climate emergency Technological revolution. Pandemic. The raw material crisis. The collapse of shipping. Out of stock. War. Breakdown of the energy market. Inflation has not been seen for several generations. These are, very briefly, the main obstacles that almost all economic sectors have had to overcome in recent years. Some, like the auto industry, are unlucky enough to suffer the consequences of all these disruptions at once. Although it is difficult to find an activity that stands outside of the recent setbacks of world trade, it is undoubtedly an extreme situation. But it’s there.
As if the current situation was designed by the professionals of the used sector, the second-hand market is experiencing a golden age as it stands as an alternative to almost every single one of the existing conditioning factors. Environmental targets face circular economy and resource savings. Facing the raw material and transportation crisis, already manufactured and domestic products. And in the face of rising prices, the option to earn additional income by selling what is no longer used.
The tailor-made suits, in which complex reality creates them, are used by many of the industry’s leading companies to show their figures. Wallapop, or Cash Converters, recently launched campaigns advocating the benefits of business models in the face of the climate emergency. “It’s done” and “No more premieres” are advertising slogans starring the vast majority of teens and twenties.
And the great champions of the second hand are the younger generations. According to the Consumer Trends 2022 study, translated into Spanish by the Samy Alliance, so-called Generation Z people born between 1995 and 2005 think twice as much as a baby boomer in resale options for the product they purchase. Go to buy before you buy.
golden future
The report reflects the second-hand boom since the pandemic, estimating that 33 million new customers have entered this market since 2020, a time when more than 6,500 million resolds were sold worldwide, although it is an on-trend app. this saved approximately 4,000 million Euros and 52,000 million kilos of CO2. In addition, the study shows that 76% of first-time users plan to increase their spending in the coming years and expect this industry to increase its turnover fivefold by 2027.
In Spain, some big companies in the sector confirm the good days of second hand. While noting that it’s usual for Wallapop to experience “increased interest” in reused products in “times of uncertainty” like the current one, Eleonora Porta, head of public relations at Vinted, agrees it’s “likely” in the near future. The world of events has “accelerated the second-hand trend” even as climate emergencies highlight a shift in habits towards “more responsible consumption.”
Cash Converters, which has grown by opening stores in Carrefour, MediaMarkt or Auchan, draws attention to an increase in activities that determine both the price factor and environmental benefits.
buy less
And while the economic situation helps, great allies of the second hand are the youth and the ecological transition. Another Ipsos report on climate change and consumer habits concludes that more than half of Spaniards have changed the way they shop for environmental reasons. When asked about concrete actions, the fifth most repeated answer was “buy less new products”, chosen by almost a third.
The fashion industry is well aware of this slowdown in the consumption rate, which has recently been the most open to second hand. “This is a response to what’s known as fast fashion, which is super polluting and thrown away because of poor quality and outdated designs,” explains David Carcassonne, representative of several Italian companies in Spain. Professional says these types of second-hand stores are thriving “like mushrooms,” adding that “brands that continue to make new products are trying to implement forms of production that are less aggressive towards the planet.”
The forecast for the textile industry is that second-hand clothing will double fast fashion by 2030. Considering this in many situations, Carcassonne explains, “It’s not a question of savings, because that’s often not the case.” Customers are looking for a second hand type of clothing that you can no longer obtain today due to material, quality and design. And it’s paid for.”
This massive evolution of the case has opened up giants who theoretically have nothing to do with second-hand to this application. This is the case of Ikea, which has been running a furniture buyback service since 2016 to “help the environment and allow many people to buy affordably” to “extend the useful life” of its products, says Swedish Director of Sustainability, Mónica Chao. company. According to Chao, thanks to these and other initiatives, Ikea has succeeded in giving a second life to more than 11.5 million pieces of furniture.
PlayStation: Who gives more?
But not everything can be associated with looking after the planet. There are sectors where trading is increasing rapidly for reasons unrelated to ecology. That’s what happens with cars and PlayStation. A priori, a car and a game console have very little in common. However, both harbor a large number of microchips in their guts, and the scarcity of these components creates serious bottlenecks in the production of these products, crashing the first-hand market and triggering the second-hand market.
The PlayStation example is the most extreme. Sony released the latest version of this console over two years ago, but the onset of the semiconductor crisis has made shipments erratic and very limited. There were two prices, depending on the benefits: 399 and 499 euros. But due to this scarcity, it is resold on second-hand platforms for prices starting at 600 Euros, giving some users the opportunity to speculate. The demand is such that some groups have been created on Telegram, an instant messaging app, that already have more than 60,000 followers that alert when a store’s stock is replenished.
Ecology has nothing to do with the increase in used car sales. In 2021, only 850,000 new cars were registered in Spain, 32% less than in 2020, while around two million used cars were sold, or 9% more. Here, electrification skepticism is compounded by the paucity of new cars, but the biggest gain has been the second-hand market, where prices have soared due to high demand.