Marketing senior Jack Wight has his own online buy back business for phones and electronics. (Photo by Ryan Liu)
W.P. Carey School of Business marketing junior Jack Wight has started his own business buying and selling older style iPhones and his website-based business is beginning to pick up steam.
Buyback Boss specializes in buying and selling iPhones at competitive prices so customers can easily receive the most for their devices while receiving excellent customer service.
Wight said he got the idea for his business after his grandmother asked him to fix her DVD player.
“My grandma had a DVD player and basically, there was a disk stuck in it, and I took it home to fix it. I got the disk out and sold it on Craigslist, and then I bought another,” he said. “So I started out in this business basically repairing and selling electronics and then moved into iPhones.”
Buying phones in small amounts on eBay and Craigslist quickly turned to buying phones in bulk and selling them overseas, which led to starting Buyback Boss.
“I was basically buying phones on Craigslist and selling them to a connection I made locally that would sell them to Hong Kong,” he said. “I would buy wholesale from resellers around the country and do the wholesale thing instead of buying one or two phones at a time.”
Once Wight had saved enough money, he bought the Buyback Boss company from its original owner in Connecticut and made the website what it is today.
“I bought out the Buyback Boss company from the owner who started it, and I bought the inventory and everything,” Wight said.
The website is setup for easy accessibility for the customer, Wight said.
“You go on the website and select your phone, and we will give you a quote based on five different condition categories,” he said.
The five categories vary from broken to mint condition and determine the amount of money the customer will receive for the phone.
The prices at Buyback Boss are some of the most competitive on the Internet for reselling iPhones, Wight said.
“We actually pay some of the most competitive prices around, especially for broken phones,” he said. “If you look at some other similar sites, we blow them out of the water with our prices.”
Wight said he is gearing up now for the boost in resales he will be receiving due to the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus hitting stores on Friday.
“When the new iPhone comes out, it is the biggest time of the year, and students planning on getting the new phone can just go to www.buybackboss.com, and they will get an instant quote for their old device,” he said.
When shipping an old device to BuyBack Boss the company will pay for shipping costs both ways and make the process of receiving the money for the device simple.
“We pay either through Paypal or by check and we pay for shipping to ease the process for the customer,” Wight said.
Customer service is key to the business, Wight said.
“Every customer is very important to me, and I’m more interested in keeping the customers I have than making new customers, but everyone is very important to me,” he said.
Nick Fraga, an English and psychology senior and Buyback Boss colleague of Wight, said what sets the company apart is the way Wight handles the business and his interaction with the customers.
“Buyback Boss has honesty and integrity unlike some of these other companies that you don’t know who you are dealing with,” Fraga said. “You can actually talk to Jack through instant messenger on the website, so there is great customer service, and he really cares.”
Kevin Risser, a computer information systems senior who has sold phones to Buyback Boss, said it is the best website to sell iPhones.
“Jack’s the man,” he said. “If you look at some of the other sites online, you see he has better prices, and he goes above and beyond to help the customers.”
Integrity is a large part of what makes Buyback Boss a great website, Risser said.
“Sometimes these websites can be sketchy, and Jack has the whole process laid out for you, and with the other sites, sometimes you worry about getting your money, but there are no worries with Jack,” he said.
Buyback Boss has been operated by Wight exclusively for a couple of weeks, and he said he will soon be looking into expanding beyond iPhones.
“I want to move into buying iPads, Samsung phones, Blackberrys and stuff like that,” Wight said. “Eventually I want to make the site a place to sell anything of value like video game consoles and anything we can turn a profit and provide for our customers.”
Reach the reporter at jshanco2@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @joey_hancock
