At home with Gumtree: A cultural analysis of Australia’s popular secondhand online marketplace

Introduction

Gumtree is a popular online marketplace for trading used goods as well as accommodation and jobs. It was launched in London in 2000 by two British bankers and entrepreneurs, Simon Crookall and Michael Pennington, to assist Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans moving to London in forging social networks (Brook 2005). Purchased by a leading international e-commerce business eBay in 2005, Gumtree has been sold to the global online classified company Adevinta, in which eBay now holds substantial shares (McIlvaine, 2020). In Australia, Gumtree started in 2007 and was, until recently, the second (after eBay) most-visited online shopping site in an average month (Lerner, 2019; Roy Morgan, 2018). The brand estimates that it attracts 7 million unique visitors, which is a significant number given Australia’s overall population of 25 million, hosting 2.8 million listings each month (Gumtree, 2021: 2). Despite this popularity, there is little academic analysis of the Gumtree phenomenon. The only identified study of Gumtree, in sociology, explores the advertising and sale of secondhand wearable technologies (Lyall, 2019).

To address this gap, I examine Gumtree’s self-positioning as a sustainable, local and social online marketplace from a cultural perspective. The adopted approach conceptualises retail spaces ‘in context’, as ‘actively produced, represented and contested’ (Blomley, 1996: 239), constructed through narratives, ‘stories’ and ‘performative’ in the way they organise shopping (Boyd, 2002; Crewe, 2003: 355–356; Eskjær, 2013; Gregson et al., 2002; Gudeman, 2008; Leyshon et al., 2005; Miller et al., 1998; Welch, 2020). Drawing on the vast consumption literature, my focus is placed on Gumtree’s representational and branding strategies to analyse how this popular marketplace is created – and how it communicates and shapes consumption values and practices in Australia. In particular, I follow Gregson and Crewe’s (2003: 19–50) theorisation of secondhand retail (e.g. retro shops) as constructed in relation and difference to ‘conventional/mainstream’ retail, involving discursive means, across the ‘imaginings’ of ‘products’, ‘retailer and consumer’ attributes and ‘spatialities’. ¹

Diverse research material was collected for the period between 2017 and 2021 – with 2017 marking the 10th anniversary of Gumtree’s presence in Australia, which was accompanied by a significant rebranding campaign (included in my analysis). Gumtree’s annual Second Hand Economy reports, ² containing mission statements, consumer tips, guides and some statistics, were used as a primary source and read for insights into the marketplace’s self-definition and its secondhand market performance. Industry reports on secondhand economy and online shopping in Australia have provided broader contextual information. It is important to note, however, that a few reports include independent data on Gumtree, and many cite Gumtree’s own commissioned reports. Some reports exclude online marketplaces such as eBay or Gumtree, while others note their market impacts but do not offer specifics.

My analysis of the Gumtree identity also includes the interpretation of the audio–visual, advertising content released by the company between 2017 and 2021, available on its YouTube channel, with some screened on commercial TV: the 2017 We Call it ‘Gumtree’ commercial; the The Evolution of Gumtree clip produced on the occasion of Gumtree’s 10th anniversary in Australia and the Buyers and Sellers of Gumtree series; the 2018 Keeping it Real; Join the Secondhand Economy series; the 2020 Long Live Local commercial and Gumtree Local Legends video series. In total, 22 clips were analysed for the purposes of this article. Finally, in light of limited sources on Gumtree, online news articles devoted to advertising and retail sourced through the Factiva database (using the keywords of ‘Gumtree’ and ‘shopping’) provided further information and access to additional direct quotes by Gumtree management, especially in connection to the well-publicised 2017 and 2020 branding campaigns.

The first part of the article describes Gumtree as an important player in Australia’s secondhand economies, against the backdrop of macroeconomic and online retail trends. Based on my thematic analysis of Gumtree’s self-promotional material, the second part demonstrates how the platform employs – ambiguously at times – the identified, prominent themes of sustainability, locality and sociality, while mobilising discourses around ‘thrift’, ‘ethical consumption’ and recently ‘circular economy’, as well as the understanding of social events and cultural imaginaries of the local or Australian place. Gumtree’s ‘sustainable-local-social’ formation is significant in the Australian context, characterised by high rates of consumerism, with 71 percent Australians admitting to possessing ‘more than they need’ and almost half caught up in the gratifying cycle of buying new (mccrindle, 2019: 8), and high, per capita, carbon emissions – yet deeply politicised and criticised as conservative official environmental policies.

This article contributes to the existing shopping scholarship through an analysis of the three themes – sustainable, local and social – as they are fashioned and projected in this particular context. The case of Gumtree Australia sheds further light on the previously documented interconnections between cultural, social and economic aspects in secondhand markets (and shopping more broadly) and the deliberate representational processes that underpin the making of online markets (Boyd, 2002; Eskjær, 2013). It demonstrates educational and performative qualities of the corporate communication designed to influence the local Australian consumer market, reinforcing the argument that online marketplaces should not be viewed instrumentally, as a functional infrastructure (Crewe, 2017: 143; Leyshon et al., 2005). ³ The company’s own representations suggest self-awareness of this active function, positioning Gumtree as ‘more than a trading platform’ (Doctor, 2017). I conclude by underscoring the merits of cultural perspectives for studying consumer markets (Crewe, 2003, 2017; Littler, 2009; Zelizer, 2011; see also Evans, 2019; de Kervenoael et al., 2018) including under-researched online secondhand marketplaces (Armstrong Soule and Hanson, 2018; Parguel et al., 2017; Saarijärvi et al., 2018).

