How Back Market is embracing the “ugly movement”

Traditionally, aesthetically imperfect laptops have been barred from the refurbished tech market, with scuffs and scrapes meaning a device doesn’t pass the required quality checks. In the UK alone, around 12 million computers and laptops have ended up in landfill over the past five years, which works out at more than two million every year. Yet Back Market has one solution: The Ugly Computer.

Back Market will now be selling devices that have visible sticker marks from previous owners for the first time. The theory is that by keeping these imperfect, but perfectly working, devices in motion within the refurbished tech retail space, Back Market can stop them from going into a landfill, subsequently putting even more of a halt on the throw-away culture that’s pushed by planned obsolescence.

”Every device that gets unnecessarily discarded, because of a sticker mark or a software update cycle, should have had a second life through our platform instead,” explains Back Market’s UK head of marketing, Luke Forshaw, of the Ugly Computer category. “We were actually inspired by the wonky veg movement; it proved that perfectly good produce was being discarded simply for looking different.”

"As society and business continue to rally against throwaway culture, Back Market is bringing all these ideas to the tech industry in a bid to fight against fast tech."

How wonky veg led the way

As Forshaw mentioned, the food industry has been influential in leading the way. Back in 2015, US brands like Imperfect Foods pioneered a new way to reduce food waste. Soon, British brands like Odd Box or Wonky Veg followed suit: selling aesthetically imperfect fruit and veg to customers, which tasted just fine even if some of it looked, well, a little out-of-shape. At the time, it was estimated that more than one-third of farmed fruit and vegetables in Europe, around 50 million tonnes, was wasted every year because of their appearance.

“Often, supermarkets were rejecting vegetables because they were a different shape or there might be a slight mark on the skin,” explains Stuart Starkey – who took over Wonky Veg’s operations in 2020. “But overnight, that changed for the better.”

Outside of the fruit and veg aisle, fashion has also led the charge towards embracing more imperfect items. In more recent years, there’s been a rise in independent designers and fashion houses like Bethany Williams or RE/DONE, which upcycle and repurpose deadstock as a counter to the big brands churning out fast fashion. Circular fashion brands like Vinted, meanwhile, are heroing items that might otherwise have previously been sent to the landfill. 

Creating a new “uglier” norm for tech

As society and business continue to rally against throwaway culture, Back Market is bringing all these ideas to the tech industry in a bid to fight against fast tech. This essentially means, with the Ugly Computer, we’re taking perfectly working laptops that have been discarded because of sticker marks and selling them at a low price. This includes “Ugly MacBooks” with visible cosmetic flaws, offered at a better price than equivalent condition MacBooks, and also rebooted Chrome/Linux laptops.

Technology has never been more powerful, and yet we feel a need to constantly keep up with its demands of perfect and new, as opposed to reliable and cherished. It means this “Obsolete” category is a celebration of the circular economy and making the most of what we already have.

Ultimately, embracing the ugly (and breaking with retail traditions) is a universal good. It challenges perfection-culture, saves money on things that have been artificially undervalued, and reduces an incredible amount of waste for the planet. In the words of the one-hit wonder pop group Daphne and Celeste, U G L Y (thanks to Back Market) has now got quite the alibi.