Second-hand Marketplace
2022–2025The second-hand economy is being digitized and growing fast, and a new generation of customers is thinking second-hand first. IKEA products are already traded on second-hand platforms, but the brand isn't contributing there yet. In a crowded market, how can IKEA differentiate and capture value around peer-to-peer transactions of IKEA furniture?
- Partner
- IKEA
- Role
- Senior Design Strategist · New Business & Innovation team
- Type
- New product development
- Markets
- Pilot 🇳🇴 🇫🇷 🇪🇸 · then 🇵🇹 🇵🇱 🇸🇪 🇧🇪 and 5 more
- Recognition
- Cannes Lions Silver & Bronze
- Status
- Live ↗
The film. From a supervisory-board question to one place to acquire, pass on and care for IKEA furniture: researched across 12 markets, piloted in Madrid and Oslo, live in 6 countries, and awarded Silver & Bronze at Cannes Lions.
Outcome in numbers
The supervisory board asked whether IKEA could ever deliver a peer-to-peer second-hand marketplace to reach its circular-strategy ambitions. The short answer was yes, but only after reframing the question: not "build another cookie-cutter marketplace in an already crowded space," but "how can IKEA differentiate the peer-to-peer experience of IKEA furniture, and capture market share and long-term relevance?"
0 → 1 product development through a design-led innovation process, leading a team of two strategic designers, an innovation expert, a software engineer and a design researcher. The team started with exploration: market, ethnographic and customer research across 12 markets, to find the elements of the experience worth differentiating on. From there we moved through ideation, concept exploration and validation in three core markets with 4,500 customers, to define the overall experience strategy, value proposition and product development roadmap.
Delivered IKEA Second-Hand Marketplace as a stand-alone web/app. I oversaw the pilot launches in Madrid and Oslo in mid-2024. The marketplace is now live in 6 countries.
Under my leadership, the team delivered the validated customer-facing experience design, business proposition, and revenue streams, as well as a prioritized feature roadmap and an MVP plan, with a capability assessment. In 2024, I participated in the handover to an internal digital team to build, and my role changed to strategic direction expert.
The project had large media coverage, including the Financial Times and Fast Company, and a Cannes Lions winner.
Strategy deck. The research question, approach and value proposition. Step through with the arrows (17 slides).
The supervisory board wondered if IKEA could ever deliver a peer-to-peer second-hand marketplace that stood apart in the crowded P2P landscape. Short answer: yes.