Part 1: Gumtree as an online secondhand marketplace

Gumtree is an online classified site, similar to online marketplaces such as Craigslist in the United States (Lingel, 2020), leboncoin in France (Parguel et al., 2017) or Kijiji in Canada (Weisblott, 2012), operating, within national borders, as digital intermediaries (Perren and Kozinets, 2018). Present in several countries (e.g. Gumtree Australia or Gumtree UK), it allows users to post free ads and shop for a range of products and services (including ‘cars & vehicles’, ‘home & garden’, ‘jobs’, ‘real estate’ and ‘services for hire’) that can be filtered by price and location – from national through to state, region and suburb. Many of the goods listed on the platform are used or pre-loved items, which makes Gumtree a form of ‘redistribution market’ (Botsman and Rogers, 2010). As an accessible, local site for secondhand goods and diverse services, Gumtree bears resemblance with the popular online classified website Craigslist (Lingel, 2020), and it can be also compared to Facebook’s Marketplace and Facebook groups centred on ‘local’ and ‘social’ exchanges (Saarijärvi et al., 2018: 1093). Etsy is another well-known global online ‘social-commerce-type marketplace’ that enables a trade in handmade products, and shares with Gumtree the emphasis on local and sustainable consumption (Arantes, 2019: 126). I refer to Gumtree as an ‘online marketplace’ because of its ‘Australia’s Free Marketplace’ tagline, and to highlight the connections shaping shopping – between identity (socially and ‘discursively constituted’) and place (Miller et al., 1998: 20) – as key to examining its local, Australian form.

As a commercial company, Gumtree makes money from the listings with enhanced online exposure ⁴ and production features and from ‘targeted’ advertising reliant on its data analytics (Falk, 2019; Griffith, 2016). Although Gumtree, like its former owner eBay, now hosts ads for products for sale in primary markets, its core identity continues to be constructed around secondhand trade. The Australian secondhand economy, according to industry accounts, has expanded from ‘a niche market’ to ‘a mainstream industry’ because of demand for affordable products, rising costs of living and economic uncertainty, as well as the convenience of online shopping (Burgio-Ficca, 2021: 10). The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in new financial precarity and, separately, significant growth of online shopping in Australia (Australia Post, 2021; Cloutman, 2021). The importance of this socio-economic setting is reflected in Gumtree’s 2021 annual report, which pays special attention to the post-COVID situation, placing the company squarely as an enabler of ‘financial well-being’ for many Australian households experiencing financial difficulties, and a contributor to the circular economy (Gumtree, 2021: 2). The expansion of online shopping is predicted to continue, according to the Gumtree management, opening up additional opportunities for the platform (Greenblat, 2020).

Sustainable

A central theme in Gumtree’s promotions is ‘sustainability’, grounded in the communicated value of re-circulation and re-use of consumer products for environmental benefit. The notion that online secondhand marketplaces should be a ‘form of sustainable commerce’ because fewer resources are used for producing new products, thus reducing waste and carbon emissions (Botsman and Rogers, 2010: n.p.; also Behrendt et al., 2017; Franklin, 2011; Parguel et al., 2017) has been captured in Gumtree’s self-definition as a ‘sustainable marketplace’, often accompanied by remarks about the recognised pro-environmental attitudes and preferences characterising its imagined consumers. For example, it has been stated that ‘48% of Aussies are becoming more concerned about the environmental footprint of buying “brand new”’ (Gumtree, 2020a: 5) or that 86 percent take environmental considerations into account when buying new or getting rid of existing possessions (Gumtree, 2021: 10). Secondhand shopping is presented as an opportunity ‘for Australians to make extra cash online and to extend the life of unused items’, emphasising the popular motivation to ‘save cash and reduce waste’ (Gumtree, 2017a: 2). In this iteration, the combination of thrift (as cost saving and ‘resourcefulness’ ⁵ ) and waste minimisation is prominent and posited as everyday, practical and enterprising consumer action (see also Lyall, 2019).

The theme of ‘sustainability’ has appeared, in Gumtree’s communications, with different emphases. While the focus on practical and sustainable outcomes of goods re-use has been consistent, the language has also included seemingly more lofty ideas of supporting ‘the environment’ contextualised within the perceived zeitgeist of global ‘eco-consciousness’, and where the Australian consumer ranks very high – reportedly only second to their UK counterpart (Gumtree 2018a: 9). This emphasis is discernible in the statement by Kirsty Dunn, Public Relations (PR) Manager, who explained,

What’s clear, in an era of eco-consciousness and upcycling, is that Australians are becoming less ‘throw away’ in their attitudes, recognising that the value of the secondhand economy goes beyond just cost. (Connor, 2017)

Through such pronouncements, Gumtree orients itself, ostensibly, towards ethical values, which materialise in domestic consumption practices, but also transcend a strictly thrifty or cost-saving type of secondhand shopping. The company’s 2021 communications reinforce the appreciation that ‘there is a growing consideration around the future of the planet and shifting traditional models of consumption for more sustainable practices’ (Gumtree, 2021: 10) and reflect the pivot from the previously employed discourse of sharing and secondhand economy (Gumtree, 2017a) towards circular economy. While the rhetoric continues to assert that ‘when we share more, we waste less’ (Gumtree, 2021: 2), what stands out is the explicitly articulated green communication and educational agenda, enacted through a new strategic partnership with Planet Ark, ⁶ a trusted, not-for-profit organisation championing positive and inclusive environmental change initiatives in Australia. This alliance, we read, was concocted to educate ‘Australians on the benefits of trading in the circular economy, and, as a result, will drive the adoption of more sustainable practices nationally’ (Gumtree, 2021: 2).

While in Gumtree’s case, the focus is on promoting sustainability through secondhand and local shopping to the Australian consumer, the purchase of ethical ideas is far-reaching, and not exclusive to Gumtree. Their history and application have been addressed in cultural studies of consumption, including when these ideas are used to advocate ‘buying for reuse’ as part of the international anti-capitalist or environmentalist movements (Franklin, 2011: 158) or by commercial companies to create consumer markets. Emily Potter (2011: 119) has explored, for example, the mechanisms through which bottled water was ‘ethically branded’ by corporations, not simply as a product, but as a social cause that can appeal to consumers willing to meet ‘their ethical responsibilities’ in the neo-liberal capitalist societies. Jo Littler (2009: 23-24), too, has studied different corporate campaigns (e.g. American Express RED; Mecca Cola) with their ethical, ‘cause-related marketing’ as a form of ‘caring through consumption’, arguing that its goal is essentially to ‘sell us the idea that through buying their product, we can make the world a better place’ (see also Mukherjee and Banet-Weiser, 2012).

