Ikea’s c-to-c online resale shop, Ikea second-hand marketplace, has had more than 11 million customer visits and contributed €5.2 million in incremental sales since launching a couple of years ago. With more than 55,000 new listings in FY26 and a customer satisfaction score of 4.4 out of 5, the website is proving to be a valuable addition to Ikea’s ecosystem. Already launched in Spain, Norway, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, and Luxembourg, it is set for continued expansion, with Germany, Ireland and the UK next.

In this podcast episode, Kirsten Andersson, managing director for platform and marketplaces at Ingka Group, the largest Ikea franchisee, joins Lara Piras to discuss the marketplace’s performance, the thinking behind it, how it all works and expansion plans for the future.

A vision for better living

Andersson emphasizes Ikea’s vision: “creating a better everyday life for many people” as the backdrop for why the c-to-c marketplace strategy was initiated. According to Mordor Intelligence, the global secondhand furniture sector is valued at $49.5 billion in 2026 and is forecast to grow 4.9% through 2031, as more people worldwide engage with interiors recommerce. It was therefore a natural progression for Ikea to strengthen its marketplace presence, especially as the company currently accounts for approximately 10% of Europe’s total secondhand home furnishing market. This move aims to simplify secondhand trading while supporting affordability and sustainability.

“It supports our goals to drive more affordability across the global interiors market. It ensures we can offer our beloved products at an even lower price to new customer groups while also helping customers prolong the life of the products. We have been working hard on product quality updates to make this happen,” said Andersson.

How the marketplace works

The marketplace facilitates c-to-c sales of Ikea merchandise, bringing Ikea Family members together to buy and sell pre-owned Ikea products directly with one another, with Ingka Group providing the website.

The service currently offers buyer protection for free; however, a fee of 5% of the item’s selling price is due to be introduced soon. The online marketplace is separate from Ikea’s Re-shop and Re-use service, which lets customers buy products directly from the company, including items from its buyback service, discontinued products, and former showroom displays.

The seller process on the secondhand marketplace is designed to be “frictionless.” Sellers scan their product, and the platform auto-populates specifications and provides professional photos. Once sold, sellers can opt for a cash payout or an Ikea refund card, which adds 15% to the item’s selling price.

Andersson explains that buyers will benefit from additional offerings like repair kits, local delivery options and secure delivery for bigger items, making the purchasing experience seamless and enjoyable. “We are really making sure that the transport of bulky items, which we know can be a hassle, is actually super simple as part of the whole experience.”

Community growth is key

The online marketplaces have driven 49,000 new Ikea Family sign-ups, showing how the marketplace is building customer loyalty. “This is good for us because we also know Ikea Family members shop more often, more frequently, and they also spend more. This is another big addition to the Ikea ecosystem.”

Ikea’s buyback scheme initiated secondhand community growth, where customers bring items in-store to be resold in the Re-shop and Re-use section for store credit loaded onto an Ikea refund card. (Ikea Family members get a 15% bonus on the estimated value.) Launched in 2021, the scheme sourced almost 690,000 used Ikea products in FY26. “This is a concept that works really well. Customers respond very positively, as many start their buying journey in secondhand. Bringing people back into our stores is fantastic, but nowadays, time is money; convenience is super important, so we also felt there is a digital version of that where we should enable our customers not only to buy from Ikea, but also to buy and sell from each other. Within that community of re-commercers, there’s a huge opportunity.”

Learnings from the first two years

Andersson explains that three key learnings have emerged from the first two years:

● First is trust. “Trust is super important. Especially in a peer-to-peer marketplace, trust isn’t something you own end to end, because we’re taking ourselves out of the equation between a buyer and a seller. Of course, we have a lot of customer trust, but we’re now building a new business where we can’t control everything.” To counter this, Ikea is adding trust dimensions to the marketplace by making transactions safe, transparent, and predictable. “One example that I could give here is that we require everyone who wants to buy or sell on our platform to become an Ikea Family member. That already adds a layer of accountability and a trusted connection to the brand.”

