A few months ago I was reorganising a cupboard at home and found things I hadn't touched in years.

An old phone that still worked. A laptop two generations behind. Watches I hadn't worn since I bought them. A pair of headphones, still in the box.

I opened Cashify, took the test, answered the questions about the screen and battery.

The quote came back. ₹18,500.

My first thought wasn't "that seems low." It was "they're trying to scam me."

I closed the app and went to OLX, because obviously I knew better than the resale market…

The same model was listed for ₹32,000 to ₹38,000.
I felt fully vindicated.

Then I tried selling it on OLX myself. Three buyers came. First quoted ₹22,000. Second ₹20,000. Third didn't show up.

The phone went back in the drawer.

Cashify's Great Indian Upgrade 2025 whitepaper surveyed 10,000 Indians. The headline finding: 70% of us hoard 2 to 3 unused phones at home. Cashify's CEO called it the "Drawer Economy."

What the report didn't explain is why.

Why are 70% of us sitting on phones that lose value every day, refusing to sell them at prices buyers are willing to pay?

The answer came from a coffee mug.

The owners valued the mug at roughly twice what non-owners did. The Cornell students had owned the mug for minutes. It still doubled in price the moment it became theirs.

Thaler called this the endowment effect. Kahneman connected it to loss aversion.

Once something becomes yours, giving it up starts feeling like a loss.
So when you sell, your brain inflates the price to compensate for the pain of letting go.

The iPhone is the Cornell mug.

The reason Cashify's ₹18,500 quote felt like an insult isn't because it was unfair. The phone is genuinely worth around ₹20,000 to anyone who isn't you.

To me, it was still carrying the memory of ₹70,000.
To the market, it was just a four-year-old phone.

Multiply this mindset by 70% of Indian households… that's the Drawer Economy.

The endowment effect shows up everywhere. But there's a reason it sits especially heavily in Indian homes.

You grew up watching your grandmother save plastic bags.

Your father has receipts from 1994 in a folder.

The old car in your parents' driveway that has not moved in six years but won't be sold because "it still works"

Things matter differently in a country where things were once hard to get. OLX named this Brown Money back in 2014, and the number kept growing every year they ran the survey.

Cars24’s revenue from operations rose 25% to ₹6,917 crore in FY24, up from ₹5,530 crore the year before. Spinny did ₹4,657 crore in FY25. With CarDekho, they're preparing to collectively raise over $1 billion in IPOs over the next 18 months.

Cars24 sits right between dad and the buyer.

Dad sells the car to Cars24 at the price the algorithm offers, with no buyer in the room, no haggling, and no face across the table to argue with. Cars24 then sells the same car to someone else weeks later, at a higher number, to a person dad will never meet.

The spread Cars24 takes isn't really paid for the car. It's paid for the elimination of the moment when seller and buyer would have to sit across from each other and agree on a number. The same conversation that, in a direct sale, almost never ends in a deal.

In February 2026, Cars24 launched the world's first lifetime warranty on used cars. Up to 12 years from the date of registration, or 1.5 lakh kilometres, whichever comes first. Coverage includes engine, transmission and drivetrain.

Standard used car warranties in India run 6 to 12 months. Cars24 is now offering up to 12 times longer.

It's also longer than what you'd get buying a brand new car. Maruti gives 2 years standard. Hyundai goes to 3, extendable to 5. Cars24's warranty on a used car can run more than twice that.

This isn't about cars. It's about the next thing platforms need to solve.

The endowment effect explains why sellers won't let go. But there's a separate friction on the buyer side. Even after you've decided the price is fair, the lingering fear remains: what if it breaks tomorrow? What if I bought someone else's problem?

The warranty is the answer to that fear.

Cars24 used to sell distance from negotiation. Now they're selling distance from risk. They're effectively saying: this used car isn't just psychologically safe to buy, it's safer than a new one from a dealer.

Cars24 handles around 200,000 cars a year. Cashify runs 200 stores across 100 cities. The IPO is around the corner. The warranty isn't a feature. It's the new pitch.

I went back to Cashify last week.

Took the test again. Got ₹16,800 this time.

I sold it.

₹70,000 spent in 2022. ₹16,800 recovered in 2026. Annualised, that phone cost me roughly ₹1,100 a month for four years.

If I'd sold it 14 months ago when I stopped using it, I would have recovered around ₹28,000.

The drawer cost me ₹11,200.

That's the actual price of the endowment effect, paid in depreciation while I held out for a number that was never coming.

The drawer is bigger than what's in it though.

The same asymmetry shows up wherever we hold onto something past its value. 

The job that's been the wrong fit for two years.
The friendship that's been one-sided for longer than you want to admit.
The belief about yourself that doesn't match who you've become.

Each of them has a Cashify quote. The thing the world is willing to give you for what you've been carrying. And in every case, the quote feels like an insult, because you're not thinking about what it's worth. You're thinking about what it cost YOU.

Hit reply and tell me: what's something you've been refusing to sell at the price the world is willing to pay?

Until next week,
Ritesh

P.S. There are still two old phones in my drawer. I haven't checked their Cashify prices yet. Kahneman would not be impressed.