How Cashify will focus on its marketing and offline stores to ring in its next phase of growth

• Re-commerce marketplace Cashify has been witnessing good growth, owing to its focus on making the process of buying used phones and gadgets seamless for consumers.
• It has also been spreading awareness about the platform through its marketing and had roped in actor Rajkummar Rao as its brand ambassador earlier this year to connect with a wider set of audience.
• It is now also focusing on expanding its offline presence, Puneet Arora, Director - Marketing (Brand & Content), Cashify tells us to spread its reach in the segment.

The pandemic has brought a lot of new users onto the internet, many of who have slowly and steadily got comfortable with transacting online. Many have said how the pandemic has accelerated the country’s digital adoption, perhaps more than two years.

A lot of businesses have been focused on solving consumer pain-points have witnessed good growth. There has always been a market for refurbished gadgets but it has so far been a largely unorganized market. Cashify, a re-commerce marketplace that has been working towards simplifying the process of making used smartphones and other gadgets, has been able to make the most of this gap in the market has witnessed healthy growth.

Having started its journey in 2013, Cashify is reportedly trying to raise $50 million as it is planning its foray into international markets and aiming to boost its marketing. While it had been on a trajectory, the lockdown meant the platform had to completely restructure its marketing strategies.

“We diverted our budgets from offline to online and TV. Online and TV content consumption was at an all-time high. We leveraged the surge in content consumption and released hundreds of blogs, articles and news posts throughout the Covid times engaging users around mobile technology,” said Puneet Arora, Director - Marketing (Brand & Content), Cashify. The move had the desired effect, Cashify’s YouTube channel gained 110K subscribers in a span of 18 months.

The next step was to spread awareness about what it does and what better way of roping in a popular face like Rajkummar Rao. Speaking about its first campaign with the actor, Arora said, “In June, we planned our first major ATL campaign which started with the onboarding of Rajkummar Rao as our brand ambassador. Our first campaign was an introduction to the category and its objective was to spread awareness about Cashify’s USPs of price & convenience around selling and buying pre-owned Mobiles. Other USPs and gadgets will be covered in the subsequent campaigns.”


While the platform’s awareness majorly exists in Tier I cities currently, Arora is hopeful that in the next few months, they will be able to penetrate the largely unorganized Tier II and Tier III pre-owned goods business and market.

Cashify’s current media mix includes performance, content and BTL and ATL (TV, Radio, Print and Outdoors). “Our estimated FY22 spend on marketing is around Rs 35 crore,” he added.

Meanwhile, the change in strategies also brought in growth. The platform’s business grew by 2X in comparison to its pre-Covid numbers. On how the pandemic affected its business and where it stands now, Arora said, “Overall, due to the change in online shopping behavior, the pandemic helped us increase the top funnel with more and more users becoming open to transact online. The good part is that we were the first platform to revive to 100% pre-covid levels within two months of opening up and with our major ATL in Q3 our growth sustains to 2X in Q4 so far.”

We do not have a sizable organised competition in the industry as of now. Our biggest asset is our large supply chain and QC line we have built on the foundation of cutting edge technology over the last 8 years. Our ML and AI based price calculator gives you the best price for your device with millions of data points being updated each day. And even if buying old phones could seem easier, the biggest challenge starts thereafter. Bringing each and every device on the QC table and adding value to it in order to re-introduce in the market at a scale like this can take years. And with each year passing by our ever improving processes and teams have made our business formidable. So, for now our biggest competition right now is ignorance which we plan to handle through marketing and stay relevant in any time and age.

On where their next phase of growth will come from, Arora said, “One third of the country’s population is yet to migrate to a smartphone. Our growth will depend on how we can educate the users to extract value out of their old phones and not let these become e-waste and pollute the environment. An old smartphone is valuable and we want every smartphone user to avail it. This way, not only will we be able to benefit millions of users but also make a much bigger impact in protecting the environment by increasing the average lifespan of an electronic gadget which otherwise would have become e-waste.”

Cashify will also focus on opening more offline stores. With over 85 brick-and-mortar stores, the plan is to add another 100 stores within the next 12 months.