More recently, Welch (2020: 61) has identified ‘promotional sustainable consumption’ as an emergent ‘consumer formation’ established through discourse and ‘commercial communications’, aimed at instilling new norms for sustainable consumption, whereas Behrendt et al. (2017) alluded that communication strategies, linking companies and consumers, play a role in mainstreaming circular consumption (see also Evans, 2019). Industry writing on online shopping discerns the ‘conscious consumer formation’ as well (Yip and Jones, 2019: 17), even though actual environmental contributions made by expanding online retailers remain largely debatable (Dhanorkar, 2018; Eskjær, 2013; Parguel et al., 2017; Parker and Weber, 2013). Gumtree’s communications, with the stated objective to ‘convey the environmental benefits of an Australian circular economy’ represent an example of such formation (Gumtree, 2021: 3). They locate the company expediently, amid aligned ‘financially and environmentally responsible’ (Gumtree, 2021: 2) consumer patterns, in collaboration with the environmental organisation, Planet Ark, and previously, alongside traditional goods re-distribution practices, including through ‘a garage sale’ and popular in Australia charity secondhand store donations (Gumtree, 2018a: 10; see also Franklin, 2011). Gumtree constructs itself as an actor that supports sustainable or circular commerce which spills into the way the company uses the local as another key, interrelated theme in its identity-making.

Before progressing, it is important to note that Gumtree extends invitations to make the most of unwanted material possessions – that ‘you may have forgotten you were holding onto’ (Gumtree, 2018b) – in reference to the local context. Australians are represented as ‘a nation of hoarders’ (Gumtree, 2019: 5), which is borne out in some consumption data. One study found that 88 percent of the surveyed Australians admitted to having ‘at least one cluttered room’ (Fear, 2008: 1) at home, another that 80 percent recognised that Australians ‘consume significantly’ more than what’s needed’ (mccrindle, 2019: 8), while Gumtree’s own commissioned research shows a large and steady percentage of Australians with unwanted things at around 80-90 percent, translating into the potential AUD$48 billion worth of secondhand economy in 2021 – up from AUD$43 in 2019 and almost doubling since 2011 (Gumtree, 2019, 2021). Australians are further identified as the most prolific of hoarders among the countries in which eBay’s online classifieds operated, with 25 unwanted items per household in 2018 (Gumtree, 2018a: 9), although this number has slightly decreased since. Against this background, the advertised road to ‘a quick cash’ is to start by ‘decluttering’ the home to find ‘unused, high-quality items that other people in your local community might be looking for’ (Gumtree, 2018c – emphasis mine; also Gumtree, 2018b; Gumtree, 2020b). The inherent significance of locality for the expressed link between secondhand trade and sustainability is discussed below.

Local

Gumtree has promoted itself as a local marketplace regularly, across various promotional material and communication channels. The 2018 annual report states this direction plainly: ‘It’s our mission to empower people, create economic opportunity, and to be Australia’s favourite local marketplace for all of life’s needs’ (Gumtree, 2017a: 2). Two important branding campaigns were developed to reinforce the local image, generating popular commentary about Gumtree-fostered social exchanges and user stories that the company integrates into its advertising. ⁷

The 2017 This is Gumtree: Australia’s local marketplace campaign included a promotional clip titled We Call it Gumtree that zips through pictures of busy global marketplaces including Morocco’s traditional multi-coloured bazaar and Japan’s glitzy modern-city shopping complex to end up in front of a large brick veneer house on a sizable plot, in what looks like one of Australia’s new outer-suburb housing estate. ‘In Morocco, they say “souk”, in Japan “ichiba” but here we call it “Gumtree”’ – is proclaimed, as a familiar gardening tool – a whipper snipper – changes hands between two men, one called Gary, greeting each other with a friendly ‘G’day’ (Gumtree, 2017b).

The depicted casual exchange in the ordinary setting – in the suburban driveway – has the purpose of bringing out the informal and local characteristics of the secondhand trade with which the platform seeks an association. Its reliance on the ‘local’ theme – here through the place-specific, suburban scene – is culturally meaningful and strategic. The house pictured in the advert presents an affordable, aspirational option reflecting fixed notions of Australian identity linked to homeownership (Allon, 2014) and residential developments with large housing estates built on the peripheries of the metropolitan cities, often catering to newly arrived migrants (Ballantyne, forthcoming; Visontay, 2021). Although homeownership is increasingly tenuous due to the housing crisis, ⁸ online shopping is found to be prevalent among outer ‘new growth corridors’ dominated by ‘an influx of young families’ (Yip and Jones, 2019: 21) constituting a viable market for Gumtree.

The significance of the local for Gumtree’s retail identity has been also tied with the crafted representations of community connections (more below) and environmental benefits that local, secondhand shopping is evoked to offer. Gumtree summarises this entanglement of benefits and its own contribution as follows:

Over the past year, 90 million items have changed hands across living rooms and front yards helping to enrich Aussie’s back pocket and reduce waste from going to landfill. (Gumtree, 2020a: 1)

The 2020 Long Live Local advertisement provides a further productive illustration of how the relationships between local place, sociality and sustainability are forged. The campaign included a central ad, broadcast on national commercial TV and Gumtree’s social media channels, portraying anxious young couples at a ‘mega store’, which resembles the Swedish furniture giant IKEA. This image, played out to the sounds of an operatic soprano, gives way to the couple sealing the purchase of a dining table at a Gumtree seller’s house with a friendly handshake, followed by the slogan: ‘Next door beats mega store: Gumtree: Long Live Local’. The Gumtree website features its variation: ‘Join the Buy Local Revolution’ (Gumtree, 2020d).

