Tag: Carousell

Singapore – A report from Carousell reveals that Singaporean users earned the highest in the region this year, averaging S$2,000 from selling secondhand items on the platform.

The report shows that Singaporean users led the region in earnings from selling secondhand items on Carousell, making approximately 70% more than their Hong Kong counterparts and 140% more than users in Malaysia.

As a result, the report found that Singapore’s secondhand furniture transactions helped save 21,970 tonnes of carbon emissions.

In addition, Singapore led the region in generosity, giving away more than 300,000 free items, including popular pieces like sofas and IKEA tables.

The report provided deeper insights into regional user behaviour, highlighting that Singaporeans are most active in selling items at 2pm and shopping at 10pm. Across the region, Carousell’s data indicates that users tend to be most active at night, with peak chat and search activity occurring at 10 p.m.

However, transactions peak in the evenings, with Singapore and Hong Kong users most active at 6pm, while users in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Taiwan prefer to transact at 9pm. Additionally, Singaporeans are most active in creating new listings during the afternoon, with peak selling activity observed at 2pm.

The most popular categories for buying, selling, and searching remain consistent throughout the day: hobbies & toys, women’s fashion, and furniture & home living. Interestingly, cars emerge as the second most-searched category during the late evening hours, between 9 and 11 p.m.

Carousell uncovered another intriguing trend: ‘Chair’ has surged 52 spots to become the second most-searched term, surpassing ‘iPhone.’ Meanwhile, Popmart’s collectible ‘Labubu’ has overtaken “Taylor Swift” to claim fifth place among the platform’s top searches.

Jing Zhi Peh, regional head of goods at Carousell, said, “Our leadership across key markets gives us unparalleled insights into how and what people are buying and selling every day, helping us develop features and programs that drive demand for secondhand goods.”

“As one of the region’s most popular classifieds marketplaces for buying and selling almost anything, Carousell aims to leverage our position to make it easy for anyone to participate in the circular economy and foster a culture of prioritising secondhand to make a meaningful impact on people and the planet,” Peh added. 

Singapore – The Carousell Group, a multi-category secondhand goods marketplace in Greater Southeast Asia, has completed the acquisition of LuxLexicon, a Singapore-based luxury bag reseller and accredited luxury consignment platform. This effort intends to strengthen the group’s luxury category by pursuing an omnichannel approach and expanding its premium luxury goods. 

The Carousell Group has purchased LuxLexicon’s company and assets in order to add LuxLexicon’s brand, large inventory of premium luxury bags for consignment and resale, and knowledge of offline retail to its portfolio. With this acquisition, LuxLexicon will be able to take advantage of Carousell Group’s expertise in international expansion and online recommerce, which will lead to further growth. Under Florence Low’s direction, LuxLexicon will continue to exist as a stand-alone business, keeping its name, staff, and retail location.

To encourage more consumers to use secondhand choices, the group launched initiatives in 2023 to improve convenience and trust in the purchase and sale of authenticated luxury bags. Carousell Certified Luxury is one such program that gives customers the assurance to buy verified luxury handbags. Since its launch, leads from the Sell to Carousell Luxury program—which allows users to sell or consign their bags directly to Carousell—have increased , more than doubling. 

Speaking about the acquisition, Marcus Tan, co-founder of Carousell Group, expressed, “We are excited to partner with Florence and the LuxLexicon team to accelerate our ambition of creating the largest managed marketplace for authenticated second hand luxury bags where users can buy and sell with trust and convenience. We originally met Florence to partner with LuxLexicon for our Carousell Certified Luxury programme. After conversations, we realised that we had a similar vision, and by joining forces with LuxLexicon’s expertise, we could help each other supercharge our luxury bag business in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan over the next few years.” 

He added, “We have been strengthening our recommerce foundations to drive our multi-category approach on our top growth categories. Part of these efforts were acquisitions for fashion, mobiles and autos over the years, and we are thankful to have these founders not only continue to partner with us to drive our mission, but also lend their expertise to the wider Carousell Group’s businesses over the years. Beyond growing organically as a top priority, we will continue to seek acquisition opportunities with the right partners across our focus categories and markets to accelerate the future of secondhand in Greater Southeast Asia.”

