In conversation with: Vianney Vaute, co-founder of Back Market

You can find this interview in French here

Through their online platform, Back Market makes refurbished smartphones & laptops a mainstream alternative. The company is the first refurbished product re-seller certified by Apple and is on a mission to empower consumers to say no to over-consumption. Their algorithms match buyers and sellers, and enable access to products at up to 70% lower price. 

Launched in Paris in 2014, Back Market is one of the leading circular economy startups in Europe. We met with Vianney Vaute, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer.

Back Market is making refurbished mainstream and working on transforming an industry that still thrives on over-consumption. What are you the most proud of?

It's pretty cliché, but I'd say the scale of the business, though I don't think scaling is an end in itself. The challenge of Back Market is global - billions of gadgets and household appliances are manufactured every year, with dramatic environmental and social impact. So if we want to fix this, we have to scale. We have to create a mainstream alternative to this device consumption and impact the amount of new devices that are being manufactured. 

Today, we operate in 6 countries, we have more than 1,5 million clients and 600 refurbishing partners. We're still far from the Big Tech guys, but we're getting there :)

Back Market is trying to bring together business and ecology, what compromises did you have to make along the way?

The main compromise is about the way I talk to new consumers - how I convince them to switch from New to Refurb.

At first, I was keen to aiming at the hearts of people, talking about e-waste, rarefaction of raw materials, talking about how buying on Back Market is like joining a movement. That’s, by the way, where our name comes from: getting on side-tracks, joining a parallel, underground market to screw new over.

But I quickly realized that we could not scale this way. A vast majority of people don't think about e-waste ; they just want a good phone, tablet, freezer, at a good price, with great service. And it's hard to blame them for that. 

Realizing this had an impact on my relationship with users: Now, I'm talking quality-price ratio, fast shipping, guarantee… instead of being 100% ideological. 

How do you perceive people’s growing appetite for sustainable living? Where do you see the industry going?

Clearly, people's appetite for sustainable living is growing exponentially. We can't watch a weather report without thinking about global warming: this ought to impact the way we consume.

But when it comes to tech, the main stakeholders (consumers, manufacturers, media, distributors) are still pretty archaic compared to other areas of consumption that have been quite disrupted by sustainable mouvements (fashion, food, energy, transportation, etc.). We manufacture, market, distribute, consume and discard a microwave in the same way our Grand Mothers dealt with it. Criticism about e-waste, planned obsolescence is still pretty confidential and undersized v.s. the amount of noise Apple still makes around its keynotes.

The tech industry is struggling with a great paradox at its core: isn't technology supposed to save us from environmental apocalypse? Why then is it contributing to such an environmental and social disaster? The fantasy around Tesla's "clean" electric car is pretty symptomatic of our misunderstanding. A lot of people don't really want to scratch the surface. 

And how are your own habits shifting?

Personally, I don’t really believe in virtuous consumption models anymore. The only credible alternative to over-consumption is under-consumption. Today, BackMarket still makes money selling products but I’d rather have consumers keep their devices longer and come to us when they don’t have another option than to buy. Our industry needs to go towards more repair, less consumption.

What is your advice to entrepreneurs launching a business today when it comes to connecting growth and sustainability?

- Growth is not an end it itself. Focus on your product first, not on making it scalable immediately. If the product is good, growth will come along. 

- Pick an enemy, your Goliath. A big evil company you really want to destroy. This proved to be useful for us early stage: it gave us a lot of drive and focus, a lot of ambition when it comes to scale, and it's also helpful to imitate some of its tactics. If I was launching a sustainable fashion brand tomorrow, the question would be: how can I convince a typical H&M user to go to my store instead (through product, pricing, service, storytelling, etc.)? This is probably the best starting point.