Second-hand shops are booming in Palma

With thousands of people unemployed or on furlough people are selling whatever they can to get money they desperately need, while other people are snapping up items for bargain prices.

“We’ve noticed a significant increase in customers, especially at the beginning and end of the month," explains Dolores Lebrato, Head of Sales at Cash Converters in Avinguda Joan March in Palma who says the company also offers other services.

"We offer instant loans of between 50 and 500 euros and customers have 30 days to repay it."

The shop has a wide range of products on its shelves, including multi-generation consoles, jewellery, designer bags, mobile phones, prams and bikes and Dolores says some items are more popular than others.

“Weights and other gym equipment disappeared quickly after confinement,” she says. "We are expecting a surge of people who want to sell things this winter to raise funds.”

"Since July we have noticed that more people come to sell their consoles, computers or phones and we hope that sales and purchases of technological products will peak at Christmas,” says Carlos Chacón from Cex store near Plaça d’Espanya, which specialises in laptops, state-of-the-art telephones, video games, tablets and cameras.

For many people in Palma and elsewhere in the Balearic Islands, second-hand shops are a lifeline and sometimes selling cherished belongings is the only way to put food on the table.