Meanwhile, Florence Low, founder of LuxLexicon, said, “LuxLexicon and Carousell Group share a common goal of providing a trusted and accessible platform for buying and selling authenticated luxury bags. Additionally, we both see similar strong consumer demand for popular brands such as Hermès, CHANEL and Louis Vuitton. This acquisition allows us to offer more variety of bags and recommend interested consumers to each other. I am excited to further grow the brand with Carousell Group’s scale, investment and regional expertise in the coming years and beyond.”

Singapore – Sporting goods retailer Decathlon Singapore has collaborated with multi-category classifieds and recommerce marketplace Carousell to strengthen its eco-conscious initiatives with the launch of ‘Decathlon Carousell Store’. 

The newly launched store offers customers a convenient and trustworthy platform to buy and sell quality-assured second hand bicycles that have been inspected and refurbished by Decathlon on the Carousell platform. 

Users interested in selling their bikes can schedule an appointment directly with Decathlon through the Carousell app’s ‘Sell to Carousell Bicycle’ button. 

Bikes sold by users to Decathlon will undergo meticulous inspection and refurbishment by their seasoned experts before they are put on sale on Decathlon’s official ‘Second Life Store’ on Carousell. Additionally, each bike also comes with a two-year warranty and can be paid securely upon checkout at Carousell. 

Decathlon and Carousell’s partnership comes as both share a common goal of emphasising sustainable efforts and supporting the circular economy. By partnering with Carousell, Decathlon aims to broaden its audience, leveraging Carousell’s extensive reach of 1 in 3 Singaporeans, including many keen secondhand shoppers, in response to the growing demand for sustainable shopping.

Aside from selling and buying second-hand bicycles, Decathlon’s partnership with Carousell will also allow users to trade their old Decathlon bikes. 

For users interested in trading their old Decathlon bicycles, they can make an appointment on the Carousell app. Upon meet-up, the bikes will be inspected by Decathlon’s seasoned team of experts. 

This partnership marks Decathlon’s debut in bringing its bicycle trade-in program to a recommerce platform in Singapore, following the success of its Second Life initiative introduced in 2022. Second Life offers refurbished goods at discounted rates. Decathlon intends to expand this trade-in programme to other sports categories soon.

It also marks the official launch of Carousell Group’s Brand Solutions, which streamlines the process for brands to offer resale options to customers. This initiative transforms how brands incorporate resale, providing tailored programmes and resale-as-a-service solutions, promoting sustainable shopping, and benefiting both brands and consumers in the eco-conscious market.

Decathlon’s strategic partnership with Carousell signifies its dedication to environmental responsibility by enhancing user engagement in the circular economy. Embracing recommerce, Decathlon offers eco-friendly alternatives, contributing to a sustainable future for the sports industry in alignment with Singapore’s sustainability initiatives.

Nathaniel Gregory, circular economy and services lead at Decathlon Singapore, said, “Sustainability has been a core tenet of Decathlon’s business. Besides enhancing our production process to produce quality items in an eco-conscious manner, it is important to further extend our product life cycle. Having a partner like Carousell whose brand and user community are passionate about the circular economy gives us an increased avenue to reach out to more people who can, in turn, be advocates for a more sustainable future.”

Meanwhile, JJ Eastwood, senior vice president of brand solutions at Carousell Group, shared, “Carousell has been at the heart of the circular economy across the region for over a decade, with the goal of making secondhand transactions more trusted and convenient. Our partnership with Decathlon advances this mission, significantly benefiting buyers and sellers alike. Sellers enjoy the convenience of a buyback program. Meanwhile, buyers at Decathlon’s Official Second Life Store on Carousell are assured of quality thanks to thorough inspections and warranties. This partnership marks the first of many new brand partnerships, ranging from trade-in initiatives to end-to-end Resale As A Service programmes.”

