Recommerce: The Missing Loop in the Consumer Economy

We have gotten very good at making things.

Companies manufacture appliances, clothing, electronics, furniture, tools, kitchen gadgets and millions of other products. We buy them, use them, and eventually replace them.

But there is a question we don't ask nearly often enough:

What happens to the useful thing we already own when we decide we want something new?

Too often, the answer is that it goes into a closet.

Then a basement.

Then a storage unit.

Then a donation pile.

And eventually, sometimes, the landfill.

There is another possibility.

Someone else can use it.

That simple idea is the foundation of recommerce.

What Is Recommerce?

Recommerce is the buying and selling of previously owned goods.

Instead of a product moving in only one direction, from manufacturer to consumer and eventually toward disposal, recommerce creates another loop:

Make → buy → use → resell → use again → resell again → continue circulating

The product stays useful longer.

And the money can circulate between ordinary people along with it.

That matters.

When I sell something I no longer need, I'm not simply getting rid of clutter. I'm giving another person an opportunity to use something that already exists.

And when I buy something secondhand, I'm getting something I need without requiring a brand-new version of that product to be manufactured for me.

That's a different way of thinking about consumption.

We Don't Always Need More Products. Sometimes We Need Better Circulation.

One of the biggest problems with modern consumption is that we tend to think about products in terms of ownership instead of useful life.

We buy something.

We use it.

Then something newer, faster, prettier, smaller, larger or more convenient comes along.

Suddenly the thing we own becomes "old."

But old does not necessarily mean useless.

I have a 2010 Black & Decker 10-speed blender. It still works.

The blender itself is perfectly functional. The plastic blender container has developed fractures over the years, so I eventually bought a newer blender with a glass container.

But the old blender didn't suddenly stop being valuable because I bought another one.

Someone might already have a compatible container.

Someone might need the base for a project.

Someone might have a replacement container.

Someone might simply be willing to use it differently than I do.

I'm planning to sell that blender for about $10.

That's not because the blender became worthless.

It's because its value to me changed.

Those are two very different things.

This Happens Constantly With Kitchen Appliances

I see this particularly clearly with kitchen equipment.

People love to cook, and the kitchen appliance industry knows it.

There's always another blender, juicer, air fryer, ice cream maker, food processor or specialty appliance promising to make cooking easier.

And sometimes the new product really is better for a particular person.

That's fine.

The problem begins when the old product has nowhere to go.

I recently sold an ice cream machine that I decided wasn't right for me. I figured out what similar machines had recently sold for, used information from a successful listing to improve mine, adjusted my shipping strategy, and within a few days, it sold.

Now that machine is somewhere else, being useful to someone else.

That's recommerce.

I also have an open-box Yonanas frozen treat machine and two juicers, a Topzee masticating juicer and a Healinator juicer, that I plan to put back into circulation.

These aren't theoretical examples.

They're things sitting in my home right now that could be useful in someone else's home.

And that is where recommerce becomes very practical.

The Upgrade Doesn't Have to Create Waste

Imagine you buy a new appliance because it does something you really want.

You don't necessarily have to keep the old one in the back of the closet.

You can sell it.

Someone else gets the opportunity to own it.

You recover some of the money you spent.

You create space in your home.

And the original product continues doing what it was designed to do.

The same thing can happen over and over.

One person upgrades.

Another person buys the previous model.

That person eventually upgrades.

Another person buys it.

The product can move through several households before it finally reaches the end of its useful life.

That's a much more interesting lifecycle than:

Buy → use → forget → discard.

Recommerce Also Circulates Money

There's another part of this that I think deserves much more attention.

Recommerce doesn't only circulate products.

It circulates money among people.

A new product generally begins with a manufacturer and moves through a commercial chain before reaching the consumer.

But once that product enters the secondhand economy, the next transactions can happen directly between people.

I sell something.

You buy it.

Later, you sell it.

Someone else buys it.

The same object can continue creating economic value without requiring another identical product to be manufactured every time someone wants one.

That's powerful.

The large companies can make the goods.

We can recirculate them.

eBay Is a Major Part of This Story

This is one reason I appreciate what eBay has built.

eBay has been operating as a massive recommerce marketplace for decades.

And eBay itself now openly describes recommerce and the circular economy as an important part of its business and sustainability story.

That makes sense to me.

If I were intentionally trying to live a more sustainable consumer life, I would want an easy place to look for things that already exist.

eBay makes that possible at enormous scale.

And eBay isn't the only place doing it.

Vinted, Depop, Poshmark and other marketplaces have created their own versions of the secondhand economy.

Each platform has strengths and weaknesses.

I still sell on eBay because its search visibility is extremely useful to me. I can research completed sales, see what people are actually buying, understand pricing and optimize my listings around real marketplace data.

But other recommerce platforms have made secondhand selling incredibly attractive too.

The more places we create for useful products to circulate, the better.

The Biggest Barrier May Be the Effort of Selling

There's one problem, though.

People often don't sell their unused things because selling feels like work.

You have to take pictures.

Write a description.

Figure out the price.

Choose a marketplace.

Figure out shipping.

Keep track of the listing.

Then remember to remove the listing when it sells.

I understand this because I'm doing it myself.

Sometimes I look around my home and know something should be sold, but the thought of creating the listing becomes one more task sitting on my mental desk.

That's why tools that make recommerce easier matter.

I've recently started using Crosslist, which allows me to create a listing once and distribute it across multiple marketplaces.

That kind of technology addresses an important problem.

If we want people to participate in the circular economy, selling needs to become easier.

We have spent decades making buying incredibly easy.

We should make passing things along just as easy.

Maybe We Need a New Habit

Here's the habit I'm trying to build for myself:

If I'm not going to use something anymore, I should give it a chance to find someone who will.

It doesn't have to sell immediately.

It doesn't even have to be worth a lot of money.

A $10 blender still has value.

An appliance sitting in a closet has potential value.

A pair of shoes that no longer fits me might fit someone else perfectly.

A piece of furniture that doesn't work in my home might be exactly what someone else has been looking for.

The important thing is getting the useful object back into circulation.

I would rather see something sitting on a marketplace waiting for its next owner than sitting in my closet with no plan at all.

We Need the Missing Loop

The consumer economy already has an enormous production engine.

Manufacturers make things.

Stores sell them.

People buy them.

But we need to get much better at what happens after the first purchase.

That's where recommerce comes in.

Instead of:

Manufacture → purchase → use → disposal

we can build:

Manufacture → purchase → use → resale → reuse → resale → continued usefulness → parts/material recovery → recycling

The goal isn't to stop making new things.

Innovation matters. New products can solve problems that older products cannot.

The goal is to stop assuming that every new purchase automatically means the previous product has reached the end of its life.

Sometimes it hasn't.

Sometimes it just needs a new owner.

The Circular Economy Can Start in Our Closets

We often talk about sustainability as something governments, manufacturers and enormous corporations need to solve.

They absolutely have a role.

But there is another place the circular economy can begin:

inside ordinary homes.

The appliance sitting in your cabinet.

The clothes hanging in the back of your closet.

The electronics in your drawer.

The furniture you replaced.

The things you bought years ago that still work but no longer belong in your life.

Before something becomes waste, there is another question we can ask:

Who else could use this?

That's the question recommerce answers.

And every time we answer it by putting something useful back into circulation, we close a little piece of the loop.

Maybe the future of sustainable consumption isn't simply about buying better.

Maybe it's also about getting much better at letting what already exists keep moving.