Insights

Rethinking your asset recovery strategy

The Do It Yourself approach to asset recovery/remarketing remains a common practice in the consumer electronics industry. But maybe it’s time for a rethink.

In the world of asset recovery for consumer returns and factory refurbished goods, the DIY approach usually leads to one-to-one phone calls going out to the same handful of wholesale buyers used for years - the last pallet whisked off the dock as the clock winds down on quarter-end. The process may be out of sight, out of mind for another three months, with barely a nod to the company’s bottom line financials, but why have we never stopped to question if there’s a better approach? 

Admittedly, few companies have the resources and experience to build the technology, support services and global trading acumen that’s required to transform asset recovery, however, with over 19 years specializing in asset remarketing for consumer electronics and wireless brands, FreeFlow has learned a thing or two about how to lighten their customers’ workload and tap into the lucrative secondary wholesale market for consumer electronics and telecommunications products.

FreeFlow provides its clients with instant auction technology and services, enabling them to scale their processes to ensure buyers can compete against each other competitively to offer the best prices for the products they’re selling. Perhaps the time has come to run asset recovery like a business, not a fire drill. In which case, here is why FreeFlow should be your first port of call:

Conducting the sale
Here’s where FreeFlow’s award‐winning technology shines: your inventory spreadsheet turns into a fully merchandised online auction complete with auto‐captured product images, downloadable listings, proxy bidding and more. Automated bidding ensures multiple rounds of increasing bids right up to auction close.

Market research
Inexperienced sellers often use their standard cost as the base for their asking price, which may be way off what the market will bear. FreeFlow’s Market Insight report tells you at what price and volume your product has been selling on the secondary market and what buyers are likely to pay.

Demand generation 
Informal relationships can jeopardize channel control. Go beyond a simple handshake agreement, find buyers you can trust – in sufficient numbers to drive real competition, via FreeFlow’s thousands of global registered commodity buyer base.

Buyer setup
Setting up buyers for commercial transactions requires approval and setup within your organization - generally a two‐week cycle, or more, for each one. With FreeFlow, only one customer master setup is needed and all buyer relationships are managed for you.

Financial settlement
Complexity of setup and collection are two reasons most sellers keep buyers to a handful - and retain the same ones for years. FreeFlow automates the process, and buyers pay cash. There are no credit terms, at auction close FreeFlow aggregates all payments and remits a single sum to you, the seller, net of the transaction fee.

Freight and logistics 
Too often you, as the seller, pay freight, just as you would for a primary channel partner. On FreeFlow’s platform, buyers pay freight while we coordinate the pickup from your warehouse.

Audit trail and performance metrics
FreeFlow’s platform captures every transaction, every buyer registration and every bid made, creating not only a comprehensive audit trail but also a KPI dashboard and robust, on‐demand metrics reporting.

FreeFlow would love to help you close the gap on recovery performance. To learn more, contact us at info@freeflow.com.

GO BACK