LÉA GIRARDOT FOR LE MONDE
The discounts of "Black Friday," followed by "Cyber Monday," could be seen as an opportunity to stock up on brand-new electronics ahead of Christmas. However, for some in France, the instinct is now to give secondhand or refurbished gifts, even if that choice is not without risk.
"I need to be well equipped because I travel a lot," Laurence (who did not want to give her last name), a 60-year-old humanitarian project manager, told Le Monde. "So I regularly buy a recycled iPhone, the model that came out three years earlier, and I give my partner the one I'm replacing, which is five or six years old and which he considers a great gift!"
The advantage is clear: For the same price as a new device, you can aim for the higher end of the range. And as the pace of innovation has slowed in recent years, the difference between a new product and a device released three years earlier is no longer always substantial, according to some consumers.
But that price advantage is far from enough to change everyone's habits. In 2022, only 4% of people in France prioritized refurbished or secondhand end-of-year gifts and 14% said they were "completely ready to do so," while 52% said they were against it, according to a study from the French Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME).
