Shares in listed re-commerce business musicMagpie jumped 17 per cent on the news it had struck a partnership with retail giant Walmart.
The Stockport-headquartered firm was founded by current CEO Steve Oliver and Walter Gleeson from a garage in Hazel Grove in 2007 and underwent an IPO in London in 2021.
Investors reacted positively to the company’s announcement of the link-up between its US brand, decluttr, and Walmart with shares jumping to 34p – the highest since August 2022, although still significantly below their launch price.
As part of the deal decluttr’s refurbished disc media is now available to buy on Walmart’s online marketplace, Walmart.com, with refurbished consumer technology products set to follow in early 2023.
Walmart.com is one of the fastest growing eCommerce platforms in the US. Adding decluttr brings thousands of quality preowned CDs, DVDs and video games to Walmart customers at competitive prices.
Steve Oliver, CEO and co-founder of musicMagpie, said: “We’re thrilled to announce that we are teaming up with the biggest retailer in the world, which will allow us to offer our suite of refurbished and pre-owned products to its tens of millions of customers.
“Walmart’s mission to provide high quality items at low prices aligns with our own, and the newly launched Walmart Restored programme mirrors our commitment to the circular economy and sustainability.
“This is an exciting new sales channel for us as we continue to grow our decluttr brand in the US and partnering with such an iconic household name will continue to foster trust not only in decluttr, but also in refurbished products as a category.”
Walmart Restored is a programme created to help customers discover high quality refurbished electronic products on Walmart.com. In early 2023, decluttr’s refurbished phones, iPads, MacBooks and consoles will be added to this programme.
The Walmart collaboration adds an additional sales channel for decluttr’s products, allowing access to Walmart’s 120m monthly website visitors. This will supplement existing sales through decluttr’s own website as well as on other marketplaces.
More than 400,000 consumer technology products were resold by musicMagpie in FY21. In addition, the group re-sells approximately 2,500 tonnes of books and disc media each year that could have ended up as waste.