We've all been there — you move into a new home, and don't have the right piece of furniture for right now, but you haven't found, or saved the money, for what you really want. The temptation is to buy 'filler' furniture that will do for now — inexpensive pieces that will do for now, but that you can upgrade later. And one of the best places to find those? IKEA.
The worry is that you’ll spend more in the long run by purchasing a series of 'inexpensive' stop gaps, and you'll need to carefully consider what happens to something you buy after you're done with it, to avoid it just simply being thrown away.
Now, IKEA has come up with a new idea that will help address both — an online marketplace for second-hand IKEA furniture that customers of the store can use to sell their unwanted (but in good condition) pieces to each other.
The great thing about IKEA that you need to know, apart from its reasonably-priced starter furniture, is that it's not looking to make a quick buck at the expense of the environment. You don't have to look very far to find evidence of the Swedish home brand's dedication to green values in sourcing materials and manufacturing, but they're also pretty well known for innovative schemes to put the power back in their customers' hands to be more mindful with their purchases.
That might be in "Buy Back" scheme, where the brand would offer you money off a new purchase if you return an old item to the store, or the fact it provides replacement parts, so you don't have to throw away a damaged item.
This new concept takes the idea one step further. With ideas like the "Buy Back" scheme, it wasn't really offering a way for customers to put money back in their pockets from their purchases, as it had to be used against another product — however, the new Preowned marketplace acts as an alternative to sites like eBay or Facebook Marketplace where you could expect to see someone selling second hand IKEA furniture. Customers can now sell to each other through the platform.
Using IKEA's Preowned Site
Before you rush to go sign up to sell that HAVSTA that you no longer need, the bad news (for now at least) is that the scheme is only being trialed in Oslo, Norway and Madrid, Spain at present. However, we popped in a Madrid postcode into the Preowned site to take a look at what we could expect if Preowned was to roll out over in the US.
The site is populated by IKEA's own product photography to emulate the experience of shopping on the normal IKEA site, but once you click on a product, you'll see photos of the item supplied by the seller. It's not just furniture, either, the categories span across the site — as long as it's from IKEA, it should be available to re-sell.
The prices are set by the individual seller, but IKEA's platform will suggest a retail value for you, too. The site states that, on average, IKEA furniture on Preowned sells for around half the original retail value.
You'll also see a map with an approximate radius of where the seller is located in your chosen city, but you don't have to do a house collection. 'And as long as the pick-up location is within Madrid, you can select a public place or your local IKEA store to meet instead,' the IKEA Preowned website explains.
What's different to listing on eBay or Marketplace?
One of the great pros of listing on Preowned is that it's quick. IKEA has all the information about its products pre-loaded, meaning all you need to do is add a couple of photos and answer a couple of questions. Compare that to a site like eBay, which can often leave you tied up in filling out categories and descriptions endlessly, and it becomes an attractive prospect.
If you like the security of payment of a site like eBay that you don't get buying through Marketplace, Preowned might appeal, too. If you're buying, you pay online on the IKEA site, and if you're selling, you get paid through a bank transfer, with no additional fees (another plus on selling the same thing on eBay, whose fees are ever-growing). If you fancy something else from IKEA, they'll even bolster your fee by 15% if you take an IKEA voucher over cash.
When is it coming to the US?
We don't have any information about if and when the concept would be rolled out in the US at present — it may be that the idea is being trialed in Madrid and Oslo to see if it's taken up before wider rollouts across the globe, but IKEA describes the site as part of a 'broader range of efforts by IKEA to reduce resource use and transition to a circular business.'
It's hard to know how successful pick-up on the site will be, but as a seller, you know at least you're getting a captive audience of buyers specifically looking for IKEA furniture, and a quick, easy and secure way to sell.