This advert underscores, once again, the recurrent themes in Gumtree’s communication: local shopping is presented and valued as a socially rewarding experience (linked to place) and as an ethical consumer option (also linked to place) – although the choice of the ‘mega-mall’ or ‘mega-store’ words to advertise Gumtree’s role in supporting such ‘mindful’ local practice is intriguing since they sound (still) more American than Australian. The image of local secondhand exchange inside the seller’s house connotes the defining sociality in a dual sense: it stands for relations between sellers and buyers – after all, in secondhand markets, ‘purchasers are acquiring some of the tastes and remainders of another, just as sellers are giving something of themselves’ (Gudeman, 2008: 113; also Appelgren and Bohlin, 2015). At the same time, the comfortably casual and friendly shopping with Gumtree (similar to the We Call it Gumtree advert) is contrasted with ‘stressful’ experiences in mainstream stores or malls, as the ad has been described in popular writing (Wilkinson, 2020).

The elements of this representation are found across Gumtree’s analysed video material as well, where the value-generating social-local combination is equally salient. Exchanges are depicted as taking place in suburban streets and driveways, cluttered garages, at the doorstep or inside people’s houses. Protagonists express affection or support for their local communities, as in the Gumtree Local Legends video series, where a young couple, in the Renomates episode, chooses to renovate their house in order to remain in the same neighbourhood (Gumtree, 2020f), or when a 30–40-something married mother of two nostalgically makes over a caravan to holiday ‘in her own backyard’ in order to support a local community that had endured the 2020 Australia’s Black Summer bushfires – ‘even though’, as the narrator explains, ‘Jen can go anywhere, she likes to keep it local’ (Gumtree, 2020e).

In addition, the meaning of locality is projected through the construct of a community that Gumtree actively ‘brings together’ (Gumtree, 2018a: 2) and as a dynamic space, where Gumtree shoppers trade, interact and where they can, thanks to Gumtree, make a difference. The platform announces,

It’s our mission to facilitate successful, safe local trade and the secondhand economy helps all Australians and their local communities prosper. (Gumtree, 2020a: 1)

To understand Gumtree’s promotional work in regard to local identity, it is useful to draw on existing retail scholarship. Available research has advanced an understanding that diverse cultural and economic geographies shape different retail spaces (Blomley, 1996; Gregson et al., 2002; Wrigley and Lowe, 1996). Daniel Miller and his colleagues, drawing on their ethnographic studies of suburban shopping malls in the United Kingdom, insisted on ‘grounding’ analyses of consumption in specific place-based practices and the materiality of ‘the shopping centres themselves and the neighbourhoods and communities’ (Miller et al., 1998: 185). The political and ideological ‘context’ and ‘relationship to locality’, they argued, are a source of identity-formation and difference between shopping sites ( Miller et al., 1998: 192).

One of the best-known studies of secondhand shopping, focused on traditional or physical secondhand sites such as garage sales and charity stores, is the work by cultural geographers, Nicki Gregson and Louise Crewe (2003; also Gregson et al., 2002; Crewe 2003). In their seminal work, Gregson and Crewe (2003: 19–50) elaborated on how retail spaces are built out of mutually constitutive and dynamic interrelations between retailers and consumers involved in representing, talking about and doing shopping. ‘The symbolic positioning of exchange’, organised around ‘difference’, is key to this identity-making process, with a specific location being a meaningful marker of distinction (Gregson and Crewe 2003: 19–50). Secondhand retail spaces are produced according to such ‘geographies of location’ and through ‘an oppositional imaginary’ identified in retailers’ ‘business talk’ and used as a way to relate to and differentiate between first (mainstream) and secondhand (alternative) retail, and also among different secondhand sites. Mainstream stores – associated with an abundance of new ‘mass-produced’ products and ‘out-of-town’ retail spaces with ‘mass’ shoppers (Gregson and Crewe, 2003: 19–50; also Gregson et al., 2002) are contrasted with secondhand stores standing for ‘one-off’, ‘unique’ goods and the social, ‘thrilling’ experience of shopping, extending also to a creative re- or upcycling and reusing (Gregson and Crewe 2003: 19–50; also McRobbie, 1994).

The way Gumtree has, over time, represented itself as a champion of local, sustainable or ethical secondhand marketplace can be interpreted in line with such an ‘oppositional imaginary’. Its self-promotions are consistent with academic comparisons drawn between secondhand versus primary markets. Synthesising the secondhand literature, Fabio Marzella emphasised the uniqueness of secondhand goods, viewing them as mediators of ‘human relationships’, which are purchased ‘according to the principles of durability and the re-introduction into the market’, unlike disposability and ‘depersonalisation’ characterising firsthand markets (Marzella, 2015: 105, 118). The difference between first- and secondhand sites is also mentioned in the work of McRobbie (1994: 141), who pointed out ‘the impersonality of the department stores’ versus ‘the values of familiarity, community and personal exchange’ at traditional street markets – the latter are showcased in Gumtree’s marketing.

Gumtree has consistently issued calls to ethical consumption through the discourse of thrifty (and entrepreneurial), waste-minimising secondhand or circular commerce, but the Long Live Local campaign does so through the firm focus on ‘buying local’, reflecting broader consumer trends (Australia Post, 2021: 25). As Amanda Behre, Gumtree’s Head of Marketing put it:

We want to rally Australians to trade more consciously and act locally first – whether that be selling to a mate up the road, buying from a car dealer in your area, or supporting a small business in your suburb. (Wilkinson, 2020)

