The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has helped boost online sales of secondhand goods. Sales of used goods jumped 30 per cent on trading website eBay between March and June this year leading to an overall 10 per cent rise in the first half of 2020 compared with last year. Secondhand or vintage fashion is touted to be the fastest growing and biggest category, with sales on eBay more than 200 times the level of that in 2018 in January to July this year.
Not only clothes, sales of secondhand chairs shot up by 41 per cent, sofas 30 per cent, and TVs 17 per cent on the website during June - July compared with February and March. ebay's Emma Grant was quoted as saying, “It seems that lockdown ultimately sped up the transition to a greater sustainability-conscious society, as eBay witnessed more pre-loved listings and sales post-lockdown, compared to before.”
She said Gen Z shoppers were the ones pitching in on vintage brands, bringing it up more than 40 per cent. Fashion resale site Depop also experienced record sales in the UK, US and Australia. Oxfam said that sales at its online shop were up 111 per cent last week compared with the same week last year.
Chief operating officer at Depop, Dominic Rose said, “Over the past six months, we've all had more time at home than usual. We've really seen Gen Z in particular embrace resale as a way to use this time as creatively and productively as possible whilst earning money in the process and opening up the possibility of building a business from their bedroom on Depop.”
A source at the Charity Retail Association said, “You have got two things going on right now. Many people are very short of money and they want less expensive items, while there's a serious effort to go down a more ethical road. In the last few years people have started to buy in charity shops because they want to, now a few more are having to.”
