Next month, Ikea Belgium will organise the second edition of what it calls “the largest flea market in the country”. The event will take place simultaneously on the parking lots of all eight Ikea stores in Belgium.
“Help adopt the right habits”
The first edition, last year, drew approximately 800 sellers and 81,000 visitors. With the initiative, Ikea Belgium aims to make buying and selling second-hand as accessible as possible. “We want to help consumers adopt the right habits around circularity and reuse by offering simple, easy, and enjoyable services like our flea markets and second-hand offerings”, Sustainability Manager Nathalie Van Edom said. “This has been part of our strategy for over a decade, and we see that consumers are increasingly attaching importance to it.”
The flea market complements other circular services provided by the company, including the Buy-Back Service and the Second Chance section in stores. In the past financial year, Belgian customers returned 12,300 furniture items through the Buy-Back Service, an increase of 72 % compared to the previous year. Ikea resells them afterwards in its Second Chance area.
IKEA is also experimenting with a peer-to-peer platform named Ikea Preowned, which is currently in pilot testing in Norway, Portugal and Spain. Following the pilot phase, the platform will be rolled out in Belgium and other European countries, offering even more options for circular consumption.