● Second is supply and demand. “As an 80-year-old retailer, we’re great at selling stuff. But we’re still learning what it takes to help other people sell to buyers. From a marketing perspective, from an engagement perspective, all of a sudden we have two sides we need to engage with, two sides we need to keep happy, and we need to keep the balance.” Not having enough supply during its first marketplace opening in Spain quickly prompted the company to ensure ample products are consistently on offer, so there’s an incentive to engage, buy, and sell.

● Third is acquiring and re-engaging customers. “The marketplace is a super powerful acquisition tool. 25% of users are entirely new to Ikea, and they also represent customer groups we haven’t been so strong with before. So a lot of young people and families with children, who suddenly see an offer that we previously didn’t have for them, is a fantastic way in.”

Expect further expansion
Andersson said that, along with expanding marketplaces in Ireland, Germany, and the U.K., Ikea plans to focus on securing its reputation as a great place to sell items, not just buy. Strategizing this will be a top priority. Partnerships are central to this. “If we really want to accelerate, partnership is the way forward. We have already started partnering on delivery, but we are also looking to collaborate with other marketplaces to see how we can fully unleash the potential of secondhand home furnishing. We truly believe that secondhand is the future that is already here. And we want to make sure we’re part of that future.”

This synopsis of the podcast was generated by AI.

Read, or search, the AI-generated transcript in full below.

Lara (00:00)
I’m Lara Piras, and I’m joined by Kirsten Andersson, managing director for platform and marketplaces at Ingka Group. So welcome, Kirsten. Would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself to begin with?

Kirsten (00:14)
Sure, absolutely. Hello everyone, and really, really nice to meet you all. My name is Kirsten. I’ve been with Ikea for the past sixteen years in different roles. I would say the red thread is driving transformation and venturing into the new parts we, as a retailer, have decided to explore. My latest role with our new business platform is definitely where we’re venturing into new parts of the business. I’m super excited to be here with you today to talk about recommerce and how we’re building a small legal entity with it, a big eighty-year-old retailer and what that takes, but also the learnings that we have gathered.

Lara (01:02)
So that leads us to our first question then. So IKEA has recently announced it will launch its C2C secondhand marketplace in the UK, as you just mentioned. So it already operates in other European countries. So what’s the thinking behind this, and how does it work? Is it the same in all countries? It would be good to get some background.

Kirsten (01:22)
Absolutely. First, I think our IKEA vision is to create a better everyday life for many people. And our customers are already quite actively buying and selling secondhand IKEA products today. In fact, in the European market, IKEA already accounts for about ten per cent of the total secondhand home furnishing market. So, of course, for us there was a time when we started reflecting

What does that mean for us, and why are we not there? And we made sure we captured that relationship with customers. So we decided to launch our own marketplace. And we have, of course, an ambition to make secondhand home furnishing trading simpler and more convenient. And of course, it also supports our goals to drive affordability, really making sure we can offer our beloved products at an even lower price to new customer groups and, at the same time, also help customers to prolong the life of the products, which we have, of course, over the last many years, secured, you know, in quality updates, really making sure that the products last longer. And it’s basically quite simple: we really have taken the kind of frictionless part of the platform as the first step and want to make sure that it’s a trusted Ikea experience where the customer, even if they’re buying and selling from and to each other, where we as a retailer are a little bit outside of the equation, that they still recognize Ikea in it. And that’s that they really recognize also the trust dimensions. So maybe I’ll explain a little bit how it works: for you as a seller, it’s incredibly easy.

You scan the product. And then, of course, the platform automatically populates the specifications, really indicating smart pricing, but also providing professional photos, which we know that sometimes is a hassle: finding the right photo, the right angle, and then even remembering the name. All of that is done automatically. And once your product sells, you can choose a cash payout.

