I came across a recent industry article about a company selling used electronics through live video streams on platforms like TikTok and Whatnot. Think of it as a modern version of a TV shopping channel: someone shows and talks about the products live while viewers watch, ask questions and buy them right from the stream.
The numbers were pretty impressive. The company now sells thousands of devices a day this way and has built an audience of hundreds of thousands of followers. But what really caught my attention wasn’t how they were selling the technology. It was who was buying it.
Younger Buyers Don’t Necessarily See “Used” the Same Way
For a lot of us, “refurbished” used to come with a bit of a stigma. You might immediately wonder what was wrong with it, how long it would last or whether buying new was the safer choice.
Younger buyers have grown up in a very different marketplace. Buying and selling secondhand clothing, furniture, gaming systems, phones and just about everything else online is normal. They’re comfortable researching products, comparing prices and buying from people or companies they may never meet in person.
Used doesn’t automatically mean unwanted, and refurbished doesn’t automatically mean broken.
Older generations may still associate refurbished products with something that was once defective, while the next generation appears much more willing to embrace the secondary marketplace. That shift creates more potential buyers for technology that businesses are replacing every day.
The Laptop You’re Replacing Isn’t Necessarily at the End of Its Life
Think about how technology gets replaced in your own business. Maybe laptops are replaced every few years. Maybe you upgrade phones, monitors or other equipment across an entire department at once. Sometimes the technology simply no longer meets your company’s needs. That doesn’t necessarily mean it no longer meets anyone’s needs.
A three- or four-year-old business laptop might not be what your company wants to issue to an employee for the next several years, but it could still have plenty of useful life for someone else. Instead of looking at retired equipment as something you need to get rid of, there may be an opportunity to look at it as an asset that still has value.
Recycling Shouldn’t Always Be the First Step
Recycling shouldn’t always be the first thing that happens to an old computer. If a device can be securely wiped, tested and put back into use, that’s often a better outcome. You preserve more of the value of the original equipment, your business may receive money back for assets it was already replacing, and somebody else gets several more years of use from that technology.
Eventually, that device will reach the point where recycling makes sense. When it does, the materials inside can be properly recovered rather than thrown away. But there’s no reason to rush a usable piece of technology to that final step.
There’s One Step That Has to Come First
Of course, businesses can’t approach resale the same way someone cleans out a closet and puts a few things on Facebook Marketplace. Company electronics can contain customer information, employee records, financial information, passwords, intellectual property and plenty of other data you don’t want leaving with the device.
Before anything is resold or reused, that data needs to be securely sanitized or physically destroyed when appropriate, with documentation showing what happened to the equipment.
That’s why the company you choose to handle retired technology matters. You’re not just handing over old computers. You’re handing over assets that may still contain your organization’s information and may still have real financial value.
Take Another Look at What’s Sitting in Your Storage Room
The younger generation’s willingness to buy used technology isn’t just an interesting consumer trend. For businesses, it could mean there’s a larger and growing market for equipment you may have assumed didn’t have much value anymore.
If you’ve got laptops, desktops, phones or other electronics sitting in a storage room because nobody is quite sure what to do with them, don’t assume recycling is the only option.
At SEAM, we securely manage retired electronics from start to finish. We handle data destruction first, evaluate equipment for resale and reuse when it still has value, and responsibly recycle what has truly reached the end of its useful life.
Before that storage room gets any fuller, give us a call. You might be surprised by how much life, and value, is still left in what you’re replacing.
Clint Parsons is the Director of Strategy and Information at SEAM, specializing in building partnerships with businesses of all sizes. He ensures clients effectively navigate secure data destruction, responsible recycling, and maximize the resale value of their IT equipment while staying compliant with evolving regulations.