Craving A New iPad? Walmart Adds Tablets To Trade-In Program

Less than two months after announcing a smartphone trade-in program, Walmart is taking yesterday’s announcement of the new iPad Air and upgraded iPad Mini as a good reason to add tablets to the offer.

According to the retailer, customers who want to discard their old tablet for a newer one (that they’ll probably hate and treat with scorn as soon as the next one is announced), can get up to $300 trade-in value at Walmart and Sam’s Club stores.

To clarify, this isn’t cash for your old tablet. It’s credit toward the purchase of a new one. In the rare case that the tablet you end up buying actually costs less than the trade-in value of your old device, then you get the difference placed on a Walmart gift card.

W-Mart says these are the questions it will use to evaluate the trade-in value of customers’ current tablets:
*Does it power on?
*Is the display fully functional and free of dead spots?
*Is the tablet and display completely free of cracks?
*What is the wireless carrier?

Why is Walmart doing this? First, it wants to remind consumers that it is a player in the wireless device world. Walmart needs trade-in programs like this to stand out from online retailers and other competitors. Second, any foot traffic in the store is generally seen as positive these days; maybe you’ll spend all that money you’re saving by trading-in on other stuff you didn’t know you needed or wanted. Finally, there is a lot of money to be made on used devices in the overseas market. Odds are, if Walmart is giving you $300 worth of credit for your old Nexus 7, it intends to flip it for a profit on the other side of the world.

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