What a buyback rate is, and why ours is a number instead of a promise
Cards at 85% of the market comparable on the day you ask — it is our card coming home, so we pay far more for it than for one off the street. Trends at table value. Lux at 70% of what you paid. All for 12 months, all published before you pay.
A buyback rate is the percentage we will pay to take an item back, within a stated window, in stated condition. On cards it is a percentage of the market comparable, not of our asking price — a rate quoted off what we charged would reward us for charging too much. The rate is what we fix; on cards the amount is recalculated from the market the day you ask. It is published on the product page before checkout rather than buried in terms, because a rate you find out about afterwards is not a rate, it is a surprise.
Graded cards are 85% of the market comparable on the day you ask, for 12 months. The RATE is fixed; the amount is not. A card whose comparable is $865 today would pay $735 today — if it is worth more in a year you get more, and if it is worth less you get less. That is the trade for a buyback that follows the card rather than our old asking price. Where a card has no current comparable we cannot publish the figure, and we say so instead of inventing one.
Lux is 70% for the first 12 months, and Trends is repurchased at table value within 12 months as credit toward the next drop. Fitness has no published buyback rate, so this store does not claim one for it.
Store credit pays 10% above the cash rate. That spread is deliberate and we are not coy about why: credit keeps you in the store and cash does not, so we pay for the preference rather than pretending it is generosity.
The reason to publish any of this is narrower than it looks. A store that has to buy its own inventory back at a stated price cannot afford to be optimistic about what that inventory is worth. The rate disciplines the pricing.