A used-gear platform, since 2019
Our work · Retail & E-commerce

One system for the whole used-gear lifecycle.

Roberts Camera has sold photography gear for 65 years, and its UsedPhotoPro operation buys, refurbishes, and resells used equipment at scale. We built NEO, a custom platform that runs that whole lifecycle on one system: buying and quoting, receiving, cleaning and photography, pricing, and sales across every channel. We've built it with them since 2019.

NEO, a custom used-camera inventory platformThe full used-gear lifecycle on one systemClient since 2019; NEO launched in 2020
01 The problem

The old backend couldn't keep up with the used-gear workflow.

Selling used camera gear is far more involved than selling new. Every item is one of a kind: a specific body or lens, at a specific condition, that has to be bought from a seller, graded, cleaned, photographed, priced, and listed before anyone can buy it. The variables run deep across manufacturers and models, and the whole thing moves in steps, each with its own people and its own rules.

Roberts Camera ran that operation on an aging backend that couldn't carry it. It had no real room for the workflow, leaned on marketplace integrations that broke, and gave management no reporting to see where gear got stuck. They needed a system built around how used gear actually moves, and a team to build it with them for the long haul.

What had started out as a somewhat idealistic vision of how to make our used processes more efficient, was quickly and efficiently brought to life in the hands of the Counterpart team.

Corey Reinker · Director, UsedPhotoPro
02 What we built

NEO: one platform for every step of the gear.

NEO is a custom used-camera inventory platform that runs the full lifecycle on one system, from the moment gear is bought to the moment it sells and beyond, with a role-specific view for each person along the way.

Buying

Buying and quoting

Buyers quote and acquire gear from sellers in the system, so every item enters inventory with its details already captured.

Intake

Receiving, cleaning, and photography

Gear moves through receiving, cleaning, and photography, with a direct integration to a camera manufacturer for the equipment coming in.

Workflow

Sorter and reviewer queues

Sorter and reviewer queues route each item to the right hands in the right order, so nothing skips a step or stalls unseen.

Pricing

A pricing engine

A pricing engine sets what each piece of used gear is worth, consistently, instead of leaving it to one person's judgment.

Selling

Channels and in-store sales

Listings sync to the sales channels the store already used, eBay and Magento, and the same platform handles in-store sales and returns.

Beyond the sale

Repairs, kits, and reporting

Repair management, kit tracking, and custom reporting round it out, so management can finally see where gear moves fast and where it gets stuck.

03 Under the hood

Proven technology, chosen on purpose.

Almost everything we ship runs on the same modern Microsoft stack: proven, supported, and easy to hire for years from now. Cutting edge but never bleeding edge.

.NETAngularJSSQL ServerMicrosoft Azure

NEO runs its background work on Azure WebJobs and connects to the channels the store already sold on, eBay and Magento, alongside a direct integration with a camera manufacturer for the gear coming in.

04 The long run

Software that runs the used-gear business end to end.

Used gear is a workflow, not a shelf: every camera gets bought, graded, cleaned, photographed, priced, and listed before it sells, and each step has its own hands and its own rules. NEO carries all of it on one platform, and we've built and grown it with Roberts Camera since 2019.

Since 2019
building NEO for Roberts Camera
Since 2019
building NEO with Roberts Camera
NEO
a custom used-camera inventory platform
1 platform
the whole used-gear lifecycle, buying through sale
65 years
in business, now running used gear on NEO
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