We visited Swappie! Here’s how a refurbished iPhone is re-born

I’ll start this article with a question: Have you ever thought about buying a refurbished smartphone? If your answer is yes then you will almost certainly already know Swappie, currently one of the largest retailers of refurbished iPhones. We are talking about a company that has its origin and headquarters in Finland, to be precise in Helsinki, and which was born in 2016 from the mind of Sami Marttinen, current CEO and Co-founder of the company. The latter, after being scammed during the purchase of a used smartphone online, decides to try to develop a safe and guaranteed process, which can allow users to buy used smartphones in complete peace of mind.

Hence the idea of Swappie, a company that has grown exponentially over the years, so much so that it now has over 300 employees and a turnover (figure for 2020) of over 97 million euros; an increase of 200% compared to 2018. These numbers have earned this Finnish company first place in the ranking, drawn up annually by the Financial Times, of the fastest growing European start-ups. In short, a solid company that will most likely continue to grow together with a market that, never like today, represents an opportunity for users of all ages and above all of all budgets.

Well, the numbers are very beautiful and the figures are surprising, but the element that in my view must be emphasized over and over again is that at the basis of everything there is a very important concept such as that of sustainability. The production of new smartphones is the process that has the greatest impact on the amount of CO2 emitted in the path that leads to their purchase. Over the years it has been estimated that over 85% of the carbon footprint of these electronic devices is the result of their production.

Reconditioning and buying used smartphones therefore significantly reduces these emissions; to the point that Extending the use of a mobile phone by just one year means reducing the impact by a third that it has in terms of CO2 “released” in the course of its life. This is because, obviously, as the number of smartphones used in circulation increases, the demand for the new one decreases and, consequently, the production, with a positive impact on the demand for resources and on the emissions related to the production and transport of the smartphone itself.

With this in mind, we cannot but appreciate the strong increase in the second-hand market. A rIDC contribution of 2021 provides that by 2024 they will be shipped globally over 350 million refurbished smartphones, for a value of approximately 65 billion dollars; with an annual growth rate of around 11% from 2019 to 2024. Second CounterpointFurthermore, the global market for used or refurbished smartphones was worth € 46.5 billion in 2020 and recorded a 15% increase between 2020 and 2021, with still unexplored growth potential since only one fraction of used smartphones are refurbished and resold.

In short, the ingredients to continue hearing about the refurbished market are all there and we are certainly talking about a business that will only grow from now on to the next few years. Swappie has therefore entered this thriving market with a very specific philosophy. At the heart of everything is the quality of the product that you will go to buy and, precisely for this reason, on Swappie there are only and only iPhones, starting from iPhone 8 up to iPhone 13 Pro Max.

A very precise and conscious choice, which has allowed over the years of optimize the reprocessing process as much as possible with the aim of making it scalable and, perhaps, in the future to replicate it with other products or models. In fact, by focusing on a single type of smartphone, although declined in different models, Swappie has managed to build a process that guarantees a certain minimum level of quality that in any case ensures you have a smartphone that is always perfectly functional. With varying degrees of wear, yes, but always thoroughly tested to make sure everything works as it should.

A process so tested that within your own company Swappie has even created a training pole, the Swappy Academy precisely, which aims to train new arrivals so that they can fit perfectly as the gears of this super oiled machine.

Well, numbers after numbers but I also want to tell you how the process of reconditioning an iPhone takes place in a practical way. The refurbishment center in Helsinki is open from 6.00 am to 10.00 pm and has 300 employees about who work there are distributed over two shifts of 8 hours each: 6.00-14.00 and 14.00-22.00. The organization is obviously taken care of in the smallest details and the process basically takes place in 6 phases, which can also be 4 or 5 depending on the condition in which the smartphone reaches the sorting center.

And let’s start right from here, from first step, mandatory for all products arriving at the reconditioning center. In the first step, smartphones are unpacked and divided between iPhones and non-iPhones. Android smartphones (Swappie withdraws any type of smartphone) are diverted to partners who recondition or recycle this type of solution correctly; while the iPhones are first charged to 100%, so as not to have to interrupt the process in the following stages and receive a first functional check.

