IKEA goes second (hand) in Belgium! The Swedish company is preparing the launch of IKEA Preowned, an online platform dedicated to the resale of furniture between private individuals. It’s a smart – and stylish – way to make decorating rhyme with ecology (while doing your wallet a favor!).
A new lease of life for your old furniture
No more furniture gathering dust in the cellar, or laborious adverts on social networks! With IKEA Preowned, the brand wants to offer a simple, secure and well thought-out solution for buying or reselling your IKEA furniture. And it’s all done directly between private individuals, online and from home. Currently being tested in Madrid and Oslo, the service is due to arrive here soon, capitalizing on the growing love of second-hand furniture among Belgians – a market estimated to be worth 184 million euros by 2023. Spoiler: it’s no coincidence.
Belgium, already a fan of IKEA-style recycling
Indeed, this isn’t exactly a first for IKEA Belgium, a pioneer in the field since 2015. The in-store buy-back service (the famous Tweedekanshoek, or “second chance corner”) is a hit: 12,300 items of furniture were collected last year, up 72% in one year. At the top of the list of most frequently returned items? Children’s storage units, chairs without cushions and desks. With 11,600 pieces of furniture already returned by 2025, the figures speak for themselves: second life is fashionable, and IKEA has understood this.
Greener furnishing, without breaking the bank
With Preowned, IKEA is taking the circular logic one step further. The aim? To reconcile style, budget and environmental awareness. IKEA furniture is designed to last, to be dismantled, reassembled and repaired. And as the brand already offers free spare parts (88,000 distributed last year), everything is designed to avoid throwing them away. Bonus: an intuitive app, a little calculator to estimate the value of your furniture, and the chance to give it a new home without breaking your head (or your wallet).