Interest rises in secondhand objects amid pandemic

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has brought the world to a halt, consumer behavior has changed massively over the last year, where people are now more inclined toward buying online from the comfort of their homes while the craze for secondhand items, especially furniture, antiques, and accessories, increasing substantially due to affordable price range.

The demand is high, especially in the furniture and accessories categories, said Emir Tümen, the founder of the online shopping website Dekopasaj.com.

He noted that their business sales have grown by 300 percent during the pandemic period.

Over the last year, people started buying furniture and antique objects, especially in secondhand markets, because they are more affordable.

Emphasizing that there were different effects of the pandemic on business models in 2020, Tümen said, "Our model is a model we call end-to-end. As a marketplace, we support both buyers and sellers at every step. Everything is online; there is no face-to-face meeting. Popular products are bought by credit card by messaging on the platform. Then we manage the whole process. With the start of the pandemic, we all went into a life of quarantine. So, people's transfer to bring their business to the digital environment has become much faster."

He said that generally, newlyweds buy secondhand furniture, and the Internet has become the digital showcase of sellers.

"We closed the year 2020 with a 300 percent growth in terms of turnover. At the same time, because we are a marketplace, this has been achieved with a very serious increase in the advertisements. We delivered secondhand goods to almost every province in Turkey," he added.

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