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The recommerce economy is expanding fast—and maturing just as quickly. What was once seen as niche, messy, or secondary to “real” commerce is now being built into the core of how modern businesses operate. But to understand where it’s going, we first need to understand how it's structured.
In this episode of the ReCommerce Podcast, Tuomo Laine, CEO and co-founder of TWICE Commerce, walks through the complete market map of recommerce. It’s a crash course in the three primary segments shaping the space today: B2C/B2B, C2C marketplaces, and peer-to-peer recommerce. Each segment operates differently, solves different problems, and grows under different constraints—but together, they represent the architecture of circular commerce.
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Business-driven recommerce, which includes both B2C (business-to-consumer) and B2B (business-to-business) models, is where recommerce has become most professionalized. Within this segment, two distinct subtypes have emerged: corporate recommerce and aggregator brands.
Corporate recommerce involves brands and retailers reselling goods they already own. This could include product returns, rental inventory, or factory seconds. Some companies—like Atomic or Fischer in the ski industry—go a step further, designing products specifically to withstand rental cycles. Others, like IKEA, invest in systems that allow returned or used products to re-enter the sales ecosystem, sometimes even supporting peer-to-peer resale through branded marketplaces.
On the other hand, aggregator brands don’t manufacture anything. Instead, they acquire products from external sources—buybacks, trade-ins, or other aggregators—and resell them under their own label. A well-known example is Swappie, which buys used iPhones, refurbishes them, and sells them across Europe. These businesses are built around finding and controlling supply, often with a sharp focus on operational efficiency and quality assurance.
Together, B2C/B2B recommerce represents a significant portion of the overall market. In the US and EU combined, corporate recommerce is estimated at $20–40 billion annually, while aggregator brands contribute another $20–35 billion. It’s worth noting that these figures are still just a small fraction of overall retail, but growth rates—typically in the double digits—signal a shift in long-term strategy for many brands.
The second major segment is consumer-to-consumer (C2C) recommerce, powered by digital marketplaces. Platforms like eBay, Vinted, and Facebook Marketplace enable individuals to sell to each other, offering infrastructure around listing, discovery, shipping, payments, and trust.
C2C is, by far, the largest segment in terms of gross merchandise volume (GMV). Estimates place it between $150–220 billion annually in the US and EU, though marketplaces themselves only keep a fraction of that via “take rates” (typically 10–30%). In other words, while the volume is huge, revenue for the platform operators is significantly smaller.
Interestingly, these marketplaces aren't limited to individual sellers. Many aggregator brands and even corporate sellers use them—especially in their early stages—to access audiences, validate demand, and build brand trust before transitioning to their own direct-to-consumer channels.
What makes C2C powerful is its scale. What makes it challenging is trust, competition, and thin margins—especially in categories with low average order value. That’s why successful platforms often focus on specific verticals like electronics or fashion, where the economics work out better for both sellers and the platform itself.
The final segment is peer-to-peer recommerce, the most informal and oldest form of circular trade. This includes everything from garage sales and community thrift markets to classifieds and local Facebook groups. In peer-to-peer models, there’s usually no intermediary facilitating the sale—just two people agreeing on a transaction.
Tuomo breaks this down into two forms: offline P2P (face-to-face exchanges) and online/social P2P (platforms that help with listings, like Craigslist or Nextdoor, but don’t handle payments or shipping). Both rely heavily on social trust, community norms, and personal networks.
Although these transactions often fly under the radar, the scale of peer-to-peer activity is significant. These segments aren't always captured in recommerce statistics, but they represent a huge share of how used goods move around locally—especially in categories like kids’ gear, furniture, and tools.
Recently, some platforms in this space have started adding lightweight facilitation features—payment links, verified profiles, even shipping options—to build more trust and scale. Still, the defining feature of peer-to-peer remains its simplicity and social nature.
Even though these three segments function differently, they all grapple with the same fundamental dynamics.
Trust is at the heart of recommerce. Whether you’re a known brand reselling returns, or a parent listing a stroller online, the buyer needs confidence. For corporates, brand equity often covers that. For individuals or small sellers, trust must be earned through reviews, customer experience, and platform infrastructure.
Supply is the second major challenge. While ecommerce usually focuses on generating demand, recommerce often starts with securing inventory. Aggregators need to acquire at scale. Corporates rely on returns and takebacks. C2C and P2P depend on motivated sellers. Whoever controls the supply chain usually controls the value.
And then there’s profitability. Many recommerce transactions involve low ticket items—especially in fashion and home goods. By the time shipping, payments, platform fees, and refurbishment are added in, margins can be razor thin. That’s why recommerce often succeeds best when it’s vertically focused, operationally lean, or integrated into existing retail flows.
One of the most promising shifts in the recommerce landscape is the role of AI in listing, pricing, and grading used goods. With just a photo, platforms can now identify an item, assess its condition, and generate a complete listing—making the barrier to participation dramatically lower.
This has enormous implications for both individuals and businesses. For consumers, it means resale becomes as easy as snapping a photo. For corporates, it enables intelligent takeback flows—like detecting when someone is trying to resell an item, and automatically offering a buyback incentive or upgrade deal.
In the long term, AI will play a central role in recommerce logistics and infrastructure. It’s already changing how products are sourced, sorted, and sold—and we’re just getting started.
Looking forward, Tuomo sees strong growth across all segments. Corporate recommerce is moving beyond “side hustle” status, with brands investing in dedicated resale teams, infrastructure, and design-for-reuse product strategies. Retailers are adding secondhand offerings inside physical stores, and warehouses are being retooled to handle returns and refurbishment at scale.
C2C marketplaces are likely to continue growing, particularly at the national and vertical levels. While some may consolidate, there’s still room for challengers—especially those that focus on logistics, authentication, or unique inventory.
Peer-to-peer will remain a key part of the landscape, especially in local communities. The combination of trust, convenience, and hyper-local supply makes it resilient—even as platforms experiment with new features to boost reliability and ease.
And aggregator brands, whether standalone or vertically integrated, will only become more common as entrepreneurs look to recommerce as a viable and scalable way to build modern, circular businesses.
Recommerce is no longer just resale. It’s a structural shift in how goods are valued, used, and kept in circulation. The business models are evolving. The platforms are becoming more sophisticated. And the technology—especially AI—is making everything faster, smarter, and more scalable.
Understanding the structure of the market is the first step toward navigating it. Whether you’re a founder, a retailer, or just curious about where commerce is headed, this episode of the ReCommerce Podcast offers the map.
🎧 Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube