle of our favorite tech vendor. But one of the changes I think that we'd see with your customers is that their behavior is not...
typical in that they are buying, maybe trading in, the repurchase might be for other people, it might be at different cycles, they may even come back two or three times for an annual update on a phone for example. So how do you go about
getting a grip on a customer and building that relationship with them, understanding them. Is that just your standard marketing with a few different segments or have you had to take a different approach?
Luke (26:00.074)
with how we interact with customers sort of as and when somebody comes to the platform and purchase.
Ian Jindal (26:05.31)
Yes, because we don't talk about retention being bison bore.
Oh, you just bought a washing machine, count to 10. Hey, do want to buy another washing machine? You know, even though it lasts for 25 years with a phone, it hey, well done for buying the new iPhone, Samsung, whatever. Buy another one or it must be time to upgrade. So we're used to that push, push, push marketing. Have you found that as you see customers repurchase cross category purchasing or whatever data you see that is changing the way you market to them?
Luke (26:13.523)
Mm-hmm.
Luke (26:39.973)
Yes, I mean, a company, obviously one of our sort fundamental pillars, I suppose, looking to avoid overconsumption and help address the growth of the e-waste problem. It's the fastest growing waste stream in the world. So I think if we were then to have a consumer come on board, as you allude to, purchase a phone, and then a year later we message them back like, hey, bought your phone a year ago, do you want to upgrade?
That's exactly the beast that we're trying to tackle by breaking people from having this. I must upgrade every single year. You know, you make a great point in that people might be purchasing for their sort of gifts that they're giving at Christmas. They might be purchasing, purchasing for their children. They might have dropped or smashed a phone or lost a phone and need to repurchase anyway. So the tech life cycle is a difficult one to predict because now that we're trying to push people away from this upgrade every year, upgrade every two years.
Ian Jindal (27:35.006)
Mmm.
Luke (27:36.808)
people might be in the market to purchase anyway. So what we actually find quite useful is just trying to keep the brand front of mind and in a favorable way. So there will be times that we look to follow up with people based on purchasing cycles with a recommended CRM push, for example. So if you've bought a phone, you might get a follow up for trade in or a phone case, for example, like almost like an accessory for the device. If you buy like a, if you buy an iPhone, if you then buy an Apple watch,
Ian Jindal (27:59.551)
Yeah.
Luke (28:06.641)
you then might be served a, iPad message six months later, because you know, you're within, you're clearly within the Apple ecosystem. Maybe this sort of interest as well. And that's looking to drive revenue for the business, but at the same time, looking to keep people considering the brand from a favorable perspective and also address this sort of key challenge of keeping people's tech in circulation for longer. might then follow up with a video that we've created on how to properly clean your device, for example. So it's almost offering a service rather than.
a revenue driver where we've shot some content with one of our ex Apple geniuses and a lab that we have. And they're showing using a Q-tip, a wipe and some spray, how you can keep your laptop clean, how you can keep your phone clean. And that's proven to keep your device operating at a higher threshold for longer. So it's, it's just looking at ways that we can look to really provide the consumer with a positive brand experience, whether that's a device they may or may not need, whether that's a service they may or may not want.
Ian Jindal (28:37.511)
Yes.
Ian Jindal (28:51.218)
Yeah.
Luke (29:06.215)
Just looking to not bombard them and hopefully provide something that they would find of interest. Keep the brand top of mind, but also keep them looking at back market in a positive light.
Ian Jindal (29:09.246)
Hmm.
Ian Jindal (29:15.336)
But you'll also be learning things about me, for example, that even Apple doesn't know. So while they see all my sort of in ecosystem activities, I'm not sure that they know which coffee maker.
air fryer, slow cooker, fridge etc I use. So you must be building quite a valuable database of customer preferences, brand preferences, purchasing cycles. It must be quite an attractive database that you have now.
Luke (29:55.178)
I mean, it definitely wouldn't hurt having such a big base. We do find, so the UK, for example, is one of our sort of less mature markets, if you would. the data set we have here, simply based on the frequency with which people purchase tech is quite immature in comparison with other markets. We do know that, you know, if consumers buy a, you look to Sage coffee machine, and then they also buy a Dyson vacuum, they're likely a more premium, you know, sort of
purchase her with frequency. therefore it would make sense.
Ian Jindal (30:26.142)
Yeah, well at least they have the premium tastes but like the back market price.
Luke (30:32.963)
Exactly. There we go. So they might be more susceptible to receive a message around, I touched on before, like a pizza oven, which obviously is an amazing thing to have, but like, it's not an integral day to day sort of thing that you need. Equally, we might have somebody come to the platform once, buy a Samsung Galaxy S23 and never use the platform again. And that might simply be because they just broke their phone, needed an affordable replacement and leverage the platform. So
Ian Jindal (30:47.623)
Ha ha.
Ian Jindal (30:57.822)
Hmm.
