Gazelle, one of the UK’s longest-running smartphone buyers, has announced the end of its flagship trade-in program, which allows phone owners to mail in phones and other electronics devices in exchange for cash.
The news was published and shared with Gazelle by an email sent to some customers on Wednesday. Edge, Meaning that any potential Gazelle customers wishing to take advantage of the program must receive a quote by January 31, 2021 (allowing 30 days to mail in the phone) and begin the trade-in process. The service will officially close on February 1, when any active trade-ins will be honored, the company says.
This is not the end of Gazelle’s business. Gazelle’s parent company, ECOATM, which has been around since 2006, operates a kiosk that lets you get instant cash for a used device, and the Gazelle website is now being used as a retailer to sell those devices at a reduced price after it is renovated. (The catch is that ECOTM won’t be able to pay as much as the traditional Gazelle Mail-In program, which offered તેથી 300 or more for previous year’s flagships like the iPhone 11 Pro.)
Gazelle gives no reason for the decision, but U.S. There are several major trends in the mobile business that point to a general decline in the benefits of cash trading services. For one, many people now lease their smartphones rather than buy them in full over the years, a broad shift from the days when U.S. carriers offered phones at reduced prices in exchange for a two-year contract from a pay firm.
Now, it’s much easier to pay a modest monthly fee for a phone through a program like AT&T Next Up or Apple Paul’s iPhone Upgrade program, with the option to resell the device after a certain period of time. Unless you decide to pay your leased phone early, you can’t turn it over and sell it to Gazelle – and you don’t want to do that because it doesn’t make much financial sense.
Additionally, Gazelle’s initial business on selling your phone to get the latest Apple Pull product would boom early on iPhone trade-ins was a popular strategy for early adopters. Now, Apple has its own good trade-in program (in addition to the leasing program) that gives you the same results.
