Editor
Ikea is trialling its personal second-hand on-line market in order that clients can promote to one another, quite than counting on buy-and-sell web sites like eBay or Gumtree.
Ikea Preowned is already up and working in Madrid and Oslo, with the Swedish furnishings large planning to roll out the location globally by December.
It comes towards the backdrop of a steadily rising marketplace for second-hand furnishings, garments and gear.
The incentive would match Ikea’s sustainability goals by reusing objects so they do not find yourself in landfill. It would additionally assist the agency make extra revenue from the resale of its personal items.
“After December we’ll consider and determine on the subsequent steps. We begin in Oslo and Madrid, but our ambition is increased”, a spokesperson stated.
Sales of used Ikea furnishings are highly regarded on on-line marketplaces together with Craigslist.
Upwards of 25,000 outcomes seem when looking “Ikea” on eBay, a web based public sale website that specialises in resale but additionally sells new objects.
On Gumtree within the UK, over 10,000 outcomes are proven when looking for the retailer, whereas Shpock and Facebook Marketplace, each specialising in native resales, additionally returns dozens of pages of outcomes.
In the previous, environmentalists have referred to as out furnishings makers for the massive quantity of plastic that builds up within the atmosphere, harming marine wildlife. The drawback is exacerbated by the onslaught of low-cost furnishings gross sales which encourage folks to easily throw out furnishings they do not need, as it’s so low-cost to purchase new objects.
Green campaigners have careworn the significance of a round economic system, the place the intention is to reuse issues greater than as soon as. If an organization is answerable for the resale of its personal merchandise, then there could possibly be an in-built incentive to make objects extra sturdy, much less disposable, and subsequently extra sustainable.
Evolving its personal on-line market would additionally enable Ikea to focus much less on its brick-and-mortar shops – that are costly with excessive working prices – and extra in the direction of the rising sector of on-line gross sales and assembling providers.
Listings on Ikea Preowned are put up by the vendor, and Ikea’s algorithms generate the small print of the merchandise together with measurements and the unique retail worth.
The agency already affords, in a few of its shops, a service the place it sells pre-owned objects.