Singapore – Multi-category classifieds and recommerce marketplace Carousell announced it will suspend the sale of Taylor Swift’s concert tickets on its platform across all six markets after seeing a rise in ticket scams. 

Carousell will be suspending ticket sales from February 23 to March 9, 2024, and will remove the existing listings on the platform by February 26. 

The recommerce platform knew there was trouble after it had seen a rise in ticket scams in the lead-up to many of Taylor Swift’s shows across her global tour, as well as Singapore being the only stop of the Eras Tour in Southeast Asia. 

While Carousell is aware that the majority of the ticket listings were genuine, they are also mindful of the unique case of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour and have made the one-off exception to adopt such an approach. 

For extra safety measures, especially given the nature of a consumer-to-consumer platform, Carousell will utilise a mix of AI detection and manual moderation to detect and remove listings.

The recommerce platform is also encouraging its users to help report any listings directly through the ‘Report Listing’ feature that’s available on both the web and the app. A manual moderation team will be reviewing the reports within 24 hours after they’ve been reported. 

Furthermore, to reinforce safer transactions in the ‘Tickets & Vouchers’ category, Carousell has made it mandatory since October 3, 2023, for all Singapore sellers to verify their identities via Singpass before being able to list in the category. Additionally, there will be advisories in the ‘Tickets & Vouchers’ category to educate users on how to transact safely. 

Carousell has swiftly apologised for any inconvenience and trouble their decisions may have caused. The platform emphasised that they are not stopping any genuine consumers from transacting but also urges everyone to do background checks before closing any deals. 

Scammers never go out of style, so the platform is also reminding buyers to be more cautious when purchasing tickets from third-party vendors who may be selling counterfeit or stolen tickets. 

For users who are looking to sell their tickets with genuine intent, Carousell strongly urges them to check and adhere to the reselling terms and conditions laid out by the official channels. 

Su Lin Tan, chief of staff at Carousell, said, “Selling concert tickets is not prohibited by our community guidelines, as we are an open and inclusive marketplace. However, this concert is unique in that we expect many overseas concertgoers who may not know how to adequately protect themselves from local scam tactics.” 

“Additionally, we realise that the two weeks leading up to the Eras tour shows are prime for scammers taking advantage of last-minute panic buying of concert tickets. Hence, we are stepping in to do our part to manage the situation on our platform and working very closely with the Singapore Police Force. We are monitoring the situation vigilantly and taking action against scammers,” she further explained. 

Singapore – Lucas Ngoo, one of the co-founders at Carousell, is set to step down from the day-to-day management roles from the company. He will still retain his co-founder leadership role, and will transition to an advisory role. This move comes eleven and a half years since he co-founded Carousell alongside Siu Rui Quek and Marcus Tan.

In a recent LinkedIn post, he stated that he continues to have full vested interests in the success of Carousell as a co-founder, board director and shareholder, and have full confidence in their business and leadership team.

“My passion has always been to build the future with technology. It has been an incredible journey working with our CarouTeam to make selling secondhand even faster with machine learning and piloting features that shape our current recommerce foundations,” he said.

Ngoo added, “I believe there is more to learn, hence it is a personal decision of mine to take the chance to have a break to learn new areas of innovation and other industries, such as AI in biotech/healthcare, climate tech/energy transition and Web3.”

He also reflected on initial conversations with Quek and Tan on the founding of Carousell, and seeing how their idea grown into multiple brands facilitating tens of millions of users to participate in the circular economy and make secondhand their first choice.

“I am grateful for all the support over the past decade, especially to our user community for supporting us to choose secondhand, and sharing your inspiring stories and feedback to help us continually improve. This is just the start of our second decade of Carousell, and there is more to come,” he concluded.

Singapore – Recommerce platform Carousell and corporate card and finance management platform YouBiz have announced a strategic partnership to help local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups accelerate their business growth with digitalisation tools and resources.

The partnership between the two platforms serves as a unique collaboration that aims to help SMEs maximise their resources and save on business expenses as they digitalise their operations.

