Wallapop: Spain's second-hand market where deals no longer close

Wallapop no longer closes deals: the second-hand market has stalled

There is a paradox that comes up in every conversation about second-hand goods: the item is listed, it has thirty likes, it has been up for months and it does not sell. It is not that nobody wants it. It is that buyer and seller cannot reach an agreement. The diagnosis going around is that until 2015 or 2016 almost everything sold within a couple of weeks, and that now peer-to-peer selling platforms have become a shop window where nobody buys and nobody sells. A non-market, in the words of the person who opens the analysis.

The thesis is not that demand is missing, but that the mechanism has seized up at both ends. On the supply side, prices that double what the item costs new, sellers who do not reply, half-hearted listings. On the demand side, buyers who refuse to haggle over a single euro and those who only accept sealed products. And in between, haggling that stopped being a negotiation and became a humiliation contest.

The asking price and the price actually paid

The most common pattern is the seller who asks twice the price of a new item to make a profit. It is not an isolated impression: it appears as one of the main causes of the blockage. Add to that the uninterested seller, the one who lists and disappears, and the one who answers a question with silence. The result is that the buyer stops looking and the listing just sits there, piling up likes that never turn into money.

Some argue the problem is crossed expectations. The seller sets a high price expecting to be haggled down; the buyer sees the high price and moves on without even trying. The result is an absurd equilibrium where nobody makes a move. The platform, meanwhile, charges its mandatory insurance, which on cheap items can double the final cost, and that extra cost eats the margin that made the deal attractive.

The buyer who haggles twice and the one who never haggles

The other side is just as toxic. A type of buyer who lowers the price to close the deal and, once accepted, asks for another discount. It is described as insatiable greed: what matters is not a transaction advantageous to both parties, but coming out on top. With products piling up dozens of likes and going unsold for months while ridiculous offers come in, the seller eventually stops replying.

At the opposite extreme is the buyer who will not haggle a single euro on principle, and the one who only buys new out of prejudice. That buyer exists and also breaks the market: without negotiation there is no price adjustment, and without adjustment the listing stays up. The second-hand culture, they point out, never really took root here the way it has in other countries.

The insurance that doubles the price and the business done off-platform

The platform's cost is another of the focal points. The mandatory insurance is described as a disguised tax: on a cheap item, like a book, the surcharge can make it cost twice as much. From there come profits nobody knows what they are spent on. Many buyers and sellers have learned to dodge it by closing the deal outside the app, relying on accumulated fruta to ship the item without going through the hoops.

The trick has its flip side. Everything that goes through the payment gateway is recorded, sale price included, and that opens the door for the tax authorities to claim their share. Some have stopped using that system precisely for that reason, losing sales rather than leaving a trail. The ease of closing deals and the ease of being monitored are the same thing.

The crisis that does not show up in restaurants

The crisis narrative has its contradiction. If the economy is doing badly, second-hand trading should pick up. And yet some point to the opposite: restaurants, hotels and theatres are full, so there is no crisis to speak of. The drop in sales on the platforms would then not be a symptom of poverty, but of saturation and changing habits.

Against that reading, the other one: we are getting poorer, which is why people try to sell what they used to give away. The maths is simple. If a second-hand shop offers you twenty euros for something you could sell for a hundred, you sell it yourself. That migration from the shop counter to the private listing explains part of the supply, but not why the listing never closes.

The buyer's calendar and the art of not wasting time

The logistics matter more than they seem. Listing on a Friday night keeps the listing better positioned over the weekend, which is when people browse. Early in the month, with fresh paychecks, people buy more; from mid-month on, less. And the first one to offer real money, even a bit less than asked, is a guaranteed sale: a bird in the hand beats an eternal listing.

The reasonable-buyer filter also works. Anyone who starts without a greeting and with an absurd lowball is spotted from afar; replying with something like "I can't even take this offer seriously" usually makes them back off. Serious people show themselves quickly and the deal closes itself. The problem is that this filter takes time, and time is exactly what the tired seller no longer has.

A reflection of a country that cannot agree

The conclusion hanging over it all is uncomfortable: it is not just a pricing problem, it is a transactional culture problem. A country where the buyer distrusts used goods, the seller overvalues their own, and the platform charges for intermediating without guaranteeing the deal goes through. The result is a market that exists on paper and dies in practice.

What if the problem is not the crisis, but that nobody has learned to close a deal without feeling cheated?