Or you choose an Ikea refund card, where we add 15% to your sales price, and that you can then reimburse either through our online channels or in the store. So I think it’s a really interesting offer for sellers, not only for convenience but also for added value. From a buyer perspective, I think it’s also really convenient.

When you buy the product, you also get the option to add extra products, repair kits, wall anchors, and spare parts to help you get the most out of a pre-loved, pre-used product. We’re also currently testing local delivery options in some markets.

Really making sure that the transport of bulky items, which we know is a hassle, can actually be super simple as part of that experience. Then, when you asked about performance, well, we are in the first markets we started two years ago. So we’re still quite new in many of the markets. But we’re really learning as we go. And I would say with every market we get new learnings that we then try to forward into the next launch. We’re live in six markets today. So we started in Spain, Norway, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, and Luxembourg. And of course, we plan to enter some of the bigger markets over the next few months, with the U.K., Ireland, and Germany on the horizon.

Lara (05:34)
Nice, thank you. Do you have any figures you can share on the different marketplaces in the different countries?

Kirsten (05:43)
Yeah, absolutely. I can share a bit overall on where we are across the countries. So one of our key ambitions with the marketplace is to secure that we also support selling more of Ikea. We want to keep our customers in a relationship for longer. And we know customers usually sell products to buy something new.

So more than 60% of customers choose the refund card rather than cashback. And we also see that 70% of those customers come into our shops and buy new products for much more than they have sold for. So they see it basically as an upfront investment in a product they have been looking for a long time but haven’t really had the means to buy. So I think that is something that is super, super interesting to see.

Consistently over the six markets. Then talking about selling more of IKEA, so so far we have contributed 5.2 million euros in incremental Ikea sales. So the ones that have reimbursed their gift cards have then shopped for that amount. And that, of course, really shows us that making sure people have the means to invest in the broader Ikea ecosystem is a big contribution that we can bring.

The second dimension is the community growth. And you know, we have this fantastic loyalty club, IKEA Family. And here, of course, we offer it to Ikea Family members, but we have also been a huge contributor to generating new Ikea Family members. So over the past two years, we have welcomed 49,000 new Ikea Family members into our loyalty club.

And that, of course, is something that is quite good for us because we also know Ikea Family members shop more often, more frequently, and they also spend more. So this is another big addition to the IKEA ecosystem. Then, when it comes to reach, we have over eleven million customer visits. And we also know this new channel drives different frequency.

Because you want to have control over your messages. Have I sold the product? Is there something new coming in? So also I think it’s a really good entry point to drive frequency, engagement, and interaction with our customers. And then probably for all of you that are, you know, in the marketplace dimension, you know that supply is everything because an empty marketplace is not attractive to anyone.

We also had over 55,000 new listings in FY26, which shows sellers are happy to list their products. They also rated us 4.4 out of 5 for convenience and ease of listing. That also means our buyers always have something to scroll through, be inspired by, and hopefully shop.

Lara (09:04)
Perfect, thank you so much. So next question: the companies’ push into secondhand initially centered around the buy-back scheme, where used items were then resold through Ikea’s physical stores. So why the expansion to a different model, and are the different models attracting different customers?

Kirsten (09:26)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, super good question. Yeah, when we look at buyback, this is something we have been rolling out quite strictly across many markets. And in FY26, we sourced almost 690,000 used IKEA products through the buyback service. So, customers bring it back into our stores, and then we sell it through our secondhand and S is area.

to other customers at, of course, a much, much reduced price. This concept works really well. And we see that here, too, customers respond very positively, as many of them start their buying journey in secondhand. So that was also a thought for us: yes, bringing people back into our stores is fantastic. But nowadays, you know, time is money; convenience is super important.

We also felt there is a digital version of that, where we should enable our customers not only to buy from Ikea, but also to buy and sell from each other. Within that community of re-commercers, there’s a huge opportunity. And we know, I think, if we look at the total secondhand home furnishing market, it’s projected to grow at a pace unseen, up to four times faster than firsthand.