Luke (31:01.123)
it's as much leveraging the devices that people are purchasing with the frequency that they purchase as well. And yeah, we definitely would look to leverage that level of insight with consumers through their sort of backmarket platforms that they have either on desktop or through app as well.
Ian Jindal (31:20.156)
Now, just as a final topic, I wanted to touch upon your pop-up store, which I was lucky to visit as I was passing through New York last month and literally just bumped into it and thought, hang on, there's a shop. And it was a really good experience. know, lots of activations, lots of...
Luke (31:28.403)
Mm.
Ian Jindal (31:46.975)
real world events, understanding all the different categories you do, fantastic staff by the way. But what was also interesting to me, just to reference back to the points on trust and service, was there was this robot that sort of sniffed, prodded, scraped and evaluated a phone.
So slide the phone in, I'm just doing this for you obviously know, but for the benefit of our listener, you slide the phone into this thing that looks a bit like a grinding machine and then sort of probes push and prod the phone, suck it, smell it, lick it, whatever, and then do this many, many, many point assessment of screen brightness software all in front of your eyes. And I was struck by
both the automation there and the fact that there were so many things that could be checked so quickly in order to give me assurance over the quality of the item I'm buying and what needs to be fixed. So let's maybe just look at the store and just tell me how you see its role fitting into the broad marketing communications and brand activity of BackMarket.
Luke (32:55.729)
Is
Luke (33:06.672)
Yeah, of course. So, so the store that we have, yeah, so you're located on Broadway in New York. We've had it open for just over a quarter. So it would be just over three months, before it closes on the 21st of December. And the reason that we chose to open a store in the U S is when you look at your average tech consumer in America, around 60, 62 % of consumers purchase their tech.
in a bricks and mortar environment. If you look at the UK by proxy, it's 60 plus percent by online. So having that space in the US was really important because if we're looking to, you know, sort of interact in the age with more new consumers in the US, doing so in a physical space makes sense. As well as us selling devices, you know, for people walking in off the street.
Ian Jindal (33:43.695)
right okay
Luke (34:02.76)
exactly as you allude to, we looked to provide like an experience. And I know that sounds, I know that sounds really corny, but people could go in and they could get their devices cleaned. As you said, you could go and use a machine so you could find out the functionality and operating level of your device, which most major refurbishers use when grading their devices before selling. Anyway, we had a sort of retro games console area where could go and play Super Smash Bros. You could go and play Tetris, which
Ian Jindal (34:19.422)
Mmm.
Ian Jindal (34:29.5)
I saw that, yes.
Luke (34:32.2)
proved a lot more popular than we thought it would. And then we also used the space to host events as well. And what that was looking to do is essentially really tap into providing a sort of a PR ability, sort of skew to the store where people could go in. We ran telco panels, we did cleaning workshops, we did children events, et cetera, where people could go in and basically just spend time in and around refurbished tech, not necessarily having back market ram down their throats.
but just understand more to what Refurbished Tech can offer.
Ian Jindal (35:03.08)
But there was, you know, you say workshop. mean, for me, that was the best thing. So if you go to.
I don't know, the Apple Genius Bar with a problem. They take your phone or device away, you know, behind the Wizard of Oz curtain, and then they bring it back out later. Whereas if you go to someone like an, you know, an ice smash or something like that, they'll fix a screen in front of you and you're going, my God, I didn't realise everything was jammed in or I'm glad I didn't try that myself. So what I liked was this idea that it was it was like a workshop. It was like going to your friend's garage who knows how to use tools.
Luke (35:29.169)
Mm.
Ian Jindal (35:40.529)
and isn't afraid to do it. And it really gave you an insight into the build of the machines, the fixability of them, as well as this conversation that it isn't just a disposable box to be dumped. for me, was, as I hadn't expected to see it, but it really was a sort of a brand moment. I thought, aha, interesting to see them on the high street.
Luke (35:56.604)
Mm.
Luke (36:07.713)
I honestly love to hear you say that. yeah, one, we want to debunk the fact that refurbished isn't always good. It's, it's a bit of a dark art. It's sort of behind a cash for gold, you know, sort of alleyway. and it's, it's essentially highlighting the fact that you do have a device, it is repairable and here's how we do it. And whether that's being impressed by the granularity that the refurbished machine can offer.
Ian Jindal (36:18.62)
Yeah.
Ian Jindal (36:22.546)
Ha ha ha ha!
Luke (36:35.847)
through to saying, okay, cool, this is great. This is how it works. The second build on that is longer term. would love to empower people to fix their own devices. We're looking to lobby the UK government on a right to repair bill at the moment. We're working with a brand called iFixit out of the US, but with a global relationship whose sole ambition is to provide manuals and sort of repair sheets for any electronic device in the world.
Ian Jindal (36:44.221)
Hmm.
Ian Jindal (36:59.143)
Yes.
Luke (37:02.479)
Again, this sort of leans into the idea of keeping tech in circulation for longer. We want to debunk the myth that if you need to repair your phone, you're screwed. Sorry, you've got to put it in the bin. You've got to recycle it and buy a new one. And actually a lot of the time, like if you do have a fault with one of your devices, be that the SageCoffee machine or be that your TV, the repair isn't actually that daunting providing you've got the toolkit. So it's making the toolkit accessible and it's making the understanding of how to do it yourself accessible.
