Ensuring consumer participation in circular markets and breaking the value-action gap are part of the sustainable consumption research agenda. This paper aims to uncover the barriers to entering the second-hand economy and measures taken to overcome those barriers by participants.
The findings of this research are based on an exploratory qualitative study conducted in France and Czechia. Data were collected by means of in-depth interviews with e-commerce users.
The weak framing of the peer-to-peer transaction serves as a barrier to participation and a source of inefficiency in second-hand online markets. The potential traders perceive the trading situation as uncertain and are thus forced to perform the framing themselves through relational work or to exempt themselves from second-hand consumption sites.
Although online second-hand markets are an integral part of the circular economy, they remain an underexplored topic. The study of why the core elements of the design of second-hand online markets are repelling to casual consumers sheds light on the elements of the value-action gap with the aim of narrowing it.
