Thanks to sustainability, the second hand is no longer shabby: "It is becoming more and more fashionable"

Buying a second-hand mobile phone or sweatshirt in Spain has been considered cheap for years.

But ecological awareness, and now also inflation, are transforming the mentality of more and more people, who are buying used products without complexes.

What is used now is

especially among young people.

Applications such as Wallapop —whose shipments have grown by 200% in two years— or Vinted, which allow buying and selling between individuals and together have 23 million monthly users, almost as many as Milanuncios (22 million), a website that last year it moved 5,600 million in transactions.

Everything is susceptible to reuse, from cars to bikes and from furniture to books.

And old barriers begin to break down: old clothes become

and second hand enters large supermarkets, fashion stores and the world of luxury.

The Humana Vintage store on Calle Hortaleza, next to Madrid's Gran Vía, exemplifies this trend.

In the window, mannequins with old clothes.

Inside, exposed brick walls, metal pipes and lively music accompany the original and brightly colored clothing that looks like it's straight out of London's Portobello Road flea market.

The word

is read everywhere.

The only difference with a new clothing store is that here the clothes are not worth 50 or 100 euros, but ten times less.

There are young people and tourists;

English and French are heard.

A young woman looks at used clothes in the Humana Vintage store on Hortaleza street in Madrid.

INMA FLOWERS

"Buying second-hand is no longer considered tacky, it is becoming more and more fashionable among young people," says Marian Ortiz, 19, who is carrying several sweatshirts for five euros each.

José Luis Miñarro, 25, usually buys used hats, scarves, jackets and T-shirts: "It's cheaper, more ecological, more original and has a creative point, you get out of the fashion that everyone wears."

Mar García, 21, dresses in various second-hand clothes and emphasizes sustainability: "I hardly buy anything new anymore, there are too many manufactured things that can be used to stop producing more."

In this store there are not only twenty-somethings, although they are the majority.

Pedro Quiñones, 43, is looking for a jacket: "The second hand is removing the label of poor, and anyone can buy it."

The brand has gone from 36 stores in 2015 to 48 in 2022 —most of them in Madrid and Barcelona, ​​seven of them

and has almost doubled the number of garments sold in that period (from 3.18 million to 5.91 million).

“These stores used to have clothes piled high, like a flea market, but now they are refining the experience to give it a neat and

tone , says David Cordón, a professor of consumer behavior at the Complutense University.

Marina Márquez, president of the NGO Visión Circular, gives another idea: "In northern Europe, buying second-hand has been a trend for years, and it is finally beginning to spread to Spain as well."

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Albert Vinyals, an expert in consumer psychology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​sums it up like this: “In Spain we have been spoiled as consumers and marked by what they will say, that is why second hand was frowned upon and we wanted everything new.

But there is a change in values ​​driven by greater environmental awareness.

The pandemic has had a lot to do with this, which has made us reflect more on how we buy.

You are no longer worth less for wearing something used.

According to a survey by Milanuncios, 70% of consumers say they have bought something second-hand, mainly because of price (77%) and sustainability (39%).

Cordón, from Complutense, third: "Spanish society is turning towards reused products, especially in the 30 to 45-year-old age bracket, as more and more studies show."

In his opinion, it is largely due to

that allow buying and selling between individuals, such as Wallapop (17 million users per month in Spain) or Vinted (six million), specialized in clothing: "They are simple and intuitive platforms, they are They use it on the mobile, and it is also an automatic market, you can see thousands of products from home, choose them, haggle, and then meet with the seller or ask him to send it to you.

You save time and money and it is more ecological.

That simplicity is breaking down many barriers.”

Sol Rodríguez, with several sneakers and boots bought second-hand through Wallapop and Vinted.kike corner

discontinued sneakers

Sol Rodríguez, a 26-year-old Argentine, discovered Wallapop when she went to live in Barcelona, ​​because she needed cheap furniture.

"I started with an economic issue, but then I got hooked on the circular economy," she says.

Since then, she has bought cameras, books, computers, clothes... "And some shoes that were no longer made and I loved them," she says.

She recommends it to all of her friends.

"Why buy something new if it already exists and someone doesn't use it?"

Manel Lende, a 45-year-old from Barcelona, ​​searches the

for board games, card games and collectibles.

“I have a group of friends who meet up to play modern board games.

Some are no longer sold, so if you get them second hand they are highly valued ”, he points out.

Manel Lende next to the Pueblo board game that he bought second-hand through Wallapop.

albert garcia

Jon Kareaga, a 24-year-old environmental activist, has gone further and has sealed an alliance with the application to

a van [convert it into a caravan] only with products purchased at Wallapop.

