Kitmondo - A fraud free used equipment marketplace relaunched it's site in 2014 - Creating a safer trading atmosphere and all-round better platform for buyers and sellers. These slides will give you the complete overview of kitmondo.com and how it can protect you, whether you are the buyer or the seller. Our tried, tested and fully operational marketplace and buying process keeps both the buyer and seller in a transaction free of fraudulent activity. www.kitmondo.com

1. RECLAIM
OUR
MARKET
A Blueprint for the Used Equipment Business

2. OUR MARKET
IS UNDER
THREAT

3. HAS THERE BEEN A MORE
CHALLENGING TIME TO BE A USED
EQUIPMENT SUPPLIER?
• Fraud and malpractice are commonplace
• Potential buyers often mistrust the market
• Conversion rates from enquiry to sale are getting
worse

4. THIS DOCUMENT IS:
OUR CALL TO ACTION
OUR MANIFESTO
AND AN INTRODUCTION TO
THE NEW KITMONDO.COM

5. THE DIFFICULT
TRUTH OF
THE USED
EQUIPMENT
MARKET....

6. THE GOOD NEWS
For each piece of equipment sitting in your
warehouse there is almost certainly (somewhere in
the world) a customer wondering how and where to
buy the exact same unit. It may be a cliché but, like
all good clichés, it’s based on a truth – somewhere,
there is a buyer for everything.

7. THE BAD NEWS
This is where the good news ends. It turns out
the process of finding and buying that piece of
equipment sitting in your warehouse is sufficiently
difficult and risky that the customer will, in all
probability, decide not to buy it from you. Net result:
they don’t get the piece of equipment they need. And
you don’t make the sale.

8. WHY IS THIS?
The inconvenient reality is that the person most
in need of your equipment is unlikely to be at the
end of your street. If they are, great! Invite them in,
demonstrate the piece of equipment and do the deal
over a handshake and a cup of coffee. But if they’re
out of town, out of state our out of the country
making a sale becomes exponentially harder and,
statistically, unlikely to happen at all.

9. THE BUYER’S
DILEMMA
At some point in the process of trying to buy used
equipment, a potential buyer has to make a difficult
choice....

10. DO THEY:
A) send their money to the seller and wait for the
equipment to arrive (simultaneously crossing every
available finger and toe)?

11. DO THEY:
B) get on a plane, travel thousands of miles to the
seller’s premises, inspect the equipment, get back
on a plane and travel thousands of miles home. Then
start the process of trying to buy the equipment?

12. DO THEY:
C) decide it’s all too risky and expensive and go back
to the drawing board (sorry, the internet)?

13. NO PRIZE FOR GUESSING WHICH
CHOICE IS STATISTICALLY
THE MOST LIKELY AMONGST
CUSTOMERS LOCATED MORE
THAN 500MILES FROM THE
EQUIPMENT SUPPLIER....

14. ANSWER C
C) decide it’s all too risky and expensive and go back
to the drawing board (sorry, the internet)?
AND INFURIATINGLY...

15. ANSWER C
C) decide it’s all too risky and expensive and go back
to the drawing board (sorry, the internet)?
AND INFURIATINGLY...
THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.

16. THE FAMOUS
USED
EQUIPMENT
MEXICAN STAND
OFF...

17. YOU DON’T WANT
TO...
...release equipment to
someone you’ve never done
business with until you’ve
received payment.
THE NEW CUSTOMER
DOESN’T WANT TO...
...send money to you
(someone they’ve never done
business with) until they’ve
received the equipment

18. SOUND FAMILIAR TO YOU?
Typically there are two possible outcomes to the
stand-off:
1. BUYER SENDS YOU THE MONEY
(YIPPEE)
or
2. BUYER WALKS AWAY (BOO)

19. THERE IS NO
THIRD OPTION
Sellers don’t ship equipment to new customers
unless they’ve taken a payment. And why would
they? 63% of used equipment fraud is committed by
bogus buyers, so why should a seller take the risk?

20. THERE IS NO
THIRD OPTION
So, in the vast majority of used equipment
transactions, the buyer has to pay the seller before
they receive the equipment. In other words...

21. ...THE BUYER
TAKES ALL
THE RISK

22. AT KITMONDO WE SHAKE OUR
HEAD IN AMAZEMENT...
When we hear about the sums of money transferred
by buyers that have conducted only the most basic
research into a seller. Tens of thousands, hundreds of
thousands even, wired to sellers they’ve never met
for equipment they’ve never seen.

