Kira auf-der-Heide
According to a new survey, more than half of adults would welcome a pre-owned gift this Christmas—especially to save people money and act more sustainably by extending a product’s life.
The poll of 2,000 people who celebrate Christmas, showed 19 percent expected to receive a second-hand gift this year—with 29 percent expecting the practice to become more common in the future.
More than half (58 percent) would feel positive about unwrapping a pre-owned item, and 46 percent said they would happily give one.
Already, almost four in ten respondents have purchased a pre-owned gift ahead of Christmas at some year in the past.
The top reasons for doing so were saving money (50 percent), affording an item which would otherwise be out of their price range (44 percent), and to help products have a longer lifespan (41 percent).
Amazon Warehouse in the UK, which sells refurbished and pre-owned products, commissioned the survey, which also revealed that 38 percent plan to take sustainability into consideration when shopping for presents for this festive season.
But, overall, 26 percent believe there is a stigma about giving such gifts. Even so, 31 percent believe giving and receiving pre-owned products should be normalized.
“As a nation, we’re becoming more conscious consumers and it’s exciting to see so many people are open to shopping for nearly-new products,” said John Boumphrey, a UK manager at Amazon. “Pre-owned doesn’t have to mean worn or outdated, often products have simply been unboxed but still work as good as new.
The top pre-owned items people are happy to receive were books (50 percent), jewelry (31 percent), and artwork (30 percent).
And the most popular tech gifts to get ‘nearly-new’ were mobile phones (21 percent), laptops (20 percent), and tablets (20 percent).
The top places to buy pre-owned or refurbished gifts were eBay.com, thrift stores, and Amazon.
Nearly one in five estimated they had saved more than $244 annually over the past five years.
21 percent of those surveyed by OnePoll think it can be hard to tell the difference between these products and new goods—and 17 percent have noticed more retailers offering nearly-new or pre-owned items.