'We-pay-you' IT disposal firm to target channel

New outfit throws down gauntlet to incumbents by offering cash incentive to firms with old IT kit

A new outfit aiming to shake up the WEEE [Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment] disposal market will be tapping up the channel soon.

Billing itself as the answer to Mazuma Mobile for the wider gadget space, Dineromob pays consumers cash to take anything from sat navs and laptops to iPhones off their hands before recycling or disposing of the equipment.

The firm has now launched in the B2B space, where it claims it is alone in offering businesses ready money in exchange for their old IT kit.

Operations director Majid Ali said the venture, CashForLaptops.org.uk, would go up against established WEEE recycling outfits such as Computacenter-owned RDC and Sita.

"They have been around for a while and we are trying to come in with a new twist," he said. "We think with the cash incentive we offer we should be able to gain market share."

CashForLaptops may pay up to £20 for a TFT screen and between £30 and £100 for a bog-standard Dell laptop, depending on the condition, Ali said.

Having received national press coverage when it launched 15 months ago, Dineromob currently takes in 300 to 400 consumer tech gadgets a month. More than 90 per cent is recycled and reused, with the remainder shipped to a partner in Rotterdam where it is melted, Ali added, while secure data removal is also offered.

The firm currently employs 30 staff but headcount will be ramped up to cope with business demand, Ali said.

"Once we get into the corporate arena, the next step is to work with resellers and distributors because they are the ones that are on the front line," he added. "When they sell new equipment to customers, by law the customer has to responsibly dispose of their old products and resellers can sell that service."

Targeting small, medium-sized and large businesses, CashForLaptops.org.uk will dispose of anything from laptops and monitors to networking equipment, printers and photocopiers.

However, RDC managing director Gerry Hackett said CashForLaptops business model was "hardly ground-breaking stuff".

"We have been returning money to business and government customers since 1998 and have been tracking that value since 1999 - we have returned £130m since then," he told ChannelWeb. "It is an essential part of our business model."

Hackett added that RDC - which employs 350 staff at its 350,000 sq ft facility in Braintree - even recently launched a website, money4computers.com, designed to make it easier for firms to easily redeem cash for old IT kit.