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Comment by glaberficken | Hacker News Reader

I think most of the comments so far are focusing on the lack of durability of some items in the catalog, but are failing to see that overall there is in fact a lot of 2nd hand buying and selling going on with items generally in good condition.

Over the last 15years I have bought (and sold on) a lot of 2nd hand IKEA furniture. (In fact looking at my house now, I can only see 2 or 3 items that were bought new and the rest are 2nd hand and in excellent condition. There is a very very active market.

My daughter's toddler size bed was bought 2nd hand and moved on to the next parent still in remarkably good condition after she wouldn't fit in the bed anymore.

I think this is more of a classic "kill the 2nd hand marked" move.

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In Sweden it is free to sell IKEA items on Blocket, the Swedish equivalent to Craigslist. The fee for the listing of IKEA items is paid for by IKEA. I believe that IKEA are well aware that they have to cater for a 2nd hand market and find solutions to the "last mile" problem in order to be taken seriously when talking about sustainability. They are on it. If they succeed is another matter.

That is an interesting move. High resale value usually also translates to higher first sale value. Compare with cars, for example. For something like furniture, the expectation is that they should last quite long. If IKEA can promote that they indeed do, it provides an edge when people are looking to buy new.

I honestly don't buy the "we want more sustainability" BS. They clearly want to increase rotation of furniture, so that the first hand market -- where Ikea makes real money -- increases.

An honest ad would be scripted as follows: "Tired of your yellow lamp? Buy a shiny new blue one and get rid of the yellow one without feeling guilty."

In North America, IKEA is considered your "starter" furniture and then you graduate to better stuff once you've "settled in" with career, family etc.

So usually you are replacing IKEA with something that is not IKEA.

People who can't afford to upgrade from IKEA also don't waste money changing lamp colours.

I honestly don't buy the "we want more sustainability" BS.

Ikea are an interesting company with a strong reputation to look after. I suspect you are being slightly too cynical.

IKEA has been investing in sustainability for longer than most companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA#Environmental_performance

I guess it's easier to do good without shareholders.

I know people who work at IKEA and while I can't speak for the whole company there are a lot of people where who really care, and in structure it's a Swedish family-owned company that doesn't have to follow the whims of shareholders, and they don't pay competitively enough to attract the really ruthless career-climbing MBA-types.

I agree with this - when I purchase furniture, I often think about how I will offload it - whether I expect to lose 20%, 50%, or 100% of its value in 1-2 years. It's just not possible to buy and use up everything when you move apartments every year or two.

Having sold off various types of old furniture on various Craigslist equivalents, it's kind of amazing how much faster anything with "IKEA UMLÅUT" in the title sells than anything else. Like McD's, they're known quantities, the buyer knows exactly what they're getting and what it's worth.

I think the design/look of the furniture is a contributor as well. Most of the stuff on CL in the same price range is, in my opinion, not as tasteful.

I'm more pessimistic about Ikea quality -- virtually everything I've bought from them is in a state where I wouldn't buy it second-hand. On the kid desk I bought from them, the chairs broke. Same thing happened to my friends who bought the same set.

I'm more optimistic about motivations. Most people don't have time to sell (or even give away) something they bought for $200 now worth $30 on the second-hand market. If I could dispose of this stuff safely, freely, and easily, I definitely would.

Heck, if Ikea keeps this up, I bet there will be a third-hand market where people haul this junk away to Ikea, and resell vouchers/new furniture. That'd be awesome. If I could dump this stuff on the curb, and know it won't end up in a landfill, I'd totally do it.

> I bet there will be a third-hand market where people haul this junk away to Ikea, and resell vouchers/new furniture

That already seems to be a thing - at least at the Seattle IKEA. Whenever I return something I spot at least one "pro" who has 3 or 4 of the same mismatched piece to return. It obviously works for them to salvage items off craigslist and yard sales and return them for store credit.

>Most people don't have time to sell (or even give away)

I've gone through this with a few things recently but I don't live in a city. I do, however, live on a fairly busy country road and I've had pretty good luck leaving things at the end of my driveway with a big FREE sign on them :-)

Dollar for dollar I find Ikea products to be a better value than anything else I can find. Sure, some stuff is cheap, but if I dropped the same amount at Target then I would truly have a cheap crappy thing compared to the Ikea product. And a good deal of stuff from Ikea is made very well from hardwood, and I would be hard pressed to find something of similar quality without doubling the price point. I actually buy most of it used. The Ikea market is hot in CA at least; if I see something I like in the catalog chances are someone is selling the very same thing locally in excellent shape.

I have a ton of Ikea stuff at home. It's a great value for the price.

"Great value for the price" isn't the same as "sturdy," though. I don't have anything from Ikea which I would describe as "made very well," and I'm under no illusions that it will outlast me, like my proper furniture.

Depends on the country/culture. In Singapore second hand is a dirty word.

This is a really interesting contrast. For example here in the Netherlands, it's very common to leave leftover good furniture on the street in front of your house before you move away. Usually it's all gone in a few hours, giving things a new life in the hand of whoever needs it.

I wonder if it's related to signalling in some way. I'm not a Dutchie myself, but they're infamous for looking down on showing off with money.

This is very common in the United States as well, I have gotten some great pieces this way. Best find ever for me was a Breuer chair ages ago

Yet Carousell (the local Craigslist) is still massively popular.

Most of it is new products. Every year during Chinese New Year a significant portion of our neighbours would throw away good but old unwanted furniture and no one would look twice at it. All the valuable stuff was already taken away by specialist "karung guni" (rag and bone men) for spares and stripping for scrap.

I did get some good second hand stuff on carousel. Scooter, baby chair, laptop. All super cheap though. My 3.5 year old mbp 13 cost me less than USD$800. Brand new battery and top case too. You'd never get that in Berlin where I am now but you will find an unending wealth of good secondhand products for sale. Stuff left on the footpath is gone almost immediately too.

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