Second-hand electronics retailer PayMore, based in the United States, is expanding its retail footprint into Canada.
Stephen Preuss, Co-Founder and CEO of PayMore Stores, said the brand’s goal is to grow to as many communities as it can “because as long as technology is around, people will need to buy, sell, trade, and recycle their devices.”
PayMore was founded in Massapequa, New York to obtain and repurpose old electronics and recirculate them back into the marketplace instead of having them pile up in landfills.
“We are a buy, sell, trade, recycle electronics retail store. We started this path in 2004 my partner and I . . . We built our business on technology and data. We just happen to sell electronics in a retail format. We ran our business in Long Island and then we started franchising in 2020. We opened up our second location at that point in time,” said Preuss.
“To date now, we have 36 stores open in 16 different states. We have another 55 being opened this year. So by the end of the year we should have 100 locations open in 29 different states. And we have contracted now including stores that we have open about 270 that are opening in the United States and we are now opening several in Canada as well.
“It’s a retail format where people come in. They have optionality in electronics which is not available anywhere else besides us. It got to the point where people were looking for different options outside of going to an Apple store and paying $3000 for a phone or going to Best Buy and having to buy something new off the shelf. We have really opened up the channels of optionality in the second-hand electronics space and we’ve also, one of our big missions when we started this, was to really revolutionize the second-hand industry as a whole which is highly stigmatized. When you think of second-hand industry you think of a pawn shop. And that’s not what we are. We are a clean, regimented, franchise business where people are comfortable coming in in better shopping centres. We have beautiful stores and our technology allows our customers that are interfacing with our staff to be highly educated on what they can pay for that item and we believe in giving a fair deal so customers come back. Overall, we’ve really changed the concept, the feel and the execution of the second-hand store.”
He said customers return 70 per cent of the time which is highly extraordinary compared to other second-hand stores that customers only come back about seven per cent of the time.
Preuss said Canada is the brand’s first international exposure.
“The Canadian market is very similar to the U.S. market. But not only that, there is the understanding of what a second-hand market is there. As well, the retail and the real estate is very similar. And also there’s not a lot of differences between the technology stack that we use in the U.S. as opposed to some of the other places that we’re looking into internationally,” he said.
“So it was a natural progression for us. Everywhere we put one of our stores in the U.S. we’ve become the highest grossing second-hand store in that specific market. Now we have so much exposure in the U.S. it was a natural progression for us in Canada. It really took a long time. It took about a year and a half to find the right first mover for us in Canada which we’ve found with our franchisee that’s doing five stores in the Ontario area.”
Preuss said the first store will open in August with a second store to follow before the end of the year in the Greater Toronto Area.
“We have mapped out the entirety of Canada. Real estate is my background. So we’ve worked with some local folks there to map it out. We’re looking at 120 stores in Canada over the next 10 years, coast to coast,” he said.
Spearheading this deal for the brand is Ontario native Richard Price, who brings over 20 years of experience as a director of sales, selling and managing teams from SMB to enterprise in multiple successful SaaS Businesses.
“I wanted more freedom in my career and as a first-time entrepreneur, I also wanted to see a proven concept that will help each community that it’s a part of,” said Price. “The market for buying and selling electronic devices is huge not only in Canada, but around the world. Seeing PayMore’s growth and success in the United States, on top of its mission to pay people for their unused tech and to safely recycle unwanted tech, made this the perfect opportunity for us and this market.”
The irony is that a company called PayMore is growing and one called Payless has closed down! 😂
Not a very good store name.
When I think of the secondhand industry, I think of thrift stores, yard sales, flea markets, auctions and some online sites, not a pawn shop. But if they’ll take that box 10BaseT cables and VGA connecters off my hands, great.