Although the majority of the presentations during this year’s e-nnovation conference seem to be connected with either the mobile market or start-ups, there was one truly interesting presentation about ReCommerce. The lecture was conducted by Michael Sauer, CEO of German ReCommerce company FLIP4NEW.
The question that probably most of you would like to ask before starting reading the rest of the post is – what makes ReCommerce better than normal e-commerce? Why is this worth your attention? We will try to answer all of these questions below.
What is ReCommerce?
ReCommerce is simply buying and selling used goods. It enables a customer to sell the things that they do not use any longer in a very quick and efficient way. What is more – because of the high value of deterioration of certain goods, it is often very important to have these goods sold immediately. In such cases ReCommerce is the best possible solution, because you can sell them just in a few minutes. With the money you get from the sold goods you can buy some other goods, which are being sold by other customers. So simple…
Why is it gaining so much popularity in Europe?
The whole e-market connected with buying and selling used goods has always been neglected. There are of course portals, like in Poland Allegro.pl, where you can sell your goods through auctions, but this is not a dedicated solution for this type of transactions. So it seems there is quite a big “hole” in the market, which ReCommerce tries to fill.
Let’s think of the advantages that a ReCommerce retailer has when we compare him to a normal retailer/shop owner:
- selling and buying used goods is a significant sales kicker, because customers have more money at their disposal (when they sell something they receive the money virtually on their accounts and they can spend it on buying other used goods)
- customers find less “limitations” to spend money
- a retailer gets access to a completely new group of customers which is potentially very big
Doesn’t it sound luring? We think it does.
What is the future of ReCommerce?
ReCommerce is in fact a new service in which you can get new customers by means of accepting items to sell. This is at the moment not something that has a big market.
Generally, a lot of actions are being made (a simple example is that it has been presented today at the e-nnovation conference) with the intention to spread ReCommerce idea around Europe.
First of all, it is now being widely promoted by means of gift cards, vouchers and different types of promotions, to attract customers to start using this type of services.
What is more, such already widely known portals as eBay have recently extended their range of services to ReCommerce – now everybody can sell their items online. It goes without saying that ReCommerce took the opportunity during the last few years and already gained quite a big popularity (and is still gaining more and more attention).
It is also highly probable that ReCommerce will not only be connected with electronics, but also with media, fashion, toys, home, sports goods and all the other types of goods. All these goods are things that people usually want to get rid of after some time.
Without a shadow of doubt ReCommerce will become more and more popular in Europe. The specific group of customers involved in these transactions (it is hard to name them, maybe re-customers?) has been neglected for years. We all remember how rapidly the standard e-commerce market (aimed at standard customers) started growing several years ago. Now it seems that the same will happen with the ReCommerce market.
I am curious of what you think about the future of ReCommerce market in Europe? Feel free to share your opinions below.
