IKEA to launch new online marketplace for Australians

IKEA is launching a new online platform for buying and selling second-hand products in Australia. This is how it will work.

Exclusive: It’s the next best thing to their meatballs – Ikea is launching an online platform allowing customers to buy and sell second-hand products.

IKEA Australia will pilot a new ‘As-is’ online marketplace where members will be able to browse second-hand Ikea products online and ‘reserve’ items they wish to purchase before heading to the store to collect.

Mellisa Hamilton, Sustainability Manager, IKEA Australia, said the company wanted their products “to be reused, repaired, reassembled and recycled by our customers”.

Ms Hamilton said the aim was to launch the online marketplace early next year, initially to shoppers who were already members, and comes after the rollout of in-store hubs where customers can swap used goods for a refund cards.

She said what would make the new marketplace a success was a change in mindset in Australian consumers.

IKEA is launching an online marketplace for second hand goods.

“I think people will look at [used] items and [consider] maybe they’re not perfect anymore, but ask are they less valuable? Are they less useful? I think the shift of people understanding, I don’t need new all the time, and there’s nothing wrong with the item …,” Ms Hamilton said.

She expected shoppers would increasingly ask what the “alternatives” to new products were – and might be surprised to find they were at a lower cost.

“And this is the thing that we’ve also received from our consumer insights is that they feel to make an individual action to support the people and the planet it tends to be more expensive and at a premium,” she said.

“But I think in terms of this action or this initiative is actually more looking at why pay full price for something new when I could get something just as functional just as beautiful. “Maybe it’s not directly out of a box, or maybe it’s barely been used, but you could get it at a cheaper price. So I think if we’re looking at that affordability piece and how we can also impact the planet this is probably a really good action that anybody can take.”

Globally, the company is a partner of the COP26 climate change conference and is launching its next Green Friday campaign to encourage people to save more than money by asking customers to bring back their preloved IKEA products

“Last year we saw 10,000 products return, which was basically all the items that we received in the previous 12 months. But we got them in 10 days of that campaign. So we definitely see that there is an interest there and an engagement because 85 per cent of those items were resold during that 10 day period as well too. So you had a lot of people that were willing to give away furniture, but a lot of people that also wanted to buy second-hand furniture as well,” Ms Hamilton said.

IKEA has already rolled out in store areas where second hand goods are sold.

The Green Friday campaign this year will run between November 25 and December 5.

Planet Ark deputy chief executive Rebecca Gilling said their strategy was to drive carbon neutral and circular economy in Australia and she hoped the IKEA scheme would be matched by other Australian businesses.

“I’m sure others will follow it’s really important to have these early adopters driving the change, and that’s exactly what they’re doing,” Ms Gilling said.

“I think that change is already happening. We’re seeing much more people using products as a service, things like you know, rental cars, all of those sorts of things where you don’t own the item anymore, you simply hire it as needed. That implies that businesses are going to maintain their, their, their capital goods for as long as possible and repair and reuse them. So this is all part of the circular economy.