Online second-hand marketplaces (for clothes, furniture, electronics, etc.) have exploded in popularity. They enable people to `buy and sell used items easily`, often through big platforms or local apps. This reuse of goods helps stretch product lifespans and close the loop on waste. In fact, experts note that over half of global greenhouse-gas emissions are “embodied in the things we consume”biologicaldiversity.org, so keeping items in use instead of constantly making new ones can dramatically cut emissions. By letting products “stay in use instead of being wasted,” second-hand trading supports a circular economyolxgroup.com. In short, shopping secondhand keeps more goods circulating in the economy rather than heading to landfills, which reduces pollution and conserves resourcesbiologicaldiversity.orgolxgroup.com.
Economic Empowerment and Savings
Second-hand platforms benefit people financially on both sides of a transaction. Buyers save money: gently used items often sell for a fraction of new prices. For example, ThredUp notes that its shoppers can get brand-name apparel “at up to 90% off” the original retail pricenewsroom.thredup.com. Sellers earn income: individuals make extra cash by selling things they no longer need. eBay reports that 67% of its peer-to-peer sellers use recommerce to “earn extra income”ebayinc.com. Many sellers started as hobbies or side gigs; in fact 13% of surveyed eBay sellers began selling used goods due to lost household incomeebayinc.com. With hundreds of millions of users, these platforms create real economic opportunity. (For instance, Facebook Marketplace now has about 250 million individual sellers worldwidecapitaloneshopping.com.) And because second-hand sites are so easy to use, they let anyone – from college students to retirees – turn clutter into cash while promoting thrifty, conscious consumption.
Big discounts: Shoppers regularly pay far less on secondhand platforms. ThredUp highlights that its marketplace offers “value… at up to 90% off” retail prices for quality clothingnewsroom.thredup.com.
Earn extra income: Individuals monetize unused belongings. eBay’s 2022 recommerce survey found 67% of U.S. sellers saying it’s a way to make extra incomeebayinc.com. (Even global trends show people cleaning out closets – ThredUp CEO Neil Saunders notes that resale value is becoming “an increasingly important factor” in buying decisionsnewsroom.thredup.com.)
Community and entrepreneurship: Second-hand selling fosters micro-businesses. For example, 30% of eBay sellers saw increased sales over six months, and younger generations especially use resale to pursue hobbies and savingsebayinc.comnewsroom.thredup.com. This creates new jobs and skills, as local craftspeople and online resellers connect with buyers around shared interests.
Environmental Sustainability and Circular Economy
Reusing items has clear environmental payoffs. By trading second-hand, consumers avoid both waste and new production impacts. Every item kept in use means one less new item produced and disposed. For example, a Goodwill study showed the nonprofit recovered 3 billion pounds of used goods (including 15 million pounds of electronics) in one year, diverting all that material from landfillsbiologicaldiversity.org. That is exactly the kind of shift toward a circular economy experts praise – keeping “millions of used products out of landfills and extend[ing] their lifespans”biologicaldiversity.org.
Second-hand shopping cuts carbon emissions because manufacturing new products is energy-intensive. Analyses confirm huge savings: one report calculated that in 2019 second-hand sales on 12 major marketplaces saved 25.3 million tonnes of CO₂ (equivalent to the annual emissions of about 2.8 million Europeans)globenewswire.com. eBay’s own data show similar benefits: its 2022 recommerce resulted in 1.6 million tonnes of CO₂ avoided and 73,000 tonnes of waste kept out of landfillsebayinc.com. In other words, each purchase on these platforms directly prevents greenhouse gases and trash.
Second-hand exchange also saves water and materials. Producing new clothing or electronics often guzzles resources. For instance, making a single new cotton shirt can use ~2,700 liters of watersustainableliving.org.nz. By contrast, buying that shirt used saves most of that water and energy. One estimate is that buying a single used item instead of new saves about 2,000 gallons of water on averagesustainableliving.org.nz. OLX Group’s analysis of smartphones found selling just one used phone saves around 36 kg of CO₂, along with 112 g of materials and 2 m³ of waterolxgroup.com. Selling a used car on OLX saves an even larger 776 kg of CO₂ eacholxgroup.com. These figures highlight how every reused item trims resource consumption and pollution.
Less waste: Resale keeps items out of landfills. Goodwill’s 3-billion-pound example shows the scale – preventing needless disposal and enabling recycling of fabrics and metalsbiologicaldiversity.org. (If goods aren’t sold, up to 91% of their materials never re-enter the economyolxgroup.com.)
Lower carbon footprint: By avoiding new production, second-hand purchases often cut emissions by 70–80% per item. One source notes used clothing can have an 82% lower carbon footprint than new clothessustainableliving.org.nz. Nationwide, simply having each American buy just one used item (vs. new) could “save enough energy to power 1.3 million homes” for a yearsustainableliving.org.nz.
