Ricardo cracks 1.5 million user mark

Ricardo's 2022 annual analysis shows that 398,000 people newly discovered the platform last year and created a user account - that's around 10 percent more than in the previous two years. The 1.56 million active users posted 12.5 million offers, placed around 25 million auction bids and bought 1.5 million items immediately. The most popular categories included Fashion & Accessories (698,500 items sold), Collectibles & Rare (613,500), Household & Home (577,300), Toys & Crafts (359,000) and Sports (341,500). The most common search terms last year were: Louis Vuitton, Rolex, BMW, camper, moped and Lego.

Secondhand on the rise

In recent years, Ricardo has observed a steady growth in the proportion of items offered as well as successfully sold in used condition. Last year, around 70 percent of the items that found a new home via Ricardo were secondhand. In 2021, this figure was 68 percent, in 2020 67 percent and in 2019 62 percent. This means that Ricardo members are increasingly looking for a secondhand alternative when making a new purchase. On the other hand, unused items are more often sold or passed on, thus giving them a second life instead of disposing of them.

Ricardo associates this change in consumer behavior - in addition to the price advantage over new goods - with a growing need among its community for sensible and sustainable consumption. This trend is confirmed on the one hand by customer surveys conducted by Ricardo and on the other hand by a study on the state of sustainable consumption in Switzerland conducted in cooperation with the ZHAW as part of the third national Secondhand Day. This representative study on the "6Rs" (Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Repair, Return and Reshare) presented new results on how sustainably Switzerland acts in the acquisition, use and post-use of selected products. The results showed, for example, that for over 50 percent of the Swiss population, sustainability is an important aspect of their own consumption behavior.