Retail technology innovation of the week: Ikea is bringing its secondhand marketplace to UK
Retail Technology Innovation of the Week is a series brought to you by RTIH, highlighting stand out deployments, launches, and initiatives by retailers and tech suppliers. Every week, we showcase forward thinking tech plays that have impressed our Editor and the Retail Technology Innovations Report judging panel, building up to the publication of the 2026 report later this year.
And this week we’re focusing on Ikea UK which reports the upcoming launch of a new platform: the Ikea secondhand marketplace. Available to Family members, this is a dedicated space where pre-loved products can find a new home. The platform will enable customers to connect directly with one another. The announcement builds on pilots in Spain and Norway.
An Ikea spokeperson says: “We are always looking for new ways to make life at home even better and help our customers discover products they love. With the launch of Ikea secondhand marketplace in the UK, we’re taking a meaningful step toward creating a destination that simplifies access to pre-owned Ikea furniture.”
“Our goal is to make passing on beloved Ikea pieces as seamless as possible. We’re creating a trusted and vibrant space to make it quick and easy for our Ikea Family members to trade directly with one another. We want the process for buying and selling pre-owned products to be simple, accessible and rewarding.”
Further information regarding the official launch and how customers can participate will be made available in the coming months.
And honourable mentions this week for...
Wonder and Serve Robotics
Wonder is partnering with Serve Robotics to bring autonomous delivery to customers in Chicago, Los Angeles and Alexandria on the Grubhub marketplace. The launch expands robot delivery across more than 100 participating merchants in Chicago and nearly 200 in Los Angeles, while also bringing the technology to Wonder’s Potomac Yard location in Alexandria.
"A year ago, our robots were delivering dinner in a handful of neighbourhoods. Today they serve three of the country's largest delivery platforms, they're rolling into new cities from San Jose to the nation's capital and their hospital cousins are showing up in health systems across the country," says Ali Kashani, Co-Founder and CEO at Serve Robotics. "Welcoming Wonder and Grubhub to our network is the clearest signal yet of where we are headed. Every new partner puts more robots to work and every delivery makes the whole fleet smarter."
"We're constantly looking for ways to make the customer experience more convenient and reliable," says PJ Poykayil, EVP of Customer Delivery Operations at Wonder. "Our partnership with Serve brings autonomous delivery to Grubhub customers in Chicago, Los Angeles and Alexandria while also enabling robot delivery from our Potomac Yard location in Alexandria. As we continue to grow, partnerships like this help us expand delivery options, improve efficiency and create a more seamless mealtime experience."
Tilt
Live shopping app Tilt has launched Clips, a scrollable feed of short, buyable videos, enabling people to shop or sell, without waiting for a stream to go live. In what is pitched as an industry first, anyone can create a listing in under three seconds. AI handles the shoot and write up, so all that's left is a real person showing you a real thing.
Tilt says that this is its biggest launch since its $26 million in fresh funding from the likes of TQ Ventures, Vinted Ventures, Balderton.
"Machines are great at a lot of things. Getting you to buy from a stranger you've never met isn't one of them,” says Neil Shah, Co-founder at Tilt. "Trust is about to become the rarest thing on the internet. As AI floods the world with fakes, that gap only gets wider. Clips is how we close it: you see the item in someone's hands, every detail, and seconds later it's yours.”
"I held up a pair of shoes and it identified them straight away, the description was spot on," says Clips user Viraj Singhal. "It's a tenth of the time it'd take to list on eBay - a lot quicker and a lot more seamless."
Live stays at the centre of Tilt, while Clips gives buyers a way to browse and buy in their own time. Tilt says that Clips follows a simple bet: the next generation won't shop through static listings the way their parents did. They'll discover and buy the way they already watch everything else, through real people, on video, through a feed.
According to a press release: “TikTok did it for entertainment, YouTube did it for television, Instagram did it for photos: each turned a passive format into something anyone could make and everyone could scroll. Shopping is next. And just as those platforms turned viewers into creators, Clips turns shoppers into sellers.”
