How a Trade-In Program Doubled Attachment & Kept $4.5M in the Ecosystem

The carrier wanted trade-in to strengthen customer loyalty, encourage faster upgrades, and improve customer satisfaction, while making the program simple for sales reps to explain and execute. More than a transaction, trade-in needed to become an integrated part of the customer experience that kept more value and spending within the carrier’s ecosystem.

The opportunity was clear: create a trade-in program that was simple for customers, easy to implement, and capable of turning the value of used technology into immediate purchasing power.

The Problem: Trade-In Value Was Walking Out the Door

The carrier needed a better way to increase upgrade frequency and unlock incremental customer spend while strengthening long-term loyalty.

A key part of that challenge was keeping the value generated by trade-ins within the carrier ecosystem. With trade-in attachment still low, the carrier had an opportunity to recover significantly more customer value at the point of upgrade. Rather than treating trade-in as a separate transaction, the goal was to connect the value of a customer’s existing device directly to their next purchase.

That required an experience that was straightforward for customers and operationally simple for the carrier to deploy.

The Solution: A Simple, Co-Branded Trade-In Experience

Phobio delivered a co-branded trade-in experience with POS integration and an online quoting tool. Customers received instant account credit, turning their existing devices into immediate purchasing power that could be used across both in-store and online purchases.

Free shipping and transparent device grading simplified the experience further, helping keep more trade-in value within the carrier ecosystem. For the carrier, the solution launched in just 30 days with minimal operational overhead, while supporting a more sustainable, ESG-aligned approach to the device lifecycle.

The Outcome: CA$4.5M in Store Credit Put Trade-In Value Back to Work

In 2025, the program disbursed CA$4.5 million in instant store credit, turning the value of customers’ used devices into immediate purchasing power within the carrier ecosystem.

The impact went beyond the value of the credits issued. The carrier more than doubled its trade-in attachment rate, resulting in more than twice the customer value being recovered and immediately put back to work within its ecosystem.

Instead of device value leaving with the customer at the point of upgrade, more of that value was captured and applied toward future purchases. This strengthened the connection between trade-in and the next upgrade, while supporting higher customer retention, more frequent upgrades, and incremental trade-in-driven revenue.

The result was more than a trade-in program. It became a mechanism for recovering more device value, putting that value back into the customer relationship, and creating a smoother path to the next upgrade.