We really felt that customers are already buying from EBay and the marketplaces and other marketplaces. We need to be there, and we need to meet our customers in the best possible way. So the different model basically came out of that. We tested it two years ago in Spain, and we saw a fantastic response. And then we followed the lead of the different markets that were screaming, “When are you coming to me?” So we started rolling out and soon then live in ten markets in Europe with that focus.

Lara (11:31)
Okay, and then are you seeing any shifts in secondhand furniture consumer culture?

Kirsten (11:38)
I would say, I mean, the biggest shift and understanding for us at Ikea is, of course, that the customers are already there. But maybe historically they haven’t called it recommerce; they’ve been looking for smarter, more affordable, and more flexible ways to furnish their homes. And when I say more flexible, it’s not just fitting their style and the size of their home, but also their financial realities.

The cost-of-living crisis is real: almost ninety per cent of people globally report that they’re really affected by rising costs. This is a really good way for us who really want to stand for affordability, for flexibility, but also, you know, really putting value in the centre of everything, a way to offer customers a different way to a well-designed, functional home that they can love. So I think that’s that is really what stands out in our focus, and where we also believe it’s our responsibility to give customers an option to buy new, sell what you no longer need, repair with the right tools and repair kits, you know, or buy something secondhand, whatever fits their moment and their stage in life.

Lara (13:00)
Thank you. So how do you see the customer interplay between the IKEA marketplace and others like Facebook and eBay?

Kirsten (13:09)
Mm. It’s a really good question. I would say that, first of all, we have a lot of admiration for our peers in the peer-to-peer, you know, secondhand business because we really know that it’s not easy to establish a platform like that. I think we can, of course, only speak from our experience building a new business, a platform business within an established retailer of eighty years.

required us to learn a lot of new things, but also to unlearn a lot of things. And there, of course, we have leveraged some of the early mistakes that others have made that were, of course, much earlier in time than we were. And luckily, we haven’t repeated all of those mistakes, but have built on them from the beginning. And I would say if I talk about learnings, there are probably three main learnings for us as, you know, established retailers over 80 years old.

First, trust is super important. Especially in a peer-to-peer marketplace, trust isn’t something you own end to end, because we’re basically stepping out of the equation between a buyer and a seller. And while, of course, Ikea in general and we as a brand have a lot of trust from customers, we’re now establishing a new business where we can’t control everything.

But we are, of course, trying to add some of those more Ikea-style trust dimensions to the marketplace by making the transactions safe, transparent, but also predictable. And one example that I could give here is that we require everyone who wants to buy or sell on our platform to become an Ikea Family member. I think that already adds a layer of accountability and a trusted connection to the brand while keeping the marketplace open to everyone, simple and convenient, because that’s of course what it’s supposed to be. Then the second part is something we learned quite early on: supply and demand. As an 80-year-old retailer, we’re great at selling stuff. But we’re not great at understanding what it takes to help other people sell things to buyers.

So from a marketing perspective, from an engagement perspective, all of a sudden we have two sides we need to engage with and keep happy, and we need to keep the balance. And that, of course, is also an understanding that is quite new to us and where I believe we had to learn quite a lot. One example here: when we opened our first marketplace in Spain, we opened the doors, and then we realized there were customers coming, and we had basically no products in the marketplace. So there was a lot of disappointment at the beginning. So for the next market, we brought that learning, and we invited all our coworkers to post and list their pre-loved products. So when we opened the doors to our customers two or three weeks after that, the marketplace was full; there were products to buy, and there was also, of course, a lot more incentive to list your own products because you saw there was a lot and I can add my own as well. So I would say that was also a great learning we took as part of rolling out, and then I would say maybe as the last part, the kind of acquiring and re-engaging of customers.