Ian Jindal (37:28.306)
Mm. Yes.
Luke (37:32.493)
That was one of the reasons that we set up the store as well as we actually put like the the repairability elements and the cleaning elements towards the front of the store to sort of look to draw people in that way, make it feel tangible. And then we had the devices for sale at the back.
Ian Jindal (37:44.319)
Yes. It's got quite an interesting parallel as well with the craft aspect you see now on display in stores. So whether you're going in and you see how they recycle, how they repair, how they do the tailoring, which is very much now a front of house service as part of the brand's integrity. We haven't seen this before in tech because it's been very much these sort of
Luke (38:04.625)
Mm-hmm.
Ian Jindal (38:09.87)
white lab coat temple of technology that you see in the Apple Store, you see in the Google stores as well. So this is quite an interesting shift. Now, time is running out and I am conscious not to use up too much of your voice. So let's just finish off by, if you like, forward a generation. So we've talked about the changes you're bringing about.
Bye.
moving from the need for newness to the need for a product that can be refurbed and used. So if you look at life, let's say through the eyes of a 15 year old today, who is totally brought up in an age of non-repairable disposable tech that's also part device, but also part ecosystem software service, et cetera, et cetera.
we look at the world through their eyes, how do you think that they are going to be looking at device ownership as they age and start making their own buying decisions?
Luke (39:28.647)
So I think looking at teenagers, there's almost a trickiness, and I'll preface this upfront, there's almost a trickiness as a tech company with how you talk about approaching, addressing, connecting with a 15 year old because there's such a...
Ian Jindal (39:43.592)
Hmm.
Luke (39:49.096)
There's such a concern around how teenagers are using devices. You know, you just look at the Australian social media ban at the moment. So you need to be really cautious with how you approach it. But I think when it comes to how 15 year olds and teenagers of that age bracket consume tech, like it's almost from a perspective of independence. So they need it for their, they often need it for their education. So laptops or iPads for homework, for research, for writing.
Ian Jindal (39:54.78)
Yes, yes.
Ian Jindal (40:17.416)
Mm-hmm.
Luke (40:19.111)
They'll have their phone from their social perspective and they'll also have like a console for socializing. They'll have a console for switching off and tech is fundamental to a lot of their touch points in their day-to-day life. So they'll have been brought up using tech from an early age. Like I have two young children myself. We try not to have them using tech too much, but they watch Netflix, they get iPads in the car. And that's something that they've been exposed to from a very young age. That'll be the same, I would assume for most teenagers.
I think because tech is so integrated in what they do, they're a lot savvier with how it can be used and how it should be used. And as a generation, they're far more switched on to sustainability factors and what feels fair and ethical. And I think to this point, tech is a category has often felt quite unfair and everything we touched on before from planned obsolescence, pushing you through to get the latest device, latest device being
Ian Jindal (40:55.934)
Hmm.
Luke (41:18.415)
at a higher price tag, et cetera, that kind of jars with how a 15 year old operates. They want to be more conscious. They don't want to be told what to get. They want to buy what they need or use what they need. And from my perspective, that kind of leans into what refurbished or what use tech can offer. It gives you the freedom to choose what you really need to purchase it at a more accessible price and also not feel the need to conform that I think maybe our generation would have done sort of growing up. So.
Ian Jindal (41:35.282)
Yes.
Ian Jindal (41:45.618)
Yeah.
Luke (41:48.165)
I think it's, I definitely think it's a daunting time for teenagers, but I think in the realms of tech, think there's, there's far more accessibility for it now for a young person to what it would have been, you know, when everybody wanted the 3310, when it came out, get this or you're a loser. Same with it, same with the flip phone. so I think having that breadth and availability is, definitely a good thing.
Ian Jindal (42:01.18)
Yes, yes.
Ian Jindal (42:07.998)
Yeah, I remember talking to my kids when they were probably around 10 and they say, oh dad, you know, we have to have an iPhone. Everyone in my class has got an iPhone. They hadn't.
But my daughter Alice said to me, Dad, how old were you when you had your first iPhone? I said, was 42, my love. So I'll buy you your first iPhone at 42. And there was that look in her face that thought, I need a argumentative attack here. luckily, refurb has come along to close that gap. Well, what can I say?
Luke (42:35.609)
Yeah
Ian Jindal (42:44.04)
Thanks so much for joining us and as I said for sharing some of your voice with us today. It's been really fascinating. I think that change, you know, from all being about new.
Luke (42:51.195)
My pleasure.
Ian Jindal (42:58.836)
and that cycle, how we get through the trust frictions and different ideas of the customer's approach to buying things are absolutely fascinating Luke and it's been a great pleasure chatting to you. Thanks for sharing.
Luke (43:14.45)
Thank you for your time, Ian.