Second-hand is becoming a natural part of life at home

Germany was the ninth market to welcome the IKEA second-hand marketplace. It is an exciting step, but also a good moment to pause and reflect on progress since IKEA began testing the second-hand marketplace in Madrid and Oslo in 2024.

My view is simple: the future of home furnishing is not either new or second-hand. People move between both, depending on what they need, what they can afford, and what is convenient and makes sense for their home. 

People are already doing it 

Most people do not talk about “recommerce”. They think about everyday life. 

They move to a student apartment, move in with a partner, rent a home with a limited budget, welcome children or find themselves with more space or less. Sometimes they need a new product. Sometimes pre-owned is the better fit. And sometimes they have furniture they no longer need.

Alongside life changes we know affordability is important for the many people. The 2025 People and Planet Consumer Insights and Trends study found that 64%* of people actively look for the lowest-priced product most or all of the time. On average, pre-owned IKEA products listed on the platform can cost 60% less than their new IKEA equivalents.

Then for sellers, what they earn can help pay for their next purchase and what they really need. We give sellers the choice: either a bank transfer or an IKEA digital refund card with 15% extra value, which can be used across IKEA. 

Customers were buying and selling IKEA products long before we launched our marketplace. IKEA products account for 9% of Europe’s second-hand home furnishings market**. Our role is not to create this behaviour. It is to add new options for our customers to make buying and selling pre-owned IKEA products simpler and more affordable and rewarding. 

The value goes beyond one sale 

For IKEA, the opportunity is bigger than an individual transaction. 

The marketplace gives us another way to form customer relationships and remain relevant as people’s needs at home change. It can introduce people to IKEA and reconnect us with customers who have not shopped with us recently. 

The early signs are encouraging. Between June 2024 and 31 August 2026, the marketplace attracted more than 300,000 people and generated 95,700 listings. Of those people, 25.5% were new or reactivated IKEA Family members. 

We are also seeing how second-hand products connect to changing life moments and evolving needs at home. People sell to buy something new. We’ve seen 64% of sellers choose an IKEA refund card rather than a bank transfer.  

These numbers remain small compared with our core business. But they tell us that the opportunity is about more than the resale transaction. It is about building a useful, long-term relationship.

A new role for IKEA 

Building a marketplace is hard. We bring more than 80 years of home furnishing experience, but we are still newcomers to running a marketplace.

A marketplace is a new way of working for IKEA. Buyers and sellers deal directly with one another, so we cannot manage every part of the journey. 

What we bring is our rich knowledge of IKEA products and life at home. We can offer useful information, simple tools and support, while learning when to lead and when to step back. 

Furniture can also be large and difficult to move. That is why we are exploring delivery and mobility partnerships. 

By the end of 2026, we will begin testing in Portugal and Spain how the marketplace can connect with Buyback. When someone lists an eligible product, they will receive an offer directly from their closest IKEA store. 

If I had to sum up what we have learnt so far, it would be this: 

• The behaviour is already here. 

• The value is bigger than one transaction. 

• Experience helps, but we are still learning. 

We will keep listening, testing, and learning. But one thing is already clear: second-hand is becoming a natural part of life at home. Our opportunity is to make IKEA the easiest place to buy and sell second-hand, while being more affordable and useful for the many people.

* Ingka Group, in collaboration with Globescan. People and Planet Consumer Insights and Trends 2025.

** Source: Statista 2024

About Ingka Group
 With IKEA retail operations in 32 markets, Ingka Group is the largest IKEA retailer and represents 87% of IKEA retail sales. It is a strategic partner to develop and innovate the IKEA business and help define common IKEA strategies. Ingka Group owns and operates IKEA sales channels under franchise agreements with Inter IKEA Systems B.V. It has three business areas: IKEA Retail, Ingka Investments and Ingka Centres. Read more on Ingka.com.