Why throw it away?
Fashion and apparel items make up a large portion of what’s being re-sold around the world, with the second-hand apparel market on its own expected to get close to 80 billion U.S. dollars globally by 2025. On eBay, an undeniably popular marketplace for selling used goods, clothing stands side by side with tech as the most popular re-commerce categories. Beyond apparel and tech, however, another category of pre-owned goods in high demand serves the purpose of entertainment. Among Chinese consumers, used books, movies, music, and games are among the most purchased second-hand items.In the United States, online resale – inclusive of all categories – is expected to surpass offline resale within the decade. Up to 15 percent of U.S. consumers had used online resale websites, according to a February 2021 survey. When it comes to why consumers shop on online re-commerce platforms such as Vinted or thredUP, most European users cited saving money as their primary reason to buy more second-hand items online. Creating less waste was also the main driver for many.
Pre-loved platforms
Several platforms have been created to stimulate the market for selling second-hand goods on the internet. In Western countries, one of the most notable is eBay, which was used the most in the United States among consumers who purchased secondhand products online in 2021. Chinese consumers most frequently used Xianyu, otherwise known as Taobao, for their online second-hand purchases in the same year.As for primarily mobile platforms, the Vinted app was downloaded nearly three million times by mobile users worldwide as recently as April 2022. Depop, another popular platform for the selling and purchasing of second-hand items, registered almost half a million global downloads in the same month. With so many options for online resale and considering the current supply chain disruptions and production bottlenecks for new products worldwide, the online second-hand market can only thrive in years to come.
