The "old" golden mountain of mobile phones

Before the penetration of the Internet, the business of mobile phone recycling had been flourishing and existed vaguely. Prosperity is due to the fact that with mobile phones becoming the standard configuration of daily life, consumers are increasingly demanding to buy and sell second-hand goods, and business is naturally affordable. The obscure appearance is due to the fact that for a long time, most consumers did not know the true appearance of the mobile phone recycling industry chain - Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen, Zhongguancun, Beijing, as well as large and small maintenance shops and husband and wife shops hidden in the streets, where did they get second-hand goods and where did they sell these old machines or parts? The information on the chain is very opaque.

Xiong Zhou, a co-founder of Recycle Treasure and a member of the Hupao Group and Retail Consumer Group, believes that the use of the Internet and new technologies can make the second-hand mobile phone industry gradually standardized. "For example, commodity pricing, using big data algorithms based on various dimensions of the global market, processes data and information through technical means, and finally forms a relatively standard valuation of second-hand mobile phone products. After the valuation and testing are completed, the contract is fulfilled through standardized services." Then it is possible to move towards scale. Following this logic, Recycle Treasure started and completed the service line layout extending to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain after realizing the standardization of second-hand mobile phone recycling. And going to sea is their "next move" in geography.

Xiong Zhou, who was born in Afghanistan, is optimistic about the business opportunities on the mobile phone digital recycling track, but making money is not the full meaning of his career and recycling treasure. "I will still be influenced by Ali. It is a company that emphasizes value orientation. It should solve social problems, create social value, and achieve commercialization results by the way. When we choose and judge the direction of entrepreneurship, we'd better realize commercial value and social value at the same time."

The goal of Recycle Treasure is to establish a complete solution for the mobile phone aftermarket. For example, Recycle Treasure has a high-quality second-hand mobile phone sales platform called "Coke Premium", a 3C digital leasing platform called "Get Fun to Use", a cooperative brand called "Changeover Man", and an offline one-stop mobile phone digital service brand called "Xianyu Xiaozhan X Recycle Treasure". What is the purpose behind this series of strategic layout?

Xiongzhou: The mission of recycling treasure is to "return the idle to value". This mission is based on the consensus reached by our previous opportunities.

Our entire entrepreneurial team has different DNA, such as CEO He Fan, who is a serial entrepreneur with a strong background in the global mobile phone supply chain industry. He saw that there are 400 million to 500 million mobile phones shipped every year in the Chinese market. Where do so many mobile phones go when they are idle? He also learned about the traditional solutions on the market and found that they are not efficient, transparent and standardized enough. The whole industry is still in a very primitive stage of development. The degree of Internet is very low, and the industry contains a lot of business opportunities. At the same time, from the perspective of the global environment, he predicted that the rise of China's secondary economy is an inevitable trend.

The other two co founders are Tencent's background, and I am Ali's background. From platforms like Tencent and Ali, when we choose the direction of entrepreneurship, we hope to create business value and realize social value at the same time. So we decided to enter the track of second-hand mobile phone recycling and bring some new changes to the industry. In the process, our positioning is phased. In the first phase, we hope to become the most professional mobile digital recycling platform in the world, but in fact, C2B platform is just a dimension.

With the development of our business, we hope to provide an overall solution. Last September, Ali made a round C strategic investment in Recycled Treasure. Based on different scenarios and services, Recycled Treasure and Ali have deep cooperation with Xianyu, Tmall, Taobao, Alipay, etc. For example, we have set up offline "Xiaoyuxiaozhan X Recycled Treasure" with Ali in the core business districts of the first and second tier cities. Explore and innovate online and offline linkage services through service innovation and brand co construction.

Recycled treasure also has some cooperation with Ali in globalization. For example, Ali has a wide range of e-commerce in Southeast Asia. Besides Southeast Asia, there are cooperation and exploration in other countries around the world, such as Russia. In addition, Ali is an ecosystem. In addition to the e-commerce cooperation with Ali, there is also a lot of data cooperation. Ali Cloud has enough data and technical capabilities; There is also a unique credit recovery capability based on sesame credit in China.

We hope that Recycle Pak can provide users with a one-stop solution for the circulation of second-hand mobile phones, so we will think about what users' needs are based on different dimensions. For example, we found that users not only need to sell their mobile phones to the recycling platform, but also need to buy high-quality second mobile phones from the platform with quality assurance, so we established Coke Premium; Users may need to recycle their mobile phones during maintenance and screen change, and our service chain has also made the decision to invest in flash repair.