Within the scholarly critique, ‘buy local’ campaigns are developed to counter the impacts of global commodity chains by appealing to the consumer to support environment, local economies and place-based community connections (McCaffrey and Kurland, 2015; see also Guthman, 2008). This, according to McCaffrey and Kurland (2015: 292, 300), is achieved through messaging that ‘equates local with ethical’ and appropriates ‘romantic associations’ to draw out ‘emotional responses’ from consumers as a means of creating ethical markets. Gumtree’s publicity demonstrates this type of ‘emotional’ and morally marked marketing. It links local shopping to ethical consumption through the language that ‘romanticises’ sociality and familiarity of the local, with an intent to establish, what Miller and his colleagues (1998) discussing shopping malls, described as ‘localised affective relations’ (p. 28) among consumers of a specific retail space. However, read across Gumtree’s promotions, the above statement marks, at the same time, a shift in the platform’s communication, whereby the earlier focus on secondhand shopping as valuable appears to extend to firsthand trade – provided it is done locally. Elsewhere, there is a hint that Gumtree-mediated local shopping is being distinguished from ‘the Internet’ (B&T Magazine, 2020), implying the perception of international online retail competition (McDonnell, 2018). However, it must be noted that Gumtree’s ‘local’ does not appear as a disavowal of ‘global’ since its communications situate the marketplace within the international social histories of trade (e.g. We Call it ‘Gumtree’) and establish ethical connections to ‘the world’ and ‘the planet’.

Social

Some of the ways in which Gumtree builds its identity as a social – the self-professed ‘community marketplace’ ⁹ – have already surfaced in the discussion of the ‘sustainable’ and ‘local’ themes, especially in relation to the conjoined productivity of local place and pleasant informality associated with secondhand or ethical trade. Although this article focuses on Gumtree’s 2017–2021 promotional content, it is important to note that the emphasis on social relations has been integral to the Gumtree brand since it launched in the United Kingdom, motivating, reportedly, the choice of the name ‘gum tree’ to convey place-based sociality (LLB Editor, 2012; see also Montgomery, 2016).

In Gumtree Australia’s promotions, references to sociality and community have been numerous. For example, on the occasion of its 10-year anniversary in Australia, Gumtree marketing manager, James Walmsley observed,

With seven millions users, Gumtree is more than a trading website, it’s Australia’s local marketplace – a community focused destination that’s rich in human exchange and experiences. (Doctor, 2017 – emphasis mine)

This emphasis on ‘human exchange and experiences’ attempts to cast Gumtree as more than an economic, transactional marketplace – and can be theorised within the vast literature on retail and consumption that discussed sociality as an integral feature of shopping (Wrigley and Lowe, 1996). Exploring shopping centres, sociologist Rob Shields (1992: 110) argued that ‘shopping is not just a functional activity’, and that at the heart of ‘commodity exchange and its sites’ lies what Lefebvre labels ‘social centrality’, which is critical to their success and thus strategically ‘cultivated’ (Shields, 1992: 104-105). Sociality was highlighted by Paul Glennie and Nigel Thrift, who defined it as ‘the basic everyday ways in which people relate to one another and maintain an atmosphere of normality’ (Glennie and Thrift, 1996: 225). Miller et al. (1998) recognised it as significant in the study of shopping malls in Britain, as did John Cross and Alfonso Morales in their work on street vending and modernity where they argued that ‘markets are more than price-setting mechanisms’ because ‘exchange represents and reinforces social ties’ (Cross and Morales, 2007: 2). The focus on ‘sociality’ has also been noted in studies of secondhand markets. Gregson and Crewe (2003: 19: 50) have argued, for example, that secondhand sites are hosts to ‘messy’ practices, variedly defined by transactional but also social experiences of shopping: of playfulness, browsing or bargaining; while Appelgren and Bohlin (2015) have emphasised sociality and community-building in secondhand exchanges occuring online and through social media.

In the Gumtree communications, the theme of ‘social’ operates in several interdependent ways. It is expressed through references to digitally mediated but conducted ‘in person’ exchanges – on doorsteps, in driveways, up the road, in the neighbourhood, backyard, and so on, as described previously. In addition, the company depicts its users as a ‘national community where locals connect’ (Gumtree, 2020c – emphasis mine), and attempts to reflect this community through harnessing Gumtree users’ stories about the different ways in which they use the platform and their social effects.

The 2017 video series called Buyers and Sellers of Gumtree (Gumtree, 2017c), for example, includes a story of a young female musician in Brisbane who, at ‘a real life sliding-door moment’, found, through Gumtree, a share-house, which led to a new artistic opportunity and close friendship. There are other accounts: of a male in his 50s who discovered a vacant affordable space for a yoga studio in Sydney, having left a taxing corporate job for serenity and company of ‘happy’ people; of a young couple, expecting their first child, who entered into a sustainable clothing business (purchased on Gumtree) to lead a flexible and ethical lifestyle, or a middle-aged couple who, after illness in the family, rebounded and, with help of an acquired secondhand food truck, started a new business, and so on. These stories carry a message about the contributions that Gumtree makes beyond enabling consumption (of products and services) – to positive social changes (Green, 2017; O’Brien, 2017).

The 2020 Gumtree Local Legends video series documents too what has, in the academic literature, been discussed as a meaning-making, transformative capacity of consumption filtering into (cause-related) marketing (Potter, 2011: 120), and into widely popular reality TV programming that presents everyday consumption as formative, aspirational and ‘a means to greater ends’ such as personal and family welfare (Ouellette, 2019: 544, on decluttering). Here this is achieved through the portrayed engagement with secondhand goods and the Gumtree community, resulting in benefits to broader communities. For example, in the Tiny Home Big Dream video, a young male converts a shipping container into a tiny house to help communities impacted by the 2020 Black Summer Bushfires in Australia. The Gumtree community, we learn, assisted materially and emotionally, contributing to the project and connecting the protagonist, himself with a troubled history, ‘to the [like-minded] community he didn’t have before’. Referencing the events of the bushfires and COVID-19 pandemic, the narrator reinforces the point that ‘we need each other more than ever’, and that the platform can assist in strengthening these relations (Gumtree, 2020g). A similar message appears on the Gumtree app, encouraging shoppers to ‘look out for each other with acts of kindness’ and joining the ‘Gumtree Support Network’ (#LocalLegends).

