New Delhi, (IANS) : Indians stocked a whopping Rs 78,300 crore worth of used goods in their homes this fiscal as against Rs 56,200 crore last year, according to a research study by leading consumer-to-consumer marketplace OLX India released on Tuesday.

The Consumer Research on Used-Goods and Selling Trends Survey’s third edition was conducted by Indian Market Research Bureau across 16 cities.

“At an average cost of real estate at Rs 4,200 per sq ft in urban India, the 80 million urban households in the country would be blocking Rs 16.8 lakh crores worth of real estate because of unused items,” said company CEO Amarjit Singh Batra.

“Its interesting to see both stocking and selling figures rising. The emergence of consumer-to-consumer (C2C) online classifieds in the country has led to greater awareness about used goods. A few years ago people didn’t actively think about unused goods and stocking but now they do. That’s the primary reason why we see stocking figures moving up,” he said.

The survey estimates that the value realised through online selling is on an average 25 percent higher than the one realized through offline selling, and 47 percent higher than that through exchange across multiple categories.