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Singaporeans most pragmatic when it comes to shopping sustainably, Carousell Group’s Recommerce Index reveals

Teddy Cambosa - November 30, 2022

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Singapore – In celebration of its 10th anniversary, leading multi-category platform for secondhand in Greater Southeast Asia Carousell Group released the Carousell Recommerce Index (10th Anniversary Edition) revealing the sustainability impact its collective community has made by buying and selling secondhand items. 

Over the past decade, the Group’s users have extended the life cycle of millions of items, including: 76.8 million fashion items; 33.9 million electronics; 26.6 million hobby items and toys; 11.1 million home items and furniture; and 10.6 million babies & kids items. 

To further illustrate the impact, if we take the total number of used fashion listings on Carousell, we can provide every single person in Singapore with 13 outfits. Additionally, assuming all used electronics listed are iPhone Xs, the height when stacked together is the equivalent of over 23,500 times the height of Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

The Recommerce Index also showed a study conducted by IAB and Carousell Media Group that Singaporeans topped the chart with 44% choosing “saving money” as their key motivations for buying secondhand.

The report also highlighted key trends in each market, specifically for Singapore:

  • Top 3 most popular categories to sell secondhand items are Fashion, Hobbies & Toys, Home & Furniture
  • Top 3 most popular secondhand category to browse are Fashion, Hobbies & Toys, Home & Furniture
  • All-time top 3 most searched keywords for secondhand items: Rolex, AG06 (Yahama Channel Mixer) and Road Bike

Recommerce refers to the selling and buying of previously-owned products, including both new and used in condition. The report covers data from 9 of Carousell Group’s family of brands across Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan markets — Carousell, Cho Tot, Laku6, Mudah.my, OneKyat, One Shift, Ox Luxe, Ox Street, and Refash.

Since its inception in 2012 as a mobile-first app to make selling and buying underutilised items easier, Carousell has grown from a C2C classifieds marketplace into a multi-category platform for secondhand goods in Greater Southeast Asia. To accelerate the next decade of recommerce, the Group has been working on additional capabilities to offer more features and services to users that make buying secondhand items as trusted and convenient as buying brand new items.

Ng Chee Soon, managing director at Carousell Singapore, said, “Carousell was founded a decade ago with the mission of making secondhand the first choice. The Recommerce Index serves as a crucial guide to help us better understand the motivations behind our consumers’ behaviour, especially amidst the post-Covid economic uncertainty. With 1 in 3 Singaporeans using Carousell monthly, secondhand is even more accessible to everyone and we are excited to fuel the shift and for Carousell to drive recommerce growth in the Greater Southeast Asia region.” 

The Carousell Recommerce Index (10th anniversary edition) is available for download here.