23. ...AND WE SHAKE OUR HEAD IN
DESPAIR
When we hear about the countless stories of
vanishing sellers or equipment that never arrives. In
eight years, we’ve seen it all. From the one-man band
scamming a few hundred dollars to the organized,
“professional” used equipment dealer bilking
customers for hundreds of thousands. It’s tragic and
it’s dangerous and it’s ruining our market.

24. A
FRAUDSTER’S
PARADISE

25. A FRAUDSTER’S PARADISE
Fraud is an appealing career choice for lazy,
unprincipled people. To these people, the used
equipment market displays mouth-watering
characteristics:
• High value equipment, often thousands or tens of
thousands of dollars in value
• Buyers send payment in advance
• Equipment can take several days or weeks to be
delivered

26. A FRAUDSTER’S PARADISE
Put it this way, if you were a fraudster, where would
you spend your time?

27. FRAUDSTERS ARE
WINNING
Left unopposed, fraudsters will reach most used
equipment markets sooner or later, possibly yours.
And once infected, a market gains a bad reputation
very rapidly – making it almost impossible for
genuine buyers and sellers to do business.

28. QUESTION IS...

29. QUESTION IS...
WHAT CAN BE
DONE?

30. TO RECAP...

31. FUNDAMENTAL
PROBLEM # 1
In 99% of used equipment transactions, the buyer
takes all the risk

32. FUNDAMENTAL
PROBLEM # 2
The cost of visiting your premises to inspect
equipment makes the deal too expensive

33. FUNDAMENTAL
PROBLEM # 3
You can’t risk sending your equipment to the buyer
without first receiving payment

34. ITS WHY...
• potential buyers back-out at the eleventh hour
• it’s so difficult to complete international deals
• the conversion rate from original enquiry to sale is
so low
and
• the used equipment market is a magnet for
fraudsters and malpractice

35. The solution to the problem is easy to describe but
fiendishly difficult to implement...
TAKE THE RISK OUT OF BUYING
USED EQUIPMENT
whilst
PROTECTING THE SELLER FROM
FRAUD

36. OUR
BIG
IDEA

37. KITMONDO’S
LITTLE BIG IDEA
Ok, we don’t pretend this is the only solution to
the problem and we don’t expect you to swoon in
admiration for our incredible genius. What we’re
proposing is a practical, repeatable way to take the
risk out of used equipment transactions. A method
that makes buyers more likely to buy your equipment
whilst ensuring you are paid in full every time.

38. IT WORKS LIKE THIS...
1. Buyer and seller discuss equipment through the
Kitmondo marketplace
2. Buyer decides to buy the equipment
3. Kitmondo collects full payment from the buyer
4. Seller ships the equipment (or buyer collects)
5. Buyer inspects the equipment on their premises
6. Buyer accepts the equipment
7. Kitmondo pays the seller

39. AN IMPORTANT
IDEA?
Like we said, it’s not earth-shattering genius. It’s
not Twitter. It’s not the Higgs Boson. But, and we
think it’s a big but, this is a process that has been
rigorously designed and implemented by a group of
people (ie. us) that recognize the issues at stake in
the used equipment market and are obsessive about
fixing them.

40. OUR LITTLE
SECRET...

41. OUR LITTLE
SECRET
For 18 months we have been piloting this new way
of doing things under the name Kitmondo SafeSale.
Maybe you’ve seen it on our website or even used it
to complete a deal?

42. OUR LITTLE
SECRET
So, this idea of ours hasn’t come out of fresh air.
It’s based on the experience and knowledge gained
building out a safe transaction service that has
now been used by hundreds of buyers and sellers
throughout the world.

43. BUYERS LOVE IT
BECAUSE:
• They get to inspect the equipment at their own
premises
• Their money is safe if the equipment is not as
described by the seller
• They can buy safely from equipment sellers
thousands of miles away

44. SELLERS LOVE IT
BECAUSE:
• It gives buyers the confidence to purchase their
equipment
• Equipment doesn’t ship until full payment is
collected from the buyer
• It opens up national and international sales
opportunities

45. THE PAIN OF
CHANGE...

46. THREE THINGS YOU’RE NOT GOING
TO LIKE MUCH
You’re going to have to ship equipment before you’ve
received payment
Remember, we have the buyer’s money. Before we
ask you to ship the equipment, we’ll have received
and cleared the full payment from the buyer. It’s held
on deposit for you and paid out as soon as the deal is
complete.

