Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
Secondhand style is in
Retail | COVID-19 | Europe
October 29, 2021 – During the COVID-19 pandemic, customers in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom bought and sold fashion and family items (such as toys) the most. Check out the interactive to see what other items were purchased via online C2C platforms.
Interactive
To read the article, see, “C2C e-commerce: Could a new business model sell more old goods?,” September 23, 2021.
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Visual form
Multi-country grouped dot-and-bar comparison chart.
Layout / body structure
The chart is a single panel with seven product categories arranged left to right and three country readings overlaid in each category. Reader scans across the categories while comparing the UK, France, and Germany markers and the light-gray category bars behind them.
What is being compared
The chart compares the share of respondents who purchased secondhand items via online consumer-to-consumer platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic. It contrasts seven product categories across three markets: the UK, France, and Germany.
Measurement system
The vertical axis runs from 0 to 80 percent, and each category shows country-specific point markers positioned against that shared scale. The right side of the chart labels the three country samples, linking the colored markers to the UK, France, and Germany observations.
Visible structure inside the graphic
The categories are fashion and family, beauty and personal care, leisure sport and fitness, pet supplies, house garden and do-it-yourself, consumer electronics, and media and entertainment. Fashion and family sits highest for all three countries in the low-to-mid 60s and 70s, while the middle categories cluster closer to the 30s and 40s, and pet supplies plus house-garden-do-it-yourself show visibly wider country spreads than some of the other groups.
Main takeaway from the visual
Fashion and family is the strongest online secondhand category in all three markets, and most of the remaining categories sit materially lower. The layout makes that hierarchy visible by putting the first category clearly above the rest, while the other groups form a more compressed mid-range band with country-to-country variation.
Key standout values or extremes
Fashion and family is highest at roughly 74 percent in the UK, about 68 percent in France, and about 62 percent in Germany. Beauty and personal care peaks near 50 percent in France, house garden and do-it-yourself reaches the mid-40s in France while sitting lower in the other two countries, and consumer electronics plus media and entertainment mostly cluster in the low-to-high 30s.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
No behavior appears in the published version; this is a fixed multi-country category comparison chart.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart is the full visual on this page.