The popularity of online auctions has been highlighted by a new survey detailing the money that is being made from people selling unwanted goods.

According to free-to-list second hand site Preloved.co.uk, 73 per cent of people in the UK have bought or sold second-hand gear on the internet in the last year, compared to just 42 per cent in the previous year.

It explained that the "stigma" of second-hand goods has been washed away by the credit crunch and subsequent recession.

Ian Buzer, the founder of Preloved.co.uk, said that he has seen a notable increase in the last 12 months for people listing their unwanted items.

He continued: "Many of the items posted online by our sellers are of fantastic quality - I truly believe that for all the downsides of the recession, it's taught people to be more frugal, which surely can't be a bad thing."

Preloved was founded in 1998 and has since become one of the largest classified ads sites in the UK.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were guaranteed response times and allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues.