Amazon has opened a pop-up store in central London where customers will be able to buy products that have been returned to the retail giant.
The company said the Second Hand Store in Bloomsbury – which will open from today until 12 December – would sell more than 4,000 products, including kitchen and household appliances, books, electricals, and games and toys at discount prices. All proceeds from sales are to go to children’s charity Barnardo’s.
The firm said it marked the first time that customers would be able to buy used, open-box and refurbished products from Amazon in a brick-and-mortar store.
The pop-up store will also feature a ‘repairs zone’, which will host workshops on fixing broken laptops and household technologies.
The Second Hand Store comes as resale initiatives have become increasingly popular among major retailers in response to growing demand for more sustainable, low-cost products.
For example, last month Ikea, eBay, Dunelm, and Sainsbury’s teamed up on a new circularity initiative designed to encourage uptake of second-hand furniture.
Amazon said second-hand shopping was now a “billion-pound business” on its platform, noting that UK sales from the “second chance” section of the website had increased by 15 per cent in the first nine months of 2023 compared to the year previous.
“Amazon is committed to giving more products a second chance – both through helping customers shop pre-loved, and through programmes to recycle, trade-in and repair products, contributing to a more circular economy,” said UK country manager John Boumphrey.
“The Second Chance Store that we’ve launched today with Barnardo’s is all about offering customers a great way to shop second-hand this festive season, while supporting a brilliant charity we have been working with for many years.”
Amazon said the scheme was just one part of its broader circular economy programme, noting that in 2022 it had expanded its partnership with waste reduction charity WRAP and circular economy NGO Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and was also supporting the development of a sorting technology to improve plastic packaging recycling.
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