According to the Daily Mail, online marketplaces have seen a surge in people using their platforms for clutter clearouts with research by eBay suggesting the average family are sitting on £1,236 of clutter.
Yodel chief executive Mike Hancox has also noticed that the trend showing a surge in clutter clearouts through online marketplaces has likely been prompted by financial pressures caused by the pandemic. People are now relying on making some extra cash wherever they can and marketplaces like eBay have come to the rescue. But the pandemic isn’t the only reason people are reselling their goods on marketplaces, increasing pressure from environmental issues mean people would rather sell the things they don’t want anymore, instead of chucking them away. Among the most popular items being sold are power drills, old golf clubs, running shoes and fishing rods.
“A lot of people have had financial challenges through the pandemic, so recycling goods into cash has been a requirement for some people. Also, people have gained their commuting time, or perhaps been furloughed, and had the time to find things and polish them up. They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure and people have found it’s quite easy to sell what they found.”
– Mike Hancox, chief executive, Yodel
The rise in consumer-to-consumer shopping helped contribute to Yodel handling 190 million parcels in 2020. With people continuing to open new accounts on online marketplaces this surge in ecommerce is yet to slow down. There has also been an increase in people getting crafty during the pandemic, with Etsy seeing active accounts doubling in 2020.
