An online survey commissioned by ING Consumer Research and conducted by Ipsos in six countries—Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Romania, and Poland—shows that over the past three years, 74% of Romanian respondents bought secondhand clothing, while more than half also bought secondhand furniture, electronics, or home appliances. The survey was conducted in April 2026, with a Romanian sample of 1,000 people.

In terms of purchasing motivations, Romanians choose secondhand goods primarily for economic reasons. 30% of respondents said that better value for money and a desire to spend less were their main reasons for buying secondhand clothing.

However, secondhand consumption does not necessarily crowd out new purchases. Among respondents who reported buying more secondhand clothing in recent years, 36% said their purchases of new clothes also increased over the same period. The survey authors believe that as consumer confidence in this shopping method grows, the appeal of secondhand goods continues to rise in many cases. Among Romanians who bought secondhand goods in the past three years, 43% said they buy secondhand children's clothing more frequently, and 37% buy secondhand adult clothing more frequently; even for home appliances and electronics, which usually require more cautious decision-making, about 30% of respondents said they more often choose secondhand.

The factors hindering secondhand consumption differ across countries. At the overall European level, many people do not buy secondhand goods simply because they "have no need"; in Romania, however, concerns center on trust issues—in the clothing sector, mainly hygiene concerns, mentioned by 23% of respondents; in the electronics and home appliance sector, the biggest concern is hidden defects (23%), followed by product condition, including quality and wear (17%).

When dealing with clothes they no longer wear, 60% of Romanian respondents first choose to give them to relatives and friends, thereby extending the clothing's lifespan. By contrast, European consumers overall place more value on the worth of old clothes, with 44% choosing to sell clothes they no longer wear and then send them to recycling points.

Secondhand clothing already has a stable consumer base in Romania, but trust and hygiene concerns still constitute a growth bottleneck; if sellers and platforms can reduce uncertainty in areas such as condition descriptions and cleaning and disinfection, they will be more likely to turn "wanting to buy" into actual transactions.

Source: Survey: Three out of four Romanians bought secondhand clothing in the last three years · Originally published on 2026-09-25