Dubai’s Cartlow raises $2 million to sell second-hand and refurbished products at bargain prices

Dubai-based recommerce platform Cartlow has raised $2 million in a Pre-Series A round, it announced today. The investment came from Arzan VC, Vision Ventures, and some other investors.

Founded by Mohammed Sleiman and launched in 2019, Cartlow sells pre-owned, refurbished, open-box, and clearance products across different categories including mobile phones, laptops, watches, and TVs, on its online platform in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Cartlow procures the products that are slow-moving, returned, pre-owned, or open-box from different partners in bulk at low-cost and sells them on its website and mobile app at bargain prices after their grading, testing, certification, and restoration (to what it says is original condition). Most of the products it sells come with a warranty 3 to 12-month warranty (from Cartlow itself).

The partners it works with normally discard these products. By working with an entity like Cartlow, they’re not only helping in eliminating unsustainable practices but also making money in the process.

The products listed on the platform are clearly labeled with grades for the users to easily browse through them and know the condition without even having to see the details on the product page. According to the information available on its website, Cartlow startup ships products all over the United Arab Emirates and Saudi in 1 to 3 days for a fixed fee.

Cartlow today has also announced that it is launching a suite of recommerce services for retailers, brands, and distributors which will be offered by its sister company Vascart. The B2B services that it is starting with include buyback solutions, liquidation solutions, warranty repairs, extended warranty program, refurbishing, and quality control.

In a statement, the startup said that normally in the retail world, a product’s lifecycle ends when it is purchased which is actually not the case, “Customer returns, end-of-life, and/or overstock products, which did not sell due to seasonality or underperformance, are inevitably discarded. This is where Vascart’s concept will utilize the ‘reverse logistics’ mechanism,” noted the statement.

Mohammed Sleiman, the founder & CEO of Cartlow in a statement, said, “We are still in the early stages of learning how to bring new value to our customers by introducing re-commerce to the region. Our goal remains in continuing to solidify and extend our brand and customer base, since we first successfully launched Cartlow and now we have decided to create more opportunities by launching Vascart for retailers and distributors to benefit from, thereby enhancing their conversion rate and longtime value.”

“We are determined to restructure the pre-owned, after-sales, and liquidation market in this region under the re-commence ecosystem and we will continue to do so by doing our best, to facilitate both consumers and retailers with endless solutions,” he added.

Featured image via The National

(Updated details about the investors who took part in the round).