To start, YouBiz has been helping over 3,000 businesses save annually by eliminating unnecessary administrative fees, coupled with its promise of 0% FX fee, unlimited cashback and seamlessly integrated digital solutions. These substantial savings allow SMEs to reinvest in their growth, and enhance their offerings and reach which ultimately creates a more vibrant and resilient business landscape.

As part of the partnership, Carousell merchants get to enjoy a 10% upsized cashback for their CarouBiz package and Carousell coins, while YouBiz users are offered an exclusive 20% rebate for their purchase of Carousell coins.

Beyond helping SMEs save costs, Carousell and YouBiz are also committed to empowering business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs with the knowledge they need to stay ahead in the digital economy.

Talking about the partnership, Johnny Lim, regional head of sales and business director of Carousell, said, “We are thrilled to partner with YouBiz, combining our reach of 1 in Singaporeans as active monthly users and YouBiz’s expertise in financial solutions, to help small local businesses and success in today’s fast-paced business landscape. Digitalisation is pivotal, and this collaboration exemplifies our commitment to provide simple-to-use and convenient ways for anyone to digitise their business.” 

Meanwhile, Kelvin Lam, chief operating officer of YouBiz by YouTrip, said, “Our partnership with Carousell is a strategic one that aims to equip SMEs with cost-saving tools and resources that help them accelerate their cross-border growth in this digital economy age. We are excited to be working with Carousell to support the growth of SMEs in the region. With our combined expertise and offerings, we can help more businesses tap into new markets and opportunities.”

Singapore – Recommerce company Carousell has announced the launch of its new regional headquarters called ‘Carousell Campus’, which is dedicated to advance recommerce capabilities as part of its goal to make buying and selling secondhand items more trusted and convenient.

Carousell Campus also houses the Group’s first ‘Capabilities Centre’, which brings the group’s brands and subsidiaries into one single location to streamline operations, integrate capabilities for authentication and inspection, as well as allow for more efficient collaboration.

To make peer-to-peer marketplace transactions even safer, the group has also rolled out enhancements to the secure on-platform payment features in its Singapore and Vietnam marketplaces, with plans to continue in more markets starting with Malaysia by end of September.

To increase convenience for everyday Singaporeans selling items they have decluttered, Carousell Singapore will be the first C2C marketplace in Singapore to offer a paperless D2D shipping option to casual sellers. By the end of September, users will only need to write down their tracking number on the parcel, have access to competitive paperless D2D shipping rates, and also skip the hassle of printing out the shipping label for the courier. 

Quek Siu Rui, group CEO and co-founder at Carousell Group, said, “This space marks a coming-of-age for Carousell as a Group. Recommerce means bringing the best things that we know and like from e-commerce and availing it for secondhand products. We have been building up our recommerce business in recent years, and have grown to be the leading recommerce Group in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with tens of millions of monthly active users and 80 million new listings annually.”

He added, “As we take the lead in advocating for recommerce and a circular economy in the region and beyond, we believe in contributing back to the local startup community and cementing Singapore as the region’s prominent startup hub.”

Rui also noted, “Centralising our Singapore-based entities at Carousell Campus has allowed us to strengthen our operations excellence. Our strategic focus on key growth product categories has streamlined our efforts to offer more compelling user value propositions and facilitate more collaboration opportunities to innovate on ways to increase circular economy adoption. This has allowed us to roll out a variety of recommerce programmes and features across multiple platforms and markets this year, providing an e-commerce-like experience. We will continue to invest in growth and technology across our platforms to make buying and selling secondhand items as trusted and convenient as buying brand new items.”

Singapore – Multi-category classifieds and ecommerce marketplace Carousell has launched a new campaign in collaboration with creative agency Bread Butter Bacon(BBB) to raise brand awareness of Carousell Certified Mobile in Singapore. 

The campaign by BBB aims to instill trust in consumers considering a convenient second-hand phone purchase through Carousell’s 40-point check system that rigorously examines phone quality before being sold. 