"You can buy everything second-hand, from wood to screws and from hinges to solar panels," he explains.

"Sustainability for me is essential, and the environmental cost of used things is zero, just transportation," he continues.

The van that environmental activist Jon Kareaga is 'camperizing' with products bought at Wallapop.

This new reality has led to the creation of the Spanish Second-Hand Association (Aesema), which includes Cash Converters, Milanuncios, Wallapop, CeX and Game (these last two mainly sell mobile phones, computers and video games).

According to Blanca Piédrola, spokeswoman for the entity, Aesema intends to "dignify this type of trade" and "improve the regulations for the sector".

Piédrola also works at Cash Converters, which has 73 stores throughout Spain where all kinds of products (except clothing) are bought and sold, especially mobile phones, electronics, computers and small household appliances.

Their turnover increased by 19% in 2021 and so far this year they have grown by 12%.

The window of his store in Tetuán (Madrid) contains jewelery and computers, from violins to a PlayStation 2. Baby carriages for 89 euros, laptops for 200 and motorcycle helmets for 25. "A family client recommended by other friends comes to that a purchase has gone very well.

The prices are between 10% and 50% cheaper, you can compare them with the original price”, explains José Hernández, who attends to the clients.

One is Eduardo Bórquez, a 45-year-old Chilean: "I'm visiting, but in Chile I usually buy second-hand appliances and video games, they're much cheaper and they're almost new."

His daughter plays an electric scooter.

A young woman compares various models of mobiles (some have not left their original packaging), while Guillermo de la Obra, 68, checks the drills.

“I like to look for cheap deals.

I'm looking at a jump starter, which is hard to find, and it's only 49 euros.

But I'm going to ask a clerk if it works”.

In fact, used products have a two-year guarantee.

One of the Cash Converters stores.

Things used in the supermarket

Large supermarkets are joining this trend.

Carrefour has just sealed an alliance with Cash Converters to create Carrefour Ocasión, a place for buying and selling products, in one of its centers in Madrid.

Alcampo goes further: it has 15 spaces for second-hand clothing in as many establishments in collaboration with Moda Re, a Cáritas brand, and 40 stores for second-hand electronics managed by ReWare, from Malaga.

Both chains —in addition to food stores and restaurants— also use Too good to go, an

that allows you to buy meals or food that has not been sold at the end of the service at a third of its price.

The app has sold 10 million

since 2019, four of them last year.

Meanwhile, Decathlon has launched Segunda Vida, where customers can sell those sports products they no longer use;

the French brand buys them, reviews them and then resells them cheaper through its website or in some stores.

And it gives a three-year warranty (the same as with new products).

'Corner' of second-hand clothes in the Alcampo Alcobendas supermarket, north of Madrid.

The used bike sector is one of the fastest growing —driven by the lack of

, as shown by data from two platforms: Bike Ocasión has gone from selling 1,600 velocipedes in 2019 to around 4,000 this year (still no close), while Tuvalum has grown an average of 60% per year since 2020. But the trend reaches all sectors: Re-Read, which sells second-hand books, had 42 bookstores in Spain in 2019 and now there are 55, and it has passed from selling 1.6 million books to nearly 2 this year.

According to coches.net and motos.net, 2.3 used cars are sold for every new car, and 2.5 motorcycles (before the pandemic there were 2.1).

Several people look at second-hand books in the Re-Read bookstore on General Martínez Campos street, in Madrid.

MOEH ATITAR

Even the most exclusive brands have jumped on the bandwagon.

"Second-hand luxury is growing a lot," says José Luis Nueno, from IESE's Chair for Changes in Consumer Behavior.

luxury sales channels

, because people want to change products more often, because there is not always availability in stores, and partly also for sustainability”.

This flow is channeled through websites such as Vestiaire Collective or The RealReal, which guarantee that the clothing or accessories are authentic.

"If a Gucci jacket is worth 3,500 euros, it is sold on these websites for about 2,000, so you know that you can buy it and resell it without losing much value, and then buy another one," he adds.

StockX does the same with exclusive sneakers and the platform is already worth 2,000 million.

According to Nueno, this sector grows at 18% per year, three times more than normal trade.

For now, many luxury brands are cracking down on this market.

"However, something is changing: Gucci has made an alliance with The RealReal to put an old product and a new product on its page," says the professor.

And it will reach more brands: in November, Zara launched a platform in the United Kingdom (Zara Pre-Owned) to repair used clothing and resell purchases from any collection with the brand's guarantee.

Although they still do not have a date to bring the service to Spain, it is a testing ground that will change the world of fashion.

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