Every year, 400 to 500 million mobile phones are sold from retail channels in China. In the whole market, offline stores account for about 80%. Online platforms, such as Tmall and JD, account for only 20% of the mobile retail market. Therefore, Recycle Treasure should consider how to better provide services based on the retail market. The most suitable recycling scenario for all mobile phones is where users buy new phones, find some scenarios of selling mobile phones, and in this scenario, exchange old phones for new ones and recycle mobile phones. We have been establishing in-depth contact with these scenes, such as the cooperation between Recycle Treasure and offline stores of Changeover Man.

For recycling Bora, different services have been incubated to meet different needs of users. Later, Recycle Treasure will continue to learn from users, understand their needs, constantly upgrade their own solutions, and quickly iterate.

Recycle treasure is also going abroad, including the cooperation with Huawei last year to trade in the old and enter Russia, and the investment in mobile phone recycling in Southeast Asia. He Fan, the founder of Recycle Treasure, had an overseas background in the mobile phone supply chain before, which means that the mobile phone recycling is connected with the overseas supply chain, right?

Xiongzhou: The mobile phone industry is actually a global supply chain, which is the case from the perspective of new phones. In fact, the circulation of the second-hand mobile phone aftermarket is the same. In developed countries like Europe, America, Japan and South Korea, the second-hand market is relatively mature, and residents have a stronger awareness of environmental protection. There are also more perfect environmental protection rules and regulations, such as some regulations on the production responsibility system. Therefore, the recycling penetration rate of second-hand mobile phones in these regions will be higher. For example, Silicon Valley in the United States, the recycling penetration rate may be close to 70%. At the same time, the quality of their second-hand mobile phones will be better, the customer price will be higher, and the proportion of Apple will also be high. These mobile phones were finally gathered in Hong Kong, then sent to Shenzhen for secondary processing, and then sold to some demand countries such as the Middle East and Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America.

Last year, I met a friend in Beijing who did business in West Africa. He told us that in many West African countries, the sales ratio of new phones and second mobile phones is 1:1. Their whole trading scene is still original. For example, they spread a piece of cloth beside the road and sell second-hand mobile phones while sitting on the ground. The demand is also very strong. Recycled mobile phones have always been the seller's market. The key is to collect and not worry about selling. Therefore, we see that the circulation of second-hand mobile phones is a complete closed loop of the industrial chain in the world.

We want to accelerate the circulation of second-hand mobile phones around the world with the core capabilities verified by Recycle Bao in China, such as the evaluation and detection capabilities of Recycle Bao, one-stop efficient and accurate solutions, especially the technology based unmanned solutions, We will also promote it to developed countries to create new values. In more mature markets such as Europe, America, Japan and South Korea, their recycling method is actually manual, and the labor cost is very expensive.

We are also doing business investment and market exploration in Southeast Asia and Russia. For example, the core capabilities and services verified in China will be replicated and promoted in Southeast Asia, Middle East Africa, India and other markets. To help the global market reduce labor costs, improve industry operation efficiency, give users a better recycling price and recycling experience, and create value for idle.

Do you have any experience or event that impressed you personally during the period of recycling treasure? Can you share it with us?

Xiongzhou: There are many milestones that help recycle treasure to gain new power, step by step. For example, every financing represents the recognition of the capital market and investors. In the process of working, I actually feel that I am fighting every day.

Recycle Treasure has also gone through its initial exploration and started to layout online traffic portals, which is even a bit "exhausting". In Beijing in December 2015, He Fan and I went to visit a target partner, and we waited from day to night until 12:00, and finally we had a ten minute communication time.

This is actually a microcosm of Huibao's entrepreneurship. Many people think that we have a strong ability to obtain resources, including Ali's strategic investment, including the in-depth cooperation of mobile phone brands (we are the exclusive partners of OPPO and vivo official websites, and also the strategic partners of the three major operators). I think these cooperation opportunities stem from the recognition of your partners, and the recognition of your partners stems from your own value mission of Huibao, The construction of core competence and the value that can be created for each other.

Do you regard Recycle Treasure as a business or a long-term business that can solve social problems? Do you want to create small business value or greater social value? Do you think it is a C2B recycling model, or do you think there are more possibilities for Recycle Treasure? Whether you think it is a domestic solution or a strategic opportunity to go global... All these are constantly reflected by the core layer of our organization.

Every six months, we will try to find a return to zero, or "Day One" status, and then look for new answers. We strive to jump out of the current state and affairs, understand more objectively the changes in the environment, industry and organization, and continue to make relatively correct judgments and decisions.