Used good

Used goods, also known as secondhand goods, are any item of personal property that have been previously owned by someone else and are offered for sale not as new, including metals in any form except coins that are legal tender. Used goods may also be handed down, especially among family or close friends, as a hand-me-down.

Furniture, especially bedding or upholstered items, may have bedbugs, if they have not been examined by an expert and some goods may be of poor quality.

Recycling goods through the secondhand market reduces use of resources in manufacturing new goods and diminishes waste which must be disposed of, both of which are significant environmental benefits. Another benefit of recycling clothes is for the creation for new pieces of clothing from combining parts of recycled clothes to make a whole new piece. This has been done by multiple fashion designers recently and has been growing in recent years.

However, manufacturers who profit from sales of new goods lose corresponding sales. Scientific research shows that buying used goods significantly reduces carbon footprint (including CO₂ emissions) compared to the complete product life cycle. In most cases, the relative carbon footprint of production, raw material sourcing, and the supply chain—which comprise a great deal of the product's life cycle—is unknown. A scientific methodology has been made to analyze how much CO₂ emissions are reduced when buying used goods like secondhand computer hardware versus new hardware.

Quality secondhand goods can be more durable than equivalent new goods.

Many items that are considered obsolete and worthless in developed countries, such as decade-old hand tools and clothes, are useful and valuable in impoverished communities in the country or in developing countries. Underdeveloped countries like Zambia are extremely welcoming to donated secondhand clothing. At a time when the country's economy was in severe decline, the used goods provided jobs by keeping "many others busy with repairs and alterations." It has created a type of spin-off economy at a time when many Zambians were out of work. The used garments and materials that were donated to the country also allowed for the production of "a wide range of fabrics" whose imports had been previously restricted. The trade is essentially executed by women who operate their small business based on local associations and networks. Not only does this provide self-employment, but it also increases household income and enhances the economy. But while many countries would be welcoming of secondhand goods, it is also true that there are countries in need who refuse donated items. Countries like Poland, the Philippines, and Pakistan have been known to reject secondhand items for "fear of venereal disease and risk to personal hygiene". Similar to these countries, India also refuses the import of secondhand clothing but will accept the import of wool fibers, including mutilated hosiery which is a term meaning "woollen garments shredded by machine in the West prior to export." Through the production of shoddy (recycled wool), most of which is produced in Northern India today, unused clothing can be recycled into fibers that are spun into yarn for reuse in "new" used goods.

There has been concern that export of electronic waste is disguised as trade of used goods, with the equipment ending in poor-country waste dumps.

In developed countries, unwanted used clothing is often donated to charities that sort and sell it. Some of these distribute some of the clothing to people on low incomes for free or at a very low price. Others sell all of the collected clothing in bulk to a commercial used clothing redistributor and then use the raised funds to finance their activities. In the U.S., almost 5 billion pounds of clothing are donated to charity shops each year, only about 10% of which can be re-sold by the charity shops. About a third of the donated clothing is bought, usually in bulk and at a heavy discount, by commercial dealers and fabric recyclers, who export it to other countries. Some of the used clothes are also smuggled into Mexico.