Three Out of Four Shoppers Will Buy Secondhand Gifts This Holiday
The stigma surrounding secondhand has all but disappeared, even when it comes to gifting.
A whopping 82 percent of consumers are open to receiving pre-owned presents this holiday season—an 11 percent increase from 2022—and three in four shoppers say they’ll consider buying them for friends and family.
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More than half of consumers interested in gifting via resale channels said they’d do so to find better deals (58 percent) or avoid high prices at retail (52 percent), with electronics (72 percent), sporting goods (68 percent) and home improvement products (66 percent) topping their lists, according to OfferUp’s fifth annual Re-Commerce Report. “As shoppers increasingly turn to secondhand options to manage their holiday budgets due to financial concerns, the overall strain on holiday spending extends to a broader scale,” the group said Thursday. OfferUp and market research firm Pollfish surveyed 1,500 U.S. adults about their spending habits in June.
With inflation top of mind for 94 percent of shoppers, 46 percent said they have clocked higher MSRPs on items they’ve purchased in the past during their retail trips this season, and 32 percent have encountered challenges in finding compelling bargains in stores. In fact, 43 percent of respondents said they would turn to re-commerce for holiday gifts as a means of staying within their budgets, and one-third said they plan to sell their own pre-owned products in order to afford gifts. The mandatory return of student loan payments this fall will also impact holiday spending in a big way—54 percent of survey-takers said paying down school fees would eat into their holiday funds.
“Our 2023 report found that 85 percent of shoppers regularly buy and/or sell secondhand, an increase of 3 percent from last year,” OfferUp CEO Todd Dunlap said. More than one-quarter (27 percent) engaged with resale for the first time in 2023, “helping push the re-commerce market’s projection to $276 billion by 2028.” Now “firmly embedded in the culture,” spending on pre-owned items is projected to reach $188.5 billion by the end of this year.
While Dunlap attributed much of the sector’s growth to shifting consumer attitudes around secondhand goods, the data also showed that macroeconomic concerns, like the overall cost of living and the possibility of recession, have inhibited 93 percent and 90 percent of consumers, respectively, from spending freely during the holidays. Those concerns have likely percolated throughout the whole of 2023, leading to an overall increase in re-commerce out of necessity.
Over half (58 percent) cited avoiding inflated retail prices as their No. 1 reason for turning to resale channels, and 34 percent said a desire to maintain their desired lifestyle was the top factor at play. What’s more, a significant majority (69 percent) of consumers have used profits from reselling products to pay bills and cover living expenses, and 39 percent said doing so has helped them make ends meet this year. If the economy does enter a more precipitous downturn, 47 percent said they’d increase their frequency of both buying and selling secondhand.
OfferUp’s data also showed shoppers diversifying their secondhand spend across categories. Just 23 percent—about one in four—of the items sold through re-commerce channels are apparel, while the remaining 77 percent is made up of electronics, furniture, home wares, sporting products, outdoor equipment and auto parts. Convenience has played a significant role in the growth of resale, with 40 percent of respondents saying that shopping on secondhand sales platforms is more accessible and easy than patronizing physical retail, and 70 percent saying they expect to see lower prices on re-commerce channels than at traditional brick-and-mortar stores.
