Resource-friendly services
We support innovative product solutions and service concepts that enable sustainable consumption. In doing so, we’re guided by the vision of a circular economy: Some of the services we offer already make it easier to use products for longer or to recycle them properly at the end of their life cycle.
Repair and maintenance
Repairs are very important to us. We offer a particularly wide range of services in this area, as repairs can sometimes significantly extend the service life of products and save valuable resources. In each of our stores, customers can hand in broken appliances or appliances in need of maintenance and have them repaired either at the After Service Desk or the Smartbar, depending on the product. At the Smartbars, our own technicians repair our customers' mobile phones and offer additional services, such as applying a screen protector. While our customers can take their devices straight back to the Smartbar, the After Sales Service Desk coordinates any necessary repairs with the manufacturer's workshops or selected repair service providers.
In the financial year 2022/23, we repaired a total of almost 3.2 million appliances. Around 2.7 million of these were handed in by our customers at the stores' collection points. The remaining 460,000 are devices (mainly smartphones) that we repaired directly and on the same day at the smartbars. This enabled us to save almost 9,300 tonnes of electronic waste in financial year 2022/23 because the products were reused and not disposed of.
Resale and recycling
Since 2019, MediaMarkt has made it possible to exchange old mobile phones for a MediaMarkt gift card. With this service, we not only make it easier for our customers to trade in old devices quickly and easily, but also make an important contribution to environmental protection. In 2022, the trade-in offer was expanded in cooperation with our partner Foxway to include additional product categories such as notebooks, tablets and cameras, and customers can now exchange their devices in a total of 11 countries at their nearest store or online. Functional products are refurbished by Foxway for resale and thus for reuse. If the old item is no longer suitable for further use, it is professionally dismantled and the valuable raw materials such as gold, copper and cobalt are returned to the recycling cycle.
In the 2022/23 financial year, we purchased more than 218,000 devices across all countries via the trade-in offers and either refurbished them or sent them to a certified recycling process.
Waste equipment disposal and scrapping
Other waste electrical equipment also contains valuable resources that can be recovered and reused in recycling processes. However, they also contain harmful substances that must not be released into the environment under any circumstances. They must be disposed of them correctly. For this purpose, our customers can hand in their old electrical appliances at all MediaMarkt and SATURN stores. If they buy a new appliance we’ll collect the old one free of charge when we deliver the new appliance. Subsequently, we take care of the proper treatment, recycling and disposal of the old appliance in accordance with legal requirements. More information on this service can be found on the MediaMarkt and Saturn websites.