Similarly, the Renomates clip, scripted à la a property TV show, Grand Designs, depicts young couple renovating on ‘limited funds’ while expecting a child, to communicate the value of belonging to a local community and collective, environmental benefits of re-using, rather than buying new and ‘putting more stuff out to the world’ (Gumtree, 2020f). Gumtree’s (2019) overall description of its ‘empowering’ role is concise and hyperbolic:

Over the past 10 years, Gumtree has helped enable the growth of the second hand economy and helped people take control of their lives with what we believe is essentially an online life tool. (p. 9 – emphasis mine)

This promotion of itself as a ‘life tool’ parallels eBay’s use of ‘shared narratives’ and ‘stories of people whose lives have changed because of eBay’ (Boyd, 2002: 14–15), reflecting a marketing strategy deployed to establish trustworthy, ‘emotional connection’ (Boyd, 2002: 14–15) or ‘mutuality’ between brands and consumers (Gudeman, 2008: 111; see also Crewe, 2017). For Gumtree, this relationship is furthered by referring to users as a ‘community’ (like eBay), for example, its existing shoppers as ‘Gumtree’s seven million-strong community’ (Gumtree, 2019: 9), or potential shoppers as ‘untapped communities’ (Gumtree, 2021: 9). The company’s ethical messages are regularly pitched to ‘Australians’ or ‘Aussies’, when it hopes to elicit a shared interest in the circular commerce it advocates,

Gumtree is committed to breaking down barriers to circular trading and enabling more Australians to make more mindful decisions. By empowering Aussies to trade together, these behaviours will reinforce the fact we can save together. (Gumtree, 2021: 12)

Willing Gumtree (2021: 4) users to be a community of responsible, ethical consumers, who can ‘challenge traditional models of consumption’ for the good of the local economy and the planet, the company’s rhetoric illustrates the notion of ‘collective individualism’ discussed in consumption studies. Rachel Wood, for instance, has explained the application of this concept, building on the work of Jo Littler and Kim Humphery, to the communication strategies used in user-generated, anti-consumerist YouTube vlogs. Wood argues that such anti-haul content, while displaying hallmarks of individualistic consumer choice, ‘builds on a sense of the individual in relation to others, as part of a loosely united collective’ (Wood, 2021: 2762; see also Littler, 2009: 19). Gumtree’s statements are congruent with this theorisation; in fact, we are told that good consumption ‘starts with one of us. It ends with all of us’ (Gumtree 2021: 2).

Australian Gumtree: interrelations and ambiguities

Gregson and Crewe’s (2003) Second-hand Cultures has been influential for its rich interpretation of pre-digital secondhand retail spaces as formed through dynamic, context-specific and contingent processes, shaped by discourses and situated practices. Relations and differentiation, as they argue, are key to this identity-making process, and can be traced across the categories of products, (consumer and retailer) practices and spatialities. Their conceptualisation of the ‘symbolic positioning of exchange’ (Gregson and Crewe, 2003: 19–50) – alongside the scholarly discussions emphasising discursive effort that goes into creating consumption spaces (Blomley, 1996; Boyd, 2002; Eskjær, 2013; Gudeman, 2008; Welch, 2020) – offer a productive framework for my analysis.

Gumtree Australia has developed a range of representations to craft its Australian retail identity around the three interrelated themes: ‘sustainable’, ‘local’ and ‘social’. In this, the company has fused the ideas of locality with appeals to ‘sustainable/circular consumption’ and to sociality that it seeks to cultivate. Its 2021 self-definition captures this confluence poignantly, describing Gumtree (2021: 2) as a marketplace that places the future of the planet and the experience of the community at the centre of its model.

Gumtree’s identity-making as a sustainable, local and social marketplace is contextual and contingent, displaying, what Gregson et al. (2002) termed ‘a tapestry of particularity and generality’ (p. 598) in their account of secondhand shopping spaces. Gumtree utilises particular versions of Australianness ¹⁰ and industry insights, however, the overarching branding strategies that underpin its specific self-representation are common and well-rehearsed in the literature. In the context of online marketplaces, for example, eBay had used storytelling and its shoppers’ accounts of eBay-enabled self-transformations to ‘rhetorically construct’ its ‘community’ (Boyd, 2002: 3). Boyd has moreover demonstrated narrative interrelations in the eBay formation. Etsy too has employed ‘dualistic and oppositional narratives’, to fashion itself as a locally situated ‘loving, caring and comforting’ digital space, different from ‘the ugliness of products out there’ (Arantes, 2019: 126 – emphasis in original). In academic discussions of ethical consumption, the deployment of ‘emotional’ and responsibilising language, detected in Gumtree’s communications, has been shown to pervade the marketing of ‘buy local’ campaigns (McCaffrey and Kurland, 2015) and of ethical consumer products held up as capable of addressing social problems (Potter, 2011). Gumtree promotions have also drawn on popular celebrity and reality TV cultures to connect with its users, as described by Marwick (2013: 16) in her study of branding and social media, sharing a general preoccupation with ‘stories about real people’ and with changes forged through expert instruction and consumption (Ouellette, 2019: 537; Redden, 2018).

This cultural analysis of Gumtree’s self-representations reveals and confirms the importance of ‘oppositional imaginary’ involved in creating retail spaces (Gregson and Crewe, 2003). In general, the company produces communications that are designed to extol values of a sustainable, local and social trade – where consumer products are re-circulated, re-used and literally change hands in people’s houses and in the neighbourhood, and where the handshake seals the deal. ¹¹ However, these communications include a range of meanings and ambiguities, which suggests not only different approaches in corporate publicity, but restates the finding about complexities of retail and consumer formation, constituted by evolving meanings, discourses and commercial landscapes, as put forward by rich analyses of retail (Blomley, 1996; Gregson and Crewe, 2003) and ethical consumption (Littler, 2009; Franklin, 2011; Potter, 2011; Welch, 2020; Wood, 2021).

