There’s a growing interest in the practice known as recommerce. Essentially, this is where pre-owned products are resold — the goods are often quality-controlled or reconditioned, and the sale is frequently made possible or directly facilitated by the same company that manufactured and distributed the product in the first place.
You’ll hear many commentators talking about recommerce like it’s a 21st century innovation, but in reality, it’s nothing new. There have always been bric-a-brac markets, vintage and second-hand shops, and businesses built on reselling refurbished ‘new-to-you’ goods like televisions and vacuum cleaners. Launched in 1995, eBay brought recommerce into the digital era and this dotcom era survivor has done much to increase the acceptance and convenience of shopping for second-hand goods.
But just like an online version of a garage sale, eBay remains primarily a consumer-to-consumer e-commerce marketplace. What’s changing today, what truly is new, is that large brands are actively embracing the recommerce trend and getting involved in the quality (re)assurance and resale process, adding a level of trust and credibility that doesn’t necessarily exist when buying used goods through a third party.
Increasingly sophisticated e-commerce tech and logistics capabilities have enabled companies to make ‘reverse commerce’, as it’s sometimes termed, a part of their day-to-day operations, reselling or in some cases, renting out items that were formerly a one-time deal. Meanwhile, customer demand has made recommerce a profitable and virtuous business to be in.
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