Question

Topic: Branding

Need Suggestions On A Computer Recycling Business

Posted by wnelson on 6/11/2005 at 12:46 PM ET 1500 Points
Hello, colleagues…I have a business opportunity that I am setting up and need some help with marketing. Here’s the proposition:

The business recycles computer monitors. The market size is huge. The rate at which computers are obsoleted is about 50% of the market for new – 50M per year in the US. This business will begin regionally. While there are other computer recyclers out there, this business is unique from two respects:

1) We will charge nothing to the people who have the obsolete material. The competition (nationwide and local) charge for the pickup service.

2) When we recycle, we don’t fill landfills. We actually have one company which resells any monitors that are still operational, and another company which will repair any bad monitors and make them into TV sets and resell them. Our “market for obsolete equipment for these two avenues is virtually limitless.

We have two “customers” in this business to consider. One is the two companies who buy the monitors. Not a lot of marketing is needed here, since we have contracts in place for them to take as many monitors as we can provide. The other “customer” is the groups who supply the obsolete monitors. Their need is to get rid of the monitors as cost effectively as possible; they take up space and of no value. A secondary “need” is to do the right thing with the monitors ecologically. First, they can be fined if they do it wrong. Second, if they are caught doing it wrong, they can get bad publicity and this would affect their business. Third, the people will get a “good feeling” by recycling with zero impact to the environment.

The marketing strategy we have is as follows:

First, we will engage in telemarketing. We have a person who will call school districts, colleges, businesses, and government offices in the region telling our story and asking if they have obsolete monitors we can take away for free. He will explain the cost angle and the near 100% reuse with no monitors going to landfills.

The second effort for marketing is through networking with chambers of commerce and other business groups. Each of these have opportunities to meet and greet other business leaders and tell your story.

Third, we will have materials such as business cards and brochures prepared to reinforce our story. We will also have a website to “land on” for people who want to know more or verify that we are legitimate.

I recognize a couple risks in this business:
1) The other recyclers could follow our formula and take away our source and customers for monitors. I believe this is a fairly low risk because
a) The two companies taking our monitors are
personal relationships, built on integrity.
b) The company has a very good grasp of the
logistics to cheaply collect the monitors, test them,
and ship them to the two customers. This
expertise is not something that is readily available
out there.

2) We are only taking care of a piece of the issue for those looking for recycling service. At this point, we wouldn’t bother with the keyboard, tower, printers, etc. A potential action to sure this up is for us to
a) Find similar uses for the other components
b) Set up a more traditional recycling operation for
that material (downside is that we would fill
landfills and this takes away some of our allure as
environmental “good guys”)
c) We could partner with the competition and connect
the people with the need to those who can help.

So here’s my questions, colleagues:

1) Am I missing anything in the marketing strategy? Any other questions you have that you think I need to research?
2) Any other risks that I haven’t thought of?
3) Do you know of any similar companies doing this kind of “recycling” where reuse is the key?
4) Any opportunities I am missing?
5) With respect to “branding” – I am thinking of exploiting the “reuse” aspect. Here are some names I am considering:
a. Rebirth Computer Recycling
b. Second Chance Computer Recycling
c. Hand-me-down Computer Recycling
d. Trash to Treasures Computer recycling
e. Eco-Friendly Computer Recycling
f. Computer Ecological Services
g. 3Rs Computer Recycling (3Rs – Recycling,
Reuse, Reduction in cost)
h. FREE Computer Recycling (could come up
with and acronym that fits FREE – Friendly
Recycling to the Environment and
Economical?)

What are your thoughts of these names? What names can you come up with? What “Tag lines” can you think of that fit the name and the business model?

I look forward to your ideas! Thanks!

Wayde
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by mgoodman on 6/11/2005 at 10:24 PM Member
    I recently submitted a proposal to do some positioning and marketing work for a company that is in the "end-of-life" disposal business for IT equipment of all kinds. They charge to pick up, sanitize, and destroy computer systems, then ensure they are properly disposed of (whatever that means).

