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The ethos of eBay has evolved significantly since the resale platform was introduced in 1995, from a 2003 “Weird Al” Yankovic parody song listing, well, junk purchased on the site to dressing pop stars at the Met Gala the past two years.
As more consumers are turning to the platform for value—pre-loved and refurbished products now account for 40% of eBay’s gross merchandise volume—eBay is committed to its values around sustainability. It even hit its goal to achieve 100% renewable energy powering its operations by 2025 a year early.
“We’re staying the course when it comes to sustainability,” eBay’s Chief Sustainability Officer Renee Morin told Retail Brew. “It’s part of who we show up as. We have to have trust on the platform, but we also need our consumers to have trust as to who we are as corporate actors.”
Morin shared how the resale pioneer is doubling down on sustainability as recommerce’s popularity rises.
How has the recommerce space evolved in the past couple of years?
Both recommerce and sustainability have continued to evolve. We get more questions now from investors on our climate goals, on what we’re doing in recommerce, specifically, as it relates to sustainability, more so than maybe five years ago, where they were thinking just specifically on the business terms. In terms of what eBay has been doing outside of the investor space, we have been interacting with our consumers a lot more. We started our Recommerce Report four years ago, so this will be the fifth we’re actually surveying, initially, eBay sellers and buyers, but now just general sellers and buyers, and what their perspectives on sustainability and recommerce are, [and] what are the drivers for recommerce. What we’ve really seen is that there used to be an ick factor along with thrifting and consignment, and now that is completely gone, and it’s cool to thrift. It’s cool to participate in recommerce, that generations are skewing a little younger, in terms of the affinity and also understanding the linkages between sustainability and recommerce.
And that’s where my role comes into play a lot. We actually have a goal. It’s a corporate goal of how much carbon emissions we’re going to avoid through the sale of used and refurbished goods over a five-year period, and how much waste we’re going to keep out of landfill, because our sellers and buyers are interacting within recommerce and buying used and refurbished goods. All of that really helps to reinforce that, while the primary reason might be value, because you could buy something a little less expensive because it’s pre-loved, but you’re also keeping that thing out of a landfill, you’re also reducing the amount of carbon emissions from producing something new.
One of the more interesting places that I’ve seen eBay recently was at the Met Gala. What are the ambitions around eBay’s playing in the sustainable fashion space?
It’s our second year at the Met. Chappel Roan is one that we were dressing. Having that connection through a very impactful event with has a lot of eyes on it, a lot of fashionista eyes on it as well. And then also using influencers; we have a cast of influencers that we were already eBay sellers or buyers. They are already using eBay, and so they get to help be our voice for the “cool stuff that I found on eBay today.” It helps to keep us relevant in a very social media area that we’re in currently. It’s obviously important to connect where the consumer is, and to play in the fashion space.
In a recent interview, you said “sustainability in general is overly complicated. We need simpler decision-making tools.” Can you expand a little bit on that?
In general, we put too much onus on individuals to make decisions where, just like with an e-commerce platform, you want to take the friction out of that purchasing process. You want to make it as simple as possible. And same with sustainability. I was a consultant before I came to eBay and worked with a company, and behind the doors, we said with that company that they want to have no bad choices on the shelves. So you can make it simple enough that the offerings are sustainable. Then Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so doesn’t have to go and do their research to decide which is better, which is worse. There’s only good choices. Anywhere we can help to make that process simpler, and have recommerce go across so many different verticals. For instance, because you’re buying pre-loved, you are doing something that is value-driven, but also sustainability-driven. So making it simpler is where we need to continue to head as not just e-commerce, but in retail in general.