@Korth wrote:
@will13am
It's common accounting practice to assume mobile phones have a useful life of 3 years and are thus assets which depreciate 33.33% of their value each year until (from a business perspective) they're no longer worth anything. Hanging onto them longer usually starts adding other costs - replacement batteries, parts, repairs, incompatibility or unreliability, etc - which (from a business perspective) makes purchasing newer devices the smarter decision.
This is even faster depreciation than computer tech (in the offices or in the yucky server closet) which lose 25% of their value (as assets) each year until they're worth nothing.
Some companies need to analyze this depreciation of mobile phone values in finer detail - or refer to published summaries of cell phone depreciations - because wireless phones are somehow part of their business and represent a whole lot of money. These sorts of analyses invariably end up making the "real" value of mobile phones depreciate far more in far shorter timeframes than the simpler accounting practices.
So I'm surprised they don't do the same thing for unsold inventory. Like the example I provided above with deluded craigslist vendors thinking the tech toys they bought for $1000 a couple years ago should be resellable for prices approaching $1000 today - especially on "used" or "refurbed" items - it's just not realistic thinking when customers have the ability to compare prices and offerings with everything else on the market.
Not every company has inventory. Or an abundance of inventory. It is very easy to see who uses these inventory control techniques. And I can reassure you it increases the cost of the item, but no one will admit it.
Some online filled items can be shipped centrally. Is called QR or Quick Response and items are shipped from the source or a third party for a number of resellers, directly to the end consumer.
Some retailers will carry inventory at preset levels and their JIT inventory will be replenished once the preset inventory level drops and triggers a new order. Just In Time inventory can be shipped to retailer or the QR Inventory holder in batches or on a one for one basis.
So huge surpluses of unsold inventory is not to be expected. Surplus inventories of smart phones are identified and a sales marketing method will be developed to sell it off.
Refurbished cannot always be trusted but I would expect to see a new OEM battery and a physical and diagnostic check to be done. And the one year warranty should protect you if the phone is a lemon. The only drawback is how many operating system updates will you receive? But it is STILL A USEABLE phone and can give you good service for years to come.
I don't understand why some here are criticizing the offer or trying to restructure it to what could have been.
No doubt most of us here are using a second hand phone, a hand me down, or one that you paid FULL RETAIL PRICE for through your now expired contract.
PM has developed a good one stop shop for those that can’t afford the full price of a new phone. And remember IT IS ONLY A PHONE and what ever other benefit you get out of it is a bonus. Thus the need to know what bonuses would serve you the best.
Not everyone is going to buy a phone from PM but it sure will help them gain more customers. And sure, others will continue to have an abundance of used inventory available over the next 2 years. For me....I will have 13 phones available over the next 2 years. And others will have similar.
In my first days of prepaid service in BC we bought 2 refurbished flip phones decades ago from Telus....issues....NONE.