For example, the platform urges its consumers to shop locally for sociality and sustainability, but its practical instructions appear occasionally confused. ‘Keep searching’ and ‘expand your search area’ is the guidance Gumtree (2018a) gives to consumers who might have not found what they are looking for: ‘It’s great when you find something local, but if you’re after real gems, you need to be willing to go the extra distance to find them’ (p. 12). The message about supporting re-use in the circular economy is communicated across its promotional material, including in statements by Gumtree management and advertisements. But the promoted secondhand – an alternative to wasteful – consumption, has, also, been portrayed as a series of seemingly frivolous purchases, for example, an episode in the Long Live Local series, depicts an approximately 60 years old male who keeps buying what is dubbed ‘garage hobbies’-type items (golf clubs, guitar, bike) from different male sellers and sells, in the end, from the insides of his cluttered garage, the golf clubs to a young male buyer (Gumtree, 2020h).

These various and ambiguous meanings bring into view critical points about secondhand markets and their role in consumption cultures. Research has highlighted the relationship between first - and secondhand markets, whereby the former are driven by ‘the continuous disposal of old things’ (Strasser, 1992: 8; also Ouellette, 2019), while the latter are shaped by social and cultural (taste/fashion) parameters, and where only a portion of commodities is being re-circulated and re-used (McRobbie, 1994; Minter, 2019). Thrift-based shopping (as cost-saving or resourcefulness) is catered for by secondhand markets (including by the Gumtree marketplace), while an ‘economy of taste’ (McRobbie, 1994) undergirds their distinct characters. McRobbie (1994) argues that ‘the apparent democracy of the [secondhand] market, from which nobody is excluded on the grounds of cost, is tempered by the very precise tastes and desires of the second-hand searches’ (p. 140).

The ‘selectiveness’ identified by McRobbie is linked to class and geography (1994: 140), and, in the Gumtree case, appears in the marketing that signals discernment, taste and effort. For instance, clearly tapping into popular, in Australia, home-making and renovation cultures, Gumtree’s communications feature experts ¹² sharing ‘tips’ for ‘picking up a valuable find’ (Gumtree, 2018a: 11) and on how to ‘create a unique look for your home that can’t be found anywhere else’ (Gumtree 2018a: 12 – emphasis mine), promising that ‘You can always make things unique to your style’, through upcycling and with basic do-it-yourself (DIY) skills – or ‘Use your imagination and you’ll find gems everywhere’ (Gumtree, 2018a: 12). This orientation reflects the understanding that secondhand shopping can be motivated by ‘pleasure’, rather than necessity, of finding and/or re-purposing ‘unique’ and ‘individual’ goods, as well as shoppers’ distinction and competence, as put forward by the existing secondhand studies (Franklin, 2011; Gregson and Crewe, 2003; Gregson et al., 2002: 604–605).

The validity of class and taste is visible also in the specific distribution of online searches derived from digital trackability and Gumtree’s market analytics. Journalist Bree Winchester reports on local shopping patterns in the Australian capital, Canberra, drawn from the Gumtree data:

[‘Bike’], ‘car’, ‘desk’, ‘room’ and ‘dining table’ round out the top five things we search for as a city, but it’s when the data’s broken down into north versus south Canberra that we get an interesting insight into life at opposing ends of our fair city. The data speaks to the established blocks of the south and the new apartment overload in the north. The number one search term in Tuggeranong is ‘lawn mower’, while in Belconnen it’s ‘Ikea’. People in the south also search most for ‘lounge’ and ‘fridge’, while in the north they’re living the dream life, with ‘guitar’ and ‘sofa bed’ in the top five terms people from Belconnen search on Gumtree. (Winchester, 2017)

These search results demonstrate how Gumtree-mediated secondhand practices can be mapped onto class or generational consumer profiles within urban geography – here the north-south divide, manifest in the house versus apartment housing typology. At the same time, the company prefers to define its consumers through the alignment with shopping at ‘key life moments’, for example, categorising them as those renovating or moving home (B&T Magazine, 2019), while its video content suggests that shoppers of various financial means and lifestyle aspirations participate in the marketplace. This is also evident in the references to ‘uniqueness’ in style or look (see above) that co-exist with the representations of prosaic, affordable, sometimes stereotypically Australian, goods traded in the Gumtree marketplace such as a table, a bike, a whipper snipper, a lawn mower, a surfboard or a barbeque.

Notwithstanding this apparent ‘capture-all’ approach, Gumtree’s representations of its consumer cohort deserve a separate, critical scrutiny, ¹³ especially considering Australia’s multicultural society. Gumtree’s corporate video produced to celebrate the platform’s 10th anniversary in Australia portrays its racially and gender diverse workforce, emphasising the point that diversity fuels creativity and corporate success (Gumtree, 2017d). But the representation of difference appears lighter across the whole video material analysed for this article. Much of this content represents white characters, predominantly white men and further white, often young, couples. The two significant broadcast advertisements, We Call it ‘Gumtree’ and Long Live Local, have white characters as the central protagonists – two kempt men and a couple in their early 30s, respectively. A young white female influencer heads Gumtree’s instructional segments on how to make some money by ‘selling unwanted items online’ (Gumtree, 2020b), and a young, white renovator couple delivers DIY and re- or upcycling information, while the key media personalities engaged by Gumtree have been white, 30- to 40-something year-old men. Jason Dundas, former X-Factor presenter, is the face of the educational Keeping It Real campaign (Gumtree, 2018e; as well as featuring in the Buyers and Sellers series), and Grant Denyer, known as a host of a popular quiz show Family Feud and a racing car aficionado, has been chosen as Gumtree’s ‘ambassador’ to promote the platform’s new business venture into the Australian car sale market. Gestures to diversity are however present – for example, in the Buyers and Sellers of Gumtree series, in one of the videos, the viewer is given a house-tour by a self-confessed Gumtree addict who is a famous National Rugby League male player of indigenous background.

