LONDON, December 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Consumers are refusing to let the current economic climate deny them a sunny winter break and are being more creative about how they sustain the demands of pre-Christmas spending.

It seems online second hand retail is enabling some consumers to ride out the storm and not have to make too many sacrifices to their lifestyle in the process.

London business development manager Jeremy Fielding (30) has just booked his holiday break to Sardinia funded by selling his entire bookshelf and CD collection on Play.com and offloading some of his daughter's old toys on eBay.

I am so excited to manage to defy the credit crunch and still get my yearly fix of November sunshine. I felt this year it was slightly extravagant to be going away amidst all the doom and gloom reports, but am now managing to take my family on a well-earned break and de-clutter my living room to make way for the Christmas tree.

Growing consumer sentiment towards websites selling second-hand products was confirmed by web monitoring firm Hitwise last month, which said searches containing the words 'second hand' had increased by 22 per cent over the last 12 months

Graduate James Hicks (24) received around GBP200 after offloading some of his student textbooks to fund his Christmas spending.

'It's such a liberating feeling selling old textbooks and getting some pre-Christmas cash in the process' he said. 'The other great thing is that it is helping someone get their degree books for a fraction of what they sell for in the shops.'

Play.com's Luke Taylor commented 'People are realising that their collections of DVDs and CDs are worth serious amounts of money, and now could be a good time to turn them back into cash.'

Notes to editors:

PlayTrade is the new way to make money selling DVDs, CDs, books, concert tickets and games and more to millions of customers who either shop at Play.com or sell second hand goods online.

Whether a user has one or one million things to sell, listing them for sale at Play.com couldn’t be simpler. Step-by-step guidelines ensure that the users products appear on the site within a matter of minutes and the next time a customer comes to buy that item, they are given the option to buy it from the user. Once the product has been sent out, PlayTrade passes the proceeds on to the user.

For further information or pictures contact: Melissa Gilmour Three's A Crowd plc 4 Bloomsbury Square London WC1A 2 RP M: +44(0)20-7-242-6151

For further information or pictures contact: Melissa Gilmour, Three's A Crowd plc, 4 Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1A 2 RP, M: +44(0)20-7-242-6151