    It turns out that the monitor is the only useful thing in an old computer system. And it's the easiest to get rid of. You'd probably find more takers for your business if you could take the entire system AND guarantee that information on the hard drive(s) would be sanitized in accordance with DoD standards. It doesn't matter what you do with the scrap metal, but you'll get more monitors that way.
  • Posted by Mushfique Manzoor on 6/12/2005 at 1:57 AM Accepted
    Hi Wayde

    my observations encompassing everything are......

    1. you are collecting monitor ONLY for FREE, while competitors (say company X) are collecting the entire PC for a Pick-up charge. how is that charge is determined? is it by number of items collected or by distance of the collection from X's compound. whichever it is, a Disposer (who is disposing PC) has to call 2 different vendors and has to pay the same amount of charge. so, WHY would a Disposer come to you? what is your USP??

    like other experts said, when people sump obsolete tech, they dump the entire system, that includes Monitors, CPU, keyboards, mouse etc. so why would someone take your service?

    2. despite the fact that Disposers want to do things Rightly, like mentioned above, your service is NOT making it easy for them.

    3. regarding marketing strategy, apart from your existing Call-up list, add the Computer Vendors who basically supply and maintain PCs at various offices and home. they get called when the users want to change/dump/repair their PCs. so they can be good source of getting obsolete monitors. You can also get into exclusivity contract with them so that they inform and supply only to you.

    4. have a toll-free number for potential disposers to call you on top of Web site.

    5. in order to highlight the "reuse" aspect, position your company on "Reducing the Digital Divide" (RDD) theme. most of the PCs that are disposed off as obsolete are actually quite usable and this can help a lot of poor ppl who dont have access to computers and help them learn. you can contact with some donor organizations or NGOs who are working on this RDD and donate the PCs to poor nations. this will create a Social Responsibility feel for the Disposer Companies.

    With the G-8 writing off debt for poor nations, RDD can be a good theme to get media attention and spur your organization groeth ;-)

    6. Alternately, you can set up an NGO yourself and do this. you will position your NGO as working to Reduce the Digital Divide and and contact all teh Chambers of Commerce, companies, individuals and other business groups. in this regards you will maintain your current NO Charge policy while you ask for donations from various donor organizations as well as companies to help you with Operating Cost. this is an opportunity!!

    7. call your organization/company/NGO as

    "FREEDOM" (thats the acronym for Friendly Recycling in Economical and Ecological way of Digital Operating Machines).

    8. in order to promote your company, make your local TV channel to cover a story on dumping of PCs in landfills and also how your company is making a difference. in the program give a small interview on your objective, why u r different and seek help from people of all walks of life to save environment.

    9. if you brand yourself on RDD theme as i mention above, then the same idea can also be used only you have to show some footage of poor nations benefitting from your collected Disposed PCs.

    10. if you name your organization/company/NGO "FREEDOM" then the tagline can be

    "Ensuring Freedom from Digital Divide"

    11. whatever you do, what you had planned and what i suggested does have the risk of being copied by others. the trick lies in you doing it first and create an impression/brand recognition for yourself. Personal Relationship, contacts and efficient Supply Chain Management are mere tools to acheive that.

    i hope this helps. do let us know what you think about it.

    cheers!!
  • Posted by wnelson on 6/14/2005 at 12:13 AM Author
    Thanks, all, for your input to date. Let me summarize what I have learned from you:

    1) The unique selling points of “free pick-up” and “not filling landfills are not enough to ward off competition. I need to look at beefing this up.
    2) The need of the customers are to easily and securely be rid of ALL obsolete equipment – monitors, processing units, printers, etc. We need to find a way to take all parts away – perhaps partnering with another company who takes care of the other units or donate working systems to third world countries to “reduce the digital divide”
    3) We may want to incorporate destruction of data on drives according to DoD standard into our service offering
    4) To promote, we can use local newspapers to do articles and also incorporate our donors in the article to give them “good publicity”
    5) We want to look into organizing events where we gather groups of IT professionals to give us exposure
    6) We may want to look at partnering with service providers and smaller computer shops – taking away their obsolete equipment

    I will leave this open a couple more days in case there are some more thoughts. Thanks for your hard and imaginative work so far!

    Wayde
  • Posted by wnelson on 6/15/2005 at 4:03 PM Author
    Thanks, all for your suggestions! They have been very valuable.

    Wayde
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