Unpacking Gumtree’s self-representations reveals how the platform navigates and represents the social and commercial characteristics of its retail identity and the trade it mediates. Like its former owner, eBay (Boyd, 2002), Gumtree promotes itself as a social marketplace, yet it is a commercial platform, with definite ambitions to achieve local market success (Gumtree, 2017d), while operating under the umbrella of the global online classified company Adevinta. It sells targeted advertisements and has entered the lucrative car sale sector to safeguard its growth prospects. Its ‘mission to empower people, create economic opportunity, and to be Australia’s favourite local marketplace for all of life’s needs’ (Gumtree, 2019: 2 – emphasis mine) is not dissimilar to Amazon’s famous ‘everything store’ slogan (Stone, 2013). The self-definition as ‘a growing force for good’ (Gumtree, 2021), of particular significance in the Australian context beset by the widely criticised inadequacies of official environmental policies, adds moral grandeur to the company’s pursuit of social and business relevance.

To consider Gumtree’s social and commercial dimensions, it is helpful to conceptualise the making of its identity through the engagement with ideas about the economy and online retail. Economic anthropologist, Stephen Gudeman (2008), discussing the general constitution of the economy, argues that it is best understood as underpinned by the dialectic relations between ‘market’ and ‘community’, ‘profit’ and ‘mutuality’, ‘competition’ and ‘social relations’. ‘The dialectics of mutuality and trade’ define, he maintains, the conduct of formal and informal market players (e.g. corporations and garage sales participants), and how they make sense of and represent the trade, giving a relevant example of for-profit companies invoking ‘community’ and ‘mutuality’ (Gudeman, 2008: 112–13).

Observing listings and user practices on Gumtree, sociologist Ben Lyall has suggested that the Gumtree (2019) marketplace displays a range of social and financial values and can indeed be characterised as ‘remix[ing] systems of exchange and sociability’ (p. 117). The ‘tension between community and commerce’ has been previously theorised by Josh Boyd in his early analysis of eBay, where he points out the company’s competing profit and community-building imperatives, and argues that this tension may be ‘resolved by cautiously accepting eBay as both: as a community of commerce’ (Boyd, 2002: 9, 10). Emergent consumer studies elaborate on such dynamics across different online retailers (Armstrong Soule and Hanson, 2018; Perren and Kozinets, 2018; Saarijärvi et al., 2018: 1102). Saarijärvi et al. (2018) remark, for example, that Facebook trading groups combine social and economic values (including thrift and pro-environmental re-use) – and because of local, ‘socialising’ aspects, they are reminiscent of ‘flea markets and swap meets’ (p. 1102).

Gumtree (and eBay) has been explicitly likened to a ‘garage sale’ in business commentary (Moore, 2019), which is a productive label to refer to in light of Gudeman’s observation that garage sales represent ‘nearly pure trade, an expression of mutuality, or an ambiguous combination’ of both (Gudeman, 2008: 113). Gumtree’s identity-formation demonstrates such an ‘ambiguous combination’ between commercial and social functions. Or put differently, it shows, as Marwick (2013) has observed in her study of branding, how ‘the social becomes economic and vice versa’ (p. 169). In the Gumtree case, the slippage between the social and the economic is reflected in statements such as ‘Behind every transaction on Gumtree, there is a wealth of untold stories’ (Gumtree, 2017d), or when Gumtree uses economic language about leveraging the ‘true value of your [material] assets’ (Gumtree, 2020b), at the same time as it coaxes the Aussie consumer into doing good for communities and the environment. These varied – and on the whole ambiguous – representations bring into sharp relief the point made by Crewe (2017) in her discussion of online fashion retail, which can be extended to the interpretation of Gumtree and online marketplaces more broadly: they are ‘a storehouse of signs, images, connections, and significations for consumers, producers, and intermediaries to work through and with’, rather than merely a ‘new transactional opportunity’ (p. 137).

Conclusion

This article has discussed the three key themes – sustainable, local and social – as the cornerstone of Gumtree’s Australian identity-making, revealing their interrelated and ambiguous manifestations. The analysis uncovers the expedient and varied ways in which the platform combines the ‘imaginings’ (in Gregson and Crewe’s sense) from the Australian popular culture with the circulating ideals of ‘thrift’, ‘ethical consumption’ and ‘circular economy’ related to the re-distribution and re-use of secondhand goods. The moulding of its retail identity (and of the Australian consumer and market) is organised in relation to local dynamics (e.g. hoarding cultures, housing realities) and significant events such as the 2020 bushfires or the COVID-19 pandemic, illustrating how the Gumtree marketplace adapts to the rhythms of Australia’s secondhand economies and reflects broader socio-cultural and industry patterns – actively negotiating, ‘working through and with’ them.

This study has focused on Gumtree’s communications during the 2017–2021 period, analysing the platform’s self-promotion that, in a general sense, is practically and future-oriented, built on the difference from conventional, mass and wasteful consumption. But more research remains to be done, for example, a detailed analysis of Gumtree’s depictions of its different consumer groups. It will be intriguing to see how Gumtree’s identity and communications evolve under the new ownership by the global online classified company Adevinta, in the changing, competitive retail landscape.

The cultural scholarship on consumption and retail canvassed here, most notably the classic work of Gregson and Crewe on secondhand cultures, has offered the conceptual parameters to analyse Gumtree’s self-representation and the shopping it endorses and shapes. My reading of the Gumtree online marketplace adds to this influential work on traditional markets (e.g. fairs, flea and, street markets), secondhand and charity shops, department stores and shopping centres, and restates the value of cultural analyses of economic and consumption practices (Crewe, 2003, 2017; Littler, 2009; Zelizer, 2011). It shows how Gumtree’s declared educational and reformist goal – underwritten by the context-specific symbolic and promotional work – makes the platform more ‘than just a trading website’; it makes it a meaningful, purposeful and ‘performative’ cultural economy phenomenon (Crewe, 2003: 355; Leyshon et al., 2005). Building on this scholarship and the Gumtree example, I reiterate the call for cultural researchers to study popular online marketplaces because of their multi-faceted and influential role in consumer cultures and markets.