Own Less, Spend Smarter: How the Circular Economy Is Gaining Ground With Latin American Consumers
Ownership has long been treated as a foundational aspiration in Latin American consumer culture. The home, the vehicle, the appliance purchased outright — these have historically signaled economic stability and social standing in ways that differ meaningfully from consumption patterns in the United States or Western Europe. Against that backdrop, the emergence of a robust and growing preference for secondhand goods, resale platforms, and rental models across the region represents a genuine shift in consumer psychology — one that IDCL Latin Survey has been tracking with increasing attention.
The data is not ambiguous. Across surveys conducted in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Chile over the past 18 months, we have documented a consistent and accelerating trend toward what researchers broadly term circular economy consumption: purchasing used goods, participating in peer-to-peer resale, and renting rather than buying for categories that once saw near-universal ownership intent.
Not a Poverty Response — A Preference Shift
The first and most important clarification the data demands is this: the growth of secondhand and rental consumption in Latin America is not primarily a response to economic hardship. This distinction matters enormously for US companies trying to interpret the trend correctly.
In previous economic downturns across the region, used goods markets expanded predictably as consumers traded down out of necessity. What IDCL Latin Survey is observing now is structurally different. Among respondents in the upper-middle income brackets — households with discretionary spending capacity — the preference for secondhand or rental options in specific categories is increasing even as purchasing power holds steady or improves.
In Brazil, 43 percent of respondents earning above the national median household income reported deliberately choosing a secondhand option for their most recent major purchase, despite having the financial capacity to buy new. In Chile, that figure reached 51 percent among respondents aged 25 to 38. These consumers are not making a financial concession. They are making a values-based decision.
Generational Architecture of the Circular Economy
Age is the single strongest predictor of circular economy participation in our dataset, and the generational divide is sharper than many regional analysts have acknowledged.
Consumers between the ages of 22 and 35 — the cohort that came of age during the global proliferation of platform-based commerce — demonstrate significantly higher comfort with secondhand purchasing across virtually every product category we surveyed. Clothing and accessories lead this group's resale participation, followed by consumer electronics, children's products, and home goods. This generation has been shaped by global exposure to platforms like ThredUp, Depop, and Facebook Marketplace, and has adapted local equivalents — including Brazil's OLX and Mexico's Trovit ecosystem — into regular shopping habits.
Consumers over 50, by contrast, retain strong preferences for new goods across most categories, with exceptions concentrated in agricultural tools, vehicles, and real estate — categories where used-market transactions have long been culturally normalized across the region. This older cohort expresses concern about product quality and hygiene in the secondhand context, concerns that resale platforms have been slow to systematically address through verification or guarantee mechanisms.
For multinational retailers, this generational architecture has direct strategic implications. The circular economy consumer in Latin America is, for now, predominantly young, urban, and digitally fluent. Companies that design resale or rental programs with this profile in mind — rather than treating the circular economy as a universal offering — are more likely to achieve meaningful early adoption.
Category Patterns and the Rental Model's Quiet Rise
Beyond outright resale, rental models are gaining traction in categories that would have seemed implausible candidates five years ago. Our survey data documents growing consumer interest in renting furniture, home appliances, and even fashion items for specific occasions — a behavioral shift that reflects both changing attitudes toward ownership and the practical reality of high urban mobility among younger Latin American professionals.
In Mexico City and Bogotá specifically, where rental housing is the dominant tenure arrangement for adults under 40, the logic of furniture rental has become increasingly intuitive. Why purchase a sofa that will need to be sold or abandoned in two years when the next move comes? IDCL Latin Survey respondents in these cities cited "ease of transition" and "avoiding the hassle of resale" as primary motivators for rental preference — language that mirrors the rationale US consumers use when describing their own shift toward subscription and rental models.
Fashion rental, while still nascent, is generating outsized interest in our qualitative data. Focus group participants in Santiago and São Paulo described occasion-based clothing rental as both financially practical and environmentally appealing — a dual motivation that appears across multiple demographic segments and is not reducible to either economic constraint or pure sustainability ideology.
What Multinational Retailers Need to Know
For US companies operating in Latin America or evaluating market entry, the circular economy trend presents both a competitive challenge and a commercial opportunity.
The challenge is straightforward: a growing share of the consumer base is actively seeking alternatives to first-sale retail. Companies that respond to this shift only defensively — by discounting new goods or ignoring the resale channel — risk ceding influence over an increasingly important consumer touchpoint.
The opportunity is more nuanced. Brands that establish credible presence in the resale or rental ecosystem — through certified pre-owned programs, branded rental partnerships, or resale platform integration — gain access to a consumer segment that is demonstrably engaged, research-intensive, and loyal once trust is established. IDCL Latin Survey data shows that consumers who first engage with a brand through a secondhand channel are nearly as likely to make a subsequent new-goods purchase from that brand as consumers who entered through traditional retail.
The circular economy in Latin America is not a fringe movement. It is a structural evolution in how a significant and growing portion of the region's consumers think about value, ownership, and identity. US companies that recognize this early — and build strategies calibrated to the data rather than outdated assumptions — will be better positioned to compete in the market that is actually emerging.