Resource savings: Keeping things in circulation means less mining and manufacturing. For example, OLX reports that the 26 million items sold on its sites in 2022 collectively saved 5.2 million tonnes of CO₂, 645 million m³ of water, and 122 million GJ of energyolxgroup.com (equivalent to years of home electricity use and drinking water for hundreds of thousands). These avoided impacts come from not extracting raw materials and not burning fuel to make new products.
Overall, every transaction on a second-hand platform promotes conscious consumerism. Buyers and sellers alike become more aware of the lifecycle of goods. As one commentator observes, secondhand selling “changes the way we consume”biologicaldiversity.org – encouraging decisions that save money and protect ecosystems. By reducing demand for brand-new products, these marketplaces help shrink industries’ carbon footprints and resource use.
Key Statistics & Market Trends
Several recent reports quantify the impact of this trend and its growth:
Massive savings: Adevinta’s “Second Hand Effect” study (covering Craigslist, OLX, etc.) found that users saved about 25 million tonnes of CO₂ and 1.5 million tonnes of plastic in 2019 by trading used goodsglobenewswire.com. In 2020 (amid COVID) the savings were ~20.7 million tonnes of CO₂globenewswire.com. These figures illustrate the broad climate benefits when millions of consumers choose used over new.
eBay’s impact: In 2022, eBay reported that recommerce generated $4.6 billion in positive economic value and avoided 1.6 million tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphereebayinc.com. Nearly 75% of items sold by surveyed eBay sellers were pre-owned, emphasizing how integral resales are on that platform.
Rapid market growth: The resale economy is booming. ThredUp’s 2025 Resale Report projects the global secondhand apparel market will hit $367 billion by 2029 (a 10% annual growth)newsroom.thredup.com. In the U.S. alone, second-hand clothing sales grew 14% in 2024, outpacing new retail by 5×. Consumers plan to devote roughly a third of their clothing budgets to used items in the next yearnewsroom.thredup.com (with younger shoppers expecting to spend nearly half on secondhand). This signals a lasting shift in consumer behavior.
Platform scale: Facebook Marketplace now sees over 1 billion visitors each monthscoop.market.us, and roughly 40% of Facebook’s 3.07 billion users shop therecapitaloneshopping.com. About 250 million people globally use Facebook Marketplace to sell goodscapitaloneshopping.com. These numbers underscore how mainstream the second-hand movement is – even mainstream social platforms are a major part of it.
Taken together, these statistics show that second-hand trade is not a small niche but a major part of the economy. It’s a powerful driver of waste reduction and economic value creation at once.
Prominent Second-Hand Platforms
Many online platforms exemplify the above trends:
ThredUp: A leading clothing resale site. ThredUp makes it easy for sellers to “clean out their closets and unlock value for themselves”newsroom.thredup.com (even letting sellers donate proceeds to charity) while promoting a more sustainable fashion cycle. The company reports handling over 172 million secondhand garments and encourages consumers to “think secondhand first”newsroom.thredup.com.
eBay: One of the oldest and largest marketplaces. eBay’s global Recommerce Report highlights that 90% of surveyed buyers purchased pre-owned goods in the past yearebayinc.com. The platform’s size and reach mean its reuse impact is huge: in 2022 it kept 73,000 tons of waste out of landfills and saved 1.6 million tons of CO₂ebayinc.com.
Facebook Marketplace: A massive local classifieds feature embedded in Facebook. It boasts over a billion monthly users worldwide, making it one of the largest secondhand venuesscoop.market.us. Billions of local transactions happen there, allowing everyday people to resell furniture, clothing, cars and more within their communities. Its scale – with 250 million global sellerscapitaloneshopping.com – means it likely avoids millions of tonnes of emissions each year by facilitating peer-to-peer reuse.
OLX Group: Owner of many classified sites (like OLX, letgo, etc.) in 30+ countries. OLX publishes annual Impact Reports. The 2022 report shows that the 26 million items sold on its platforms prevented 5.2 million tonnes of CO₂ and saved 645 million cubic meters of waterolxgroup.com. For perspective, selling one used smartphone on OLX saves about 36 kg of CO₂olxgroup.com, and one used car sale saves ~776 kgolxgroup.com. These analyses quantify just how much environmental burden is avoided by simple local trades on OLX and similar sites.
Other platforms (like Poshmark, Vinted, Depop, Craigslist, OfferUp, etc.) follow the same model of reuse. Each success story reinforces that every used item sold means one less item made from scratch. Together, these platforms empower individuals (through savings and income) and deliver huge environmental wins (through waste reduction and emission cuts).