The main campaign material is presented in the form of a video ad featuring a young woman bringing home a newly-purchased second-hand phone with her parents grilling her about the condition of the phone with the same scrutiny they would give a prospective new son-in-law but are then assured that the phone was acquired reliably through Carousell. 

The campaign will run from 28 July onwards on social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, as well as outdoor digital panels islandwide.

Commenting on the campaign, Lam Xin Ni, marketing manager at Carousell Singapore, said, “Our goal at Carousell is to make buying and selling second-hand items as trusted and convenient as buying brand new items. We aim to transform the second-hand mobile phone market by offering a trustworthy solution, so all consumers can access quality second-hand phones at great deals.”

Meanwhile, Sarah Inez Pratomo, creative group head at Bread Butter Bacon, said, “We’re pleased to be working with Carousell again, this time to introduce the Certified second-hand mobile phone offerings under the Carousell Certified programme. Our goal was to communicate the essence of trust and reliability in a lighthearted and emotionally engaging way, which most of us can relate to as children or parents. We are proud to be part of this innovative initiative that is set to offer consumers a seamless, trustworthy shopping experience like never before.”  

Singapore – Carousell has partnered with car-as-a-subscription company Carzuno to offer the ‘Carousell Car Subscription’ in Singapore, a fully digital service that allows users to choose and return their automobile without leaving their homes, leveraging the recently announced Carousell Certified program for Cars.

Singaporeans who are new to car ownership are said to prefer more efficient options such as car subscriptions, which reduce concerns about costs such as insurance, road tax, maintenance, servicing, down payment, and bank loans, while also allowing them to switch between different car models to meet changing needs or test a model before purchasing, avoiding the inconveniences associated with traditional car rental and car sharing.

Users can choose a duration ranging from one to 24 months, benefiting from low monthly subscription rates. The website provides transparent pricing for all cars, catering to a wide range of budgets and needs.

Sanjay Shivkumar, Carousell Singapore’s head of autos, said, “Besides being known for being able to buy and sell second-hand cars, Carousell has the largest platform for rental cars in Singapore. In recent years, we have had more requests to offer car subscription services as well, and we have seen growing demand globally, especially among eco-conscious drivers who want to use electric vehicles without the hefty price tag. 

He added, “Hence, we are excited to partner with Carzuno launch a service that puts our users’ convenience first, and provides more choice.”

Meanwhile, Kim Jonsson, CEO at Carzuno, said, “Combining Carousell’s reach of 1 in 3 Singaporeans as monthly active users with our large fleet and variety of 50 car models, we are excited to give Singaporeans more flexibility and freedom in driving the car of their choice. It is as simple as filling in a three-minute form, uploading a copy of your driver’s licence, adding fuel to the car and enjoying your drive. Users can also have the peace of mind that the cars available are in tip-top condition from regular servicing and maintenance.”

Singapore – Recommerce platform Carousell has announced the launch of its ‘Certified Luxury’ feature which aims at spotlighting second-hand luxury items on their platform, and convince users to make secondhand items first on their mind.

In the launch event for said feature, Gijs Verheijke, head of luxury at Carousell said that ‘Certified Luxury’ aims at making luxury items accessible to everyone, adding that by making secondhand an easy and trusted choice, they are allowing consumers to make the sustainable choice and practise circular consumption by choosing secondhand.

“Because second hand luxury is so much more affordable, it is often most people’s first interaction with, or entrance into buying luxury. We want to make that encounter with [second-hand] luxury easy and safe for anyone. And these are the ways we are doing that, with the launch of Certified Luxury,” he said.

He also added that in the same way, Carousell is about good deals, they also believe in providing access to luxury for all.

“With Certified Luxury, you get real luxury at a fraction of the cost, with trust and with the same quality assured. In this way, we allow for [second-hand] deals, with a first-rate experience’, giving our consumers the best of both worlds,” Verheijke said.

Carousell’s launch of ‘Certified Luxury’ builds on the platform’s continued mission of promoting second-hand items in the name of sustainability.