Before the entry of OLX into the Kenyan market, people used to be hoarders with stores full of unused stuff gathering dust with only an option of giving such to charity. Mine is a certified family of hoarders who do not like to let go of stuff thus leading to a store full of used clothes, electronics among others.
This hoarding mentality is usually brought about by psychological reasons like emotional attachments and ‘will use it someday’ attitude. This has led to wardrobes full of old but in good condition clothes which no longer fit (ladies are the culprits here), old sofa sets, electronics among others. However this trend is changing slowly but surely with more people selling high value unused items online.
Since OLX came into the scene, there has been a surge of individuals selling unused goods as seen in a survey conducted by Neilsen Kenya. The survey shows that there has been a significant rise in sale of unused goods in all regions except the Rift valley, this rise was approximately 21 % from Kshs. 17B to Kshs. 20.5B in 2015. Unused art collections in households has also reduced significantly from Kshs.144 M to 7M, followed by furniture which moved from Kshs.27M to Kshs.17M while books, Dvd’s and Cd’s dropped from Kshs. 20M to 7M.
OLX as a trading platform is committed to helping people unlock money hidden in used items. Its success can be seen in that there has been a notable 37% drop in hoarding of used goods. People nowadays are basically buying more, consuming more and also wasting more. OLX helps people waste less through collaborative consumption and extending the life-cycle of products by selling stuff which would have otherwise wasted away in a store. For example in most cases you can find that about 20% of the stuff in your house is irrelevant so instead of holding on to such, one can just sell and make money to meet other financial needs.
The AC Neilsen research concludes that if people traded a good fraction of their unused goods, it would lead to the following benefits; More money flowing back to the economy hence spurring demand for goods and services, people selling would be able to lower their cost of living by being able to offset cost of the new item to be purchased from the revenue generated by sale of the old item, It enables people to acquire high quality items cheaply that is if they decide to buy a used item.
Basically Kenyans have realized that they are sitting on a gold mine, and that the OLX platform helps them turn this goldmine into cash.