50% of Italians under the age of 45 buy and sell used items, fueling an economic system that generates a turnover of 18 billion euros a year, about 1% of the national GDP. The success of the so-called "second hand economy" is linked to its convenience (71% of those who buy used do it to save money, 58% of those who sell to get rid of the superfluous), but the phenomenon should not be directly linked to the crisis, given that only 22% of those who sold their objects in 2015 did so to earn or supplement their income (it was 38% in 2014). The data emerges from the 2015 edition of the Doxa Observatory on the Second Hand Economy commissioned by Subito.it – the company that manages the main Italian online trading platform with over 8 million unique users – and presented today in Milan.
There are three pillars on which the expansion of "the renewed market economy" rests, explains Guido Argieri, customer insight director of Doxa. “First of all there is the pillar of values – he explains – The second hand economy is recognized as a value that places the person at the center of one's economy and one's consumption. The second axis is the pragmatic one of being able to save and earn something more, impacting the family budget. The third axis of development is the technology that allows you to arrive and access more products and more services very quickly".
Online is worth 38% of the entire second-hand economy market, equal to approximately 6,8 billion. But if 40% of the under 45s buy on the web, about 47% declare that they choose second-hand markets "because in this way they can see and touch the object".
Of the under 45 population, half buy or sell second-hand items as they consider this choice an intelligent and unconventional way to save money, while 40% use the web because it is a fast channel (68%) to find what you are looking for . The most purchased used goods online belong to the categories electronics (33%), sports and hobbies (31%), vehicles (28%) and home and person (26%).
Vehicles, on the other hand, hold the undisputed leadership in online turnover with 4,2 billion euros, followed by the world of furniture and household appliances (980 million). In this scenario, the weight of other sectors is also growing, such as fashion, which covers a turnover of 360 million euros, and electronics, with 340 million.