This first process serves first of all to check if the iPhone turns on, if it has been correctly restored and if it has been inserted or not in a black list (for example because it has been stolen). In the event that the smartphone has not been correctly removed from the iCloud account of the previous owner or is placed in a black list, it is returned to the sender because it cannot be initialized. If, on the other hand, the iPhone is correctly initialized, proceed to the next step.

After the first check, carried out upon receipt, the second step involves a much deeper analysis of the smartphone, which will allow you to decide which path the smartphone will take in the following steps. At this juncture, various checks are carried out, up to 52 steps, which provide for the verification of different aspects of the smartphone. The software allows you to check the status of the battery and all the other electronic components inside the smartphone, while the operator acts directly on possible problems that can be found “by eye”, from the complete functionality of the touchscreen in all its parts up to the presence of any spots in the cameras.

Once these checks have been completed, a label with a barcode is printed which is applied to the smartphone and which will follow it throughout its path, so that at any time the various operators can trace all the past checks as well as any possible repairs already carried out.

At this point the iPhone can take different paths. If everything is ok and a thorough cleaning is sufficient you immediately move on to the classification phase, if instead repairs are necessary, the smartphone goes through two successive steps depending on the type of interventions it will have to undergo.

For most of the products received, what we could define as simple interventions are sufficient, or routine. What is it about? Simple, replacing the battery, display or cameras. 80% of smartphones passing through the Swappie refurbishment center requires battery replacement, 22% require display repair or replacement while 7% of products require cameras to be replaced. Only 1% of the iPhones received, however, are too old or damaged to be refurbished. In this case Swappie retrieves the pieces which can be used as spare parts and disposes of all the rest in the most correct way.

The battery is therefore the element on which more interventions are carried out by detachment. Apple usually replaces the iPhone batteries under warranty when they have reached a capacity of less than 80% of the original. However Swappie often makes this repairs even at higher percentages.

About spare parts; Swappie does not use original Apple parts and decided not to join the company’s bitten apple repair program. Inside a refurbished iPhone there may therefore be original spare parts taken from other iPhones or third-party spare parts that are still meticulously tested before being used. In addition to this, all iPhones that require a repair that involves opening the smartphone they lose the waterproof guarantee.

In the face of all this Swappie still offers one 12 month warranty and a return service that allows you to return your smartphone within 14 days at no additional cost.

That said, once the above repairs have been carried out, the smartphone can take two different paths here too. If this step is finished, the smartphone is fully functional, it moves on to the classification phase, if instead it requires further deeper interventions it is entrusted to the micro-welding department. Here the operators, trained within the Swappie Academy, intervene directly on the internal components, replacing the damaged ones to make the smartphone fully functional again.

Once all the necessary repairs have been received, the way of the refurbished iPhones is one and only one. We first pass by classification where specialized operators evaluate the extent of the aesthetic damage present on the body of each product and classify these on three levels of judgment: acceptable, very good and excellent. Acceptable is obviously the lowest level, with the phone showing obvious scratches and dents, while Excellent is the one that certifies the best conditions, characterized by few scratches and not evident. Once this classification is complete, the iPhones are then placed on the site and made available for purchase by users.

When then these are bought the logistics department proceeds with the shipment, but not before having inserted any accessories in the package, applied the optional protective glass and inserted the lightning cable and the manuals in the language of the destination country into the box.

Well, this is it the process that every iPhone that Swappie receives goes through to be refurbished and then re-placed on the market. A process that Swappie has refined, as mentioned at the beginning, in order to always guarantee the highest possible quality in the product we are going to buy.

What did I like? Surely the ultimate goal of this type of business which is still based on a circular economy philosophy which, in my view, should nowadays be the basis of every production process. Buying a refurbished product is not only a question of lower costs but it is also and above all a way to encourage the sustainability of a marketas is the technological one, which leads us to produce mountains of electronic garbage every year.

I’d like to close with a few words about Swappie in Italy. The company has been active in our country since 2018 and its business has expanded very rapidly so that, at the moment, Italy is for Swappie. the most important market in terms of sales. This has meant that, despite almost all operations being centralized in Helsinki, the team following the Italian market is now made up of about 20 people.