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It used to be a monthly affair at any middle-class home with women collecting all the unused goods, usually small items, and selling them to the kabadiwala for a few hundred rupees after hours of bargaining.
However, smartphones are changing all that. These women are now making thousands of rupees by selling these goods online.
Women are driving the ₹22,000-crore used-goods market in India, according to online classifieds portals such as Olx.in, Quikr and Cartrade. For these companies, of the total traffic, over 43 per cent is accounted for by women.
Says Amarjit Singh Batra, CEO, Olx: “Every day, women from across the country write to us about their experience and the joy they got out of making money from unused goods. Olx has helped them un-clutter, earn money, feel independent, and empowered.”
Olx has been an empowerment tool since women do not have to depend on others. “It is also helping people manage their budget during a slowdown as they have an opportunity to buy new goods by selling the old ones,” he added.
Echoing this, Pranay Chulet, founder of Quikr, said women have always been the key “creators and initiators” of this market but now they are dealing with all kinds of goods such as washing machines, TVs, refrigerators, furniture and even cars.
Quikr has also launched a platform where people can buy and sell goods at MSP (maximum selling price), which also tells consumers the worth of a particular second-hand product.
Olx recently launched a television campaign that talks about turning the cell phone into a ‘sell’ phone. And it has found that women are now using mobiles to un-clutter their homes.
The market for second-hand goods is growing as people upgrading their lifestyle often purchase expensive and sometimes unwanted items.
Simultaneously consumers, whose aspiration levels have gone up but not their incomes want to upgrade with second-hand goods.
Interestingly, for these companies, mobile phones are bringing good business with almost 70 per cent of the overall traffic coming through them.
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