Apkudo's phase one research with FDM CCS Insight, covering 48 refurbished-device buyers and intenders across the US, UK, Germany, and Japan, found one consistent verdict: verified device data builds trust and closes sales faster than a grading label can. Buyers named a premium they would attach to verified inventory, but the stronger finding is preference rather than willingness to pay a fee. Given two comparable devices, they choose the seller offering a Device Passport, which makes verified data a conversion and pricing advantage rather than a checkout surcharge. Where that data is missing, buyers substitute a proxy for trust, defaulting to familiar retailers in the US and UK and turning to research or discount demands in Germany and Japan; phase two, now underway, will size those effects market by market.
To understand this more deeply, Apkudo set out with FDM CCS Insight on a consumer study spanning the US, UK, Germany, and Japan. Phase one gives us a qualitative baseline: 48 consumers across four markets, each a recent refurbished-device buyer or a strong intender to become one.
The signal is clear.
Verified device intelligence is not just an operational improvement. It represents a strong commercial lever for building buyer confidence and accelerating secondary market adoption.
Phase two, a quantitative study, is underway to size that lever precisely in each market. Here is what phase one tells us.
Across the four markets, the response to a Device Passport™ mockup — a standardized, itemized record of a device's condition, diagnostics, and history — was the same: it builds trust, and it closes the sale faster.
That consistency across four countries with very different relationships to buying used devices is validation that transparency translates to dollars. The trust gap in refurbished electronics is not a regional quirk. It is structural, and it shows up in every market. The Device Passport is built to close that gap everywhere at once.
A US respondent put it directly: "This is the kind of data I want before I jump in on a refurbished phone." A UK respondent went further: "This device passport is the most important thing for me. I would not want to buy a phone without it now."
German respondents described it as removing the very uncertainty that slows a purchase decision, and a Japanese respondent highlighted the depth of the record itself as the value: "There is a lot of detail, including the history, which is very reassuring."
Four markets, four different starting points on buying used, and one shared verdict: verified data earns trust that a grading label alone cannot.
When asked directly about the value verified data adds to a used device, participants in every market gave us real numbers. US and UK respondents converged around a $20 or £20 premium. German respondents were comfortable with a 5-20 percent premium. Japanese respondents ranged more widely, from no premium at all to a meaningful one.
Those figures do not suggest adding a line-item consumer fee to every listing. They are proof of something more valuable to an ecosystem operator: buyers are not asking for a surcharge; they are choosing the seller who offers verified trust.
Put two otherwise comparable devices side by side, one backed by a Device Passport and one without, and the Passport wins the comparison, even at a higher price. One US respondent framed it: "It is not something I would pay for, but it would certainly influence my decision. I would pick a retailer that offers the Passport over one that doesn't."
This translates to a direct conversion and velocity advantage for verified inventory. Sellers convert pre-owned listings faster and protect price points without discounting. Hesitant buyers move forward, brand equity stays intact, and margins expand—all without relying on a checkout surcharge. Verified data creates an advantage simply by winning the side-by-side comparison.
When buyers can't verify a device's condition, they don't just accept the risk. They look for something else to trust instead — and in most cases, that's the seller's reputation.
In the US and UK, that meant defaulting to familiar retailers. In the US, buyers consolidated around Apple, Best Buy, and carrier stores over open marketplaces. One UK respondent put it plainly: "Once bitten... I would stick to a store, Currys, Argos, Amazon." In both markets, a retailer's name became the trust proxy that a standardized grade should have provided.
Germany and Japan handled the same gap differently. German buyers researched instead of defaulting to a familiar brand, cross-checking forums and search engines before trusting a listing: "I look at various search engines and see what people have written on forums... and then a picture comes together that reinforces my trust." Japanese buyers responded with price — naming the discount that would make the risk worth it, or walking away and buying new instead: "I figured I couldn't really tell what condition it was in without actually holding it in my hands, so I ended up buying a new one."
Without a shared standard, buyers substitute device trust with whatever proxy they have available. In the US and UK, that proxy is brand reputation; in Germany and Japan, it takes the form of extensive research or price friction. Sizing how deeply these workaround behaviors impact each market is exactly what phase two will test.
Qualitative research reveals the why. It validates that verified device data fundamentally alters buyer behavior across the four markets. Phase two takes those signals to scale.
Currently underway in partnership with FDM CCS Insight, our quantitative study measures the exact economic impact across the US, UK, Germany, and Japan—sizing the pricing premium, conversion lift, and total value recovery opportunity for Device Passport™-enabled inventory.
Download the phase one executive summaries to explore market-specific consumer insights:
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