Whether you know it or not, you’re likely sitting on a gold mine of unused personal electronics. Many of us have an old phone sitting in a drawer for a rainy day, or a laptop stashed in a closet that we never took the time to wipe. What if there was a quick and easy way to not only dispose of the e-waste in your home but make money doing it? That’s what Tiptop wants to help you do with its new trade-in program that any retailer can add to their online checkout.
Trading in devices is nothing new, but we often only consider doing it with specific purchases or transactions. For instance, if you decide to upgrade to the iPhone 16 this fall, you might want to trade in your iPhone 14 to cut down on the cost of the new phone. Apple won’t give you the full value of the old iPhone, but at least the new phone is marginally cheaper.
Of course, Apple’s trade-in program, like most others, has rather strict limitations. You can only trade in Apple devices or select Android phones. If you’ve got an old PC, VR headset, or digital camera, you’re out of luck. That’s where Tiptop comes in.
When shopping online, you eventually reach a checkout screen that features a few options: Pay with a credit card, pay with PayPal, or use a Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) program like Klarna or Afterpay. Tiptop is the newest addition to the checkout process, giving consumers the option to get an instant quote for a device trade-in before paying.
As of July 19th, eight partners have added Tiptop: Phone Daddy, Nothing, Cradlewise, Daylight, King of Christmas, Backbone, Upgraded, and MagFast. If you shop on any of these sites, you’ll see Tiptop as an option at checkout.
Here’s how it works if you decide to use Tiptop at checkout: First, you’ll be redirected to Tiptop’s site, at which point you’ll decide whether you want to get a trade-in quote right away or pay now and trade in later. If you decide to trade in first, you’ll have a chance to choose what you want to trade in, and this is where Tiptop really shines. There are hundreds of products to choose from, including video game consoles, portable speakers, drones, and power tools.
Let’s say I want to buy the $99 Backbone One controller for my iPhone. I’ll save $70 if I trade in a Meta Quest 2. That would bring my total down to $37.79 after taxes and fees.
Once you lock in your purchase, Tiptop will give you the option to either pay in 4 and get instant credit towards the purchase price or pay in full and receive a credit to your payment method for the value of the trade-in after Tiptop assesses your device.
Tiptop will then send you a QR code with a prepaid shipping label or offer an on-demand courier to come and pick up your device. The goal is to make the trade-in process as simple as possible for consumers while increasing checkout conversion rates for merchants.
“The feedback has been phenomenal,” TipTop’s CEO Bastian Lehmann told us when we asked how partners have responded to the trade-in program. “It really seems as if we stumbled across a missing link in e-commerce.”
Unlike many other startups, Tiptop isn’t desperately trying to figure out how it will actually make money someday. The company takes a small percentage of every payment on partner websites and then turns around and sells the trade-ins to other partners. Two consistent revenue streams that will only grow as more partners sign on.
But Lehmann — who is also founder and CEO of Postmates — isn’t worried about the money.
“We really don’t spend much time thinking about the business, or its sustainability at this point,” he said when asked about Tiptop’s sustainability. “We’re just getting started and we’re building something that we believe should exist and something that we would love to use and we think that’s a phenomenal starting point.”
I spend all day writing about technology, and I have accumulated more electronics than I care to admit. Having the ability to declutter my room while saving money on new devices sounds like a dream come true. As Lehmann said, Tiptop is “just getting started,” but when I see the option to use it, I’m going to start digging through drawers for trade-ins. I have a feeling that plenty of other consumers will feel the same way once they discover Tiptop.
