Best Buy is expanding a buy-back program so customers can sell their old electronics back to the retailer.
The catch: You need to buy into the Buy Back Program when you first purchase your gear.
Starting Monday, Best Buy will offer customers the option to purchase the Buy Back Program when picking up a product in one of five categories: laptops, netbooks, tablets, post-paid smartphones and TVs.
It’s a bit different than the usual trade-in programs that already exist, which usually don’t let you know how much you’ll be getting for your old stuff until you bring it in. In the new Buy Back program, Best Buy lets you know up front how much you’ll be getting back when you decide to sell, based on the amount of time you’ve owned the product. The longer you’ve owned it, the less you get back when you return it to the store.
“We’ve learned from our customers that they do have a fear of new, greater technology to come,” Best Buy Senior Vice President of Services George Sherman told Wired.com in an interview, “and we’ve found it has led to hesitancy to buying. Our program protects against that.”
For example, say your folks bought you a shiny new Galaxy Tab for Christmas. That’s great, until you hear that Samsung will be releasing a new line of Verizon-carried 4G Galaxy Tabs sometime in 2011. If the folks purchased the Buy Back program and you return your now obsolete tablet within 6 months of the original purchase date, you’ll get up to 50 percent of your purchase price back when buying the new piece of hardware.
Not a bad deal for the early adopters out there, although there’s always the Craigslist route.
The price of the Buy Back program varies depending on the price of the gadget you’re buying it for. In other words, get ready for the sales clerk to offer you yet another option along with the useless extended warranty.
Photo: Ian Mutoo/Flickr
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