47. THREE THINGS YOU’RE NOT GOING
TO LIKE MUCH
You’re not going to receive the buyer’s contact
information straight away
In order to make our system 100% fraud free it’s
important your initial conversations with potential
buyers take place through our messaging system.
This way we can spot bogus buyers.

48. THREE THINGS YOU’RE NOT GOING
TO LIKE MUCH
Buyers have three days to inspect the equipment on
their premises
If the buyer receives equipment and it’s faulty or not
as described they can send it back to you (at their
own cost). We think this is pretty fair and reasonable.
Remember, this is why buyers use the service - they
know they are protected if something is wrong with
the equipment.

49. THREE THINGS YOU’RE NOT GOING
TO LIKE MUCH
We understand some or all of these aspects of the
new Kitmondo will represent a change to the way
you normally do things. We know these are possibly
difficult changes we are asking you to consider. And
it’s natural your first reaction might not be absolutely
positive. But we hope you understand why we’re
doing it, why it should lead to more sales for you and
why, we believe, it might help improve our market.

50. REAL WORLD
CAVAET

51. REAL WORLD
CAVAET
Occasionally it will not be practical to complete a
transaction through Kitmondo’s new safe transaction
system. Maybe you need to agree staged payments with a
buyer, or maybe a buyer is unable to use an intermediary
service (some universities for example).

52. REAL WORLD
CAVAET
Let us be absolutely clear. We’re not going to get in
the way of you making a sale. That’s the exact opposite
of what we are trying to achieve for you. We want
Kitmondo to increase the likelihood of you making a sale
not reduce it so, in situations where it’s impossible to
transact through Kitmondo, we will work with you to find
an alternative, but safe, way to make the deal happen.

53. AND
FINALLY....

54. DOES ANY OF THIS REALLY
MATTER?
Sometimes we ask ourselves why we spend so much
time on this? How could we invest so many weeks,
months and years doing this with our lives? It’s not
cutting edge, it’s not altruistic and it’s certainly not
glamorous! Why should we be bothered?
Let’s face it, when we were kids none of us dreamt of
building a better marketplace for used equipment.

55. DOES ANY OF THIS REALLY
MATTER?
When we ask these questions, we’re really asking
ourselves if our work at Kitmondo is meaningful?
Other than putting food on our tables, can it give us
personal fulfilment and a sense that the work we are
doing is worthwhile?
The answer can take a while. But it is there.

56. ITS THIS....
Buyers and sellers of used equipment typically work
in small or medium size businesses or institutions.
Often they are self-funded. Often they are family-
run. To these people, fraud can have a devastating
impact. Being hit by a fraudster is not just an
accounting problem. It’s jobs, mortgages, people’s
livelihoods.

57. ITS THIS....
So, yes, we believe taking on fraudsters is a
meaningful use of our working lives and a worthwhile
aim for the Kitmondo business. Granted, we’re not
curing diseases or putting a man on the moon. But
we are standing up to callous, arrogant criminals –
and that feels good.

58. ITS THIS....
And before it’s suggested this is just convenient
marketing waffle, remember fraud directly impacts
Kitmondo as well. We only get paid if a sale is
completed and, over the years, we’ve been victim of
non-payment dozens of times. Fraudsters take food
off our table and take money out of our pay packets.
It makes us angry. And where there’s anger there’s
passion and where’s there’s passion there’s meaning.

59. SO WHAT
NEXT?
We appreciate a change like this isn’t necessarily
easy, but all we ask is that you give the new Kitmondo
marketplace a try. We’ll do everything in our power to
prove it is a safe and successful sales channel for you.

60. SO WHAT
NEXT?
The new Kitmondo website is live from today 19th
March so you can take a look at the changes we’ve
made. You don’t need to change a thing to your
account. All your listings are up and live and, hopefully,
attracting attention from potential buyers.

61. SO WHAT
NEXT?
If you have observations, doubts, or are downright
opposed to our new marketplace we want to hear
from you. Please email Tom or Richard directly or on
customerteam@kitmondo.com.

62. SO WHAT
NEXT?
We look forward to working with you.
Best wishes and thank you,
The Kitmondo Team

63. Kitmondo Ltd
Collingwood Buildings
38 Collingwood Street
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 1JF
United Kingdom
www.kitmondo.com
customerteam@kitmondo.com
+44 870 366 6150
Image Attribution: Chris Kerr, Olivier Guin, Simon Child, Simon Child, Mister Pixel, Alex Auda Samora, Olivier Guin, Nicholas
Menghini, Bohdan Burmich, Maria Ladegaard Rasmussen