In December, IKEA plans to launch the IKEA Preowned online marketplace globally, allowing customers to resell their unwanted furniture and homeware to each other.

IKEA Preowned online from December 2024

Swedish furniture giant IKEA has announced that it will launch a secondhand, online marketplace for customers to resell their IKEA purchases to each other.

The website aims to rival popular online marketplaces, such as Kleinanzeigen, Gumtree or Facebook Marketplace, which host a widespread economy of secondhand reselling in Germany and Europe via the internet.

IKEA explained that the platform is currently being trialled in two cities. "After December we will evaluate and decide on the next steps. We start in Oslo and Madrid, yet our ambition is higher," said an IKEA spokesperson.

Being affordable and ubiquitous  - it is said that one in 10 babies born in Europe are conceived in IKEA beds - online marketplaces are already an abyss of KALLAX shelves HEMNES drawers. On Kleinanzeigen alone, a Germany-wide search for “IKEA” offers 466.314 results.

How will IKEA Preowned work?

Much like other online marketplaces, IKEA Preowned sellers will be able to upload a picture of their furniture and their proposed price. Then, using IKEA’s AI-enabled database, sellers will be given promotional images of the furniture and measurements.

Buyers can go directly to the seller to pick up their IKEA furniture and the seller has the choice of receiving money or an IKEA voucher as compensation, which will be worth 15 percent more than the selling price.

When the site launches, listings will be free. But speaking to the Financial Times, Jesper Brodin, chief executive of IKEA’s main operator, Ingka, explained that the company would eventually charge “a symbolic fee, a humble fee”.

Thumb image credit: kevin brine / Shutterstock.com