Pros to Know: B-Stock's Joe Dube Talks Sales Price Optimization

On a daily basis, Joe Dube director of account management for B-Stock, provides secondary market supply chain support for today’s largest wireless carriers, OEMs, and mobile buyback companies. This includes providing data and analytics to advise on B2B resale strategies for used/traded-in wireless devices and accessories. Since joining B-Stock in 2018 as a mobile strategy manager, Dube has immersed himself in providing solutions for the company’s biggest mobile customers. This includes providing data and analytics across the board to help customers optimize average sales price and sales cycle for devices via B-Stock's B2B resale storefronts. In addition to helping customers increase pricing on the units via data and analytics, Dube provides guidance on compliance/risk aversion, brand protection, and how to ensure a fast sales cycle for the inventory. For example, how items are grouped for resale, creative methods for buyer engagement, what type of restrictions there are (R2 only), and how the starting price for an auction will all affect pricing, risk aversion, and the velocity in which product is sold. 

Over the past year, Dube was instrumental in helping one of the company's biggest mobile OEM customers achieve a quicker sales cycle and better experience for its storefront buyers. Through its platform, B-Stock connects sellers with buyers but doesn't physically handle inventory. In this case, the customer contracted an outside 3PL to oversee fulfillment, responsible for testing and grading the devices, and then sorting, packing, and shipping parcels based on details contained in the purchase order. While the testing and grading process was accurate, there were ongoing issues with shipping lead times and order accuracy, and with limited communication between B-Stock and the 3PL, it was difficult to address these logistical setbacks. Dube and his team recommended an alternate approach by keeping the existing 3PL for testing and grading and find a new 3PL to manage the packing and shipping of the inventory. At the beginning of 2024, B-Stock onboarded the new 3PL and incorporated it into the fulfillment process. Within a few weeks of leveraging the new 3PL, B-Stock’s team noted considerable improvements, including a 64% reduction in average time from order paid to time to ship, decreasing this period from nearly a week to just a few business days; a 100% reduction in the average number of monthly shipping errors; and a 22% reduction in the dispute rate between the OEM and its buyers. Since adjusting the fulfillment process, the OEM has improved the buyer experience on its B2B sales channel. and is currently selling 100% of its trade-in inventory through B-Stock.

This year, Dube will be instrumental in bringing B-Stock's Mobile Insights Tool to market, enabling the company's wireless/mobile customers an automated and easy way to access and review historical, current and future average sales price, and depreciation data across device models. 

We talked exclusively with Dube about applying AI and machine learning to data, sales price optimization and the benefits of partnering with 3PLs.

CLICK HERE to view the full list of winners.