We really see that the platform is a super powerful acquisition tool. Twenty-five per cent of marketplace users are entirely new to Ikea, and they also represent customer groups we previously weren’t as strong with. So a lot of young people and families with children, who suddenly see an offer for me that we previously didn’t have for them, is a fantastic way in.

And here, of course, to successfully re-engage also some of our dormant IKEA family members that once loved Ikea but then for many years maybe have not shopped, also helps us really make sure that we drive that frequent interaction with the brand. So I think that was a big realization that we weren’t so much on top of when we started, but that is now, of course, a huge driver within our company.

Lara (17:49)
Great, thank you. So finally, any plans for the future? Anything you can reveal about future plans, particularly for the c-to-c secondhand marketplace?

Kirsten (18:01)
Hmm, absolutely. No, so I think, as you already addressed earlier, we are live in six markets, and of course we continue to expand, especially in Europe now during fiscal year 2027, which basically starts today for us. We have the U.K. and Ireland on the horizon now during the autumn, as well as Germany.

Those are two super important markets for us, both size-wise and because we know recommerce is a key topic in those markets. Here, we believe that applying the learnings we have captured and entering those markets will help us unleash the full potential to capture more learnings, and then prepare for the remainder of Europe and whatever we decide to do afterwards.

From an expansion perspective, it is super important. Then I would say there are two other things that we really focus on now and in the near future. One is to really secure that Ikea is positioned and understood as a place to sell, not only to buy. So this whole, you know, I can come, and I can sell my products; I can get a good start in buying something new. That is super important for us. And I think it is also a focus for our markets now in fiscal year twenty-seven. And lastly, I think something that we also realize is that, you know, we love to do things by ourselves, but we also know that if we really want to accelerate, partnership is the way forward. And here we have really started to partner in terms of delivery. We’re also looking into partnering with other platforms to see how we can come together to fully unleash the potential of secondhand home furnishing. How can we leverage each other’s capabilities to a larger degree? Because we truly believe that secondhand is the future that is already here. And we, of course, want to make sure that we’re part of that future.

Lara (20:09)
Perfect, so you might branch out to selling non-Ikea products as well perhaps?

Kirsten (20:17)
That’s not on our horizon today. So we really want to focus on the Ikea product because we believe that’s the one that we have a responsibility for, and where we also see that in Europe already ten per cent of the European secondhand home furnishing market is Ikea. So we have big work to do to make it less fragmented, simpler, and more convenient. And then when we’re done with that, let’s see what’s next. But that is, of course, our immediate focus now: addressing simplicity and convenience in our own house.

Lara (20:53)
Yeah, got it.

And in terms of the user experience of the marketplace itself, any kind of plans to develop that?

Kirsten (21:02)
Yeah, I think from our side we do a lot of development all the time. There’s a lot of learning coming, and we have a dedicated team that really focuses on making sure the convenience and friction are removed. I would say there’s still, not only in our own marketplace but in general, a bit of a hassle from a customer perspective, and we want to make that frictionless as a starting point.

Then we can start adding the fun features, but we need to get the base in place and make sure it operates with excellence. And then we can start looking into, you know, how we interact, how we leverage our home furnishing expertise to a larger degree, how we bring in the playfulness that Ikea stands for. And then, of course, the most important: how do we really leverage the big Ikea machinery, integrating it into one app?

So, as a customer, you can buy things, and when you want to list them, it’s just a click away because we already know what products you have in your history. So I would say integration is a big topic that we do, all for the sake of simplifying, not, of course, to drive, you know, complexity and sometimes slowness that comes with that.

Lara (22:27)
Perfect. So thank you so much, Kirsten. I think we’ve got some brilliant insights and inspiration there. So thank you for your time. I really, really appreciate it.

Kirsten (22:36)
Thanks a lot, and super happy to connect on this important topic. Thanks a lot. Take care.

Lara (22:42)
Thank you.