While many wouldn’t necessarily associate fast fashion retail with recycling or second hand clothing, in an age where consumers care more than ever about sustainable fashion and fashion waste, more retailers are adapting and hopping onto the trend that is resale and second-hand clothing.
The market saw a boom amid the Covid-19 pandemic as online platforms saw floods of traffic as Brits and shoppers worldwide stayed home and despite lockdown now easing the trend looks like its here to stay.
Here’s a roundup of retailers who offer resale services alongside their original business models:
Resale services will first become available to Net-a-porter customers at the end of October and will extend to Mr Porter and The Outnet early next year.
Shoppers will be able to sell pre-loved designer items across the jewelry, ready-to-wear, bag and shoe categories with Reflaunt powering the journey from beginning-to-end and ensuring it’s as seamless as possible.
The luxury retail group is hoping to inspire its customers to invest in luxury goods, touting precisely where they can resell them at a later date.
Complimentary pickup from customers’ homes, digital product authentications, pricing recommendations and photography of the secondhand products will all be part of the service.
The Reflaunt Resell Service at Harvey Nichols launched on August 26, allowing customers to resell bags and any luxury piece in their wardrobe including fashion, accessories and watches.
Sellers can then earn up to 80 per cent back of the original price when the items are resold on the online service via the department store’s website in the form of a direct bank transfer or Harvey Nichols vouchers.
In addition to this, last month the luxury department store retailer also partnered with Kids O’Clock to launch a childrenswear resale drop-off destination, in celebration of its newly launched childrenswear floor.
The resale concept will allow customers to drop-off their children’s pre-loved clothing at the drop-off destination in store.
JD.com
Users who sell on the app will have to pay Jing Zhi a six per cent commission fee to the platform or sell their second-hand items through JD.com’s AiHuiShou division.
Currently the most popular category of products that are being listed are electronics however there is a small proportion of luxury, fashion and beauty products available.
Urban Outfitters
The platform which is set to go live this autumn will enable customers to buy or sell women’s, men’s and children’s fashion and accessories.
Customers will have the opportunity to resell products from any brand and not just those from the URBN portfolio which includes Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People, BHLDN and Terrain.
When customers sell an item on the platform, they will be able to transfer their earnings to their bank account or redeem them for Nuuly Cash, which will be worth 10 per cent more at Nuuly Thrift and the URBN family of brands.
Levi’s
Last year Levi’s launched its own resale platform allowing customers to sell their old jeans back to the brand.
Levi’s Secondhand offers resellers between $15 and $25 in store credit for their old jeans depending on quality.
For jeans that are too well-worn to be resold, the fashion retailer will still offer $5 in credit and recycle the garments with partner Renewcell.
“Repurposing and repairing clothes requires minimal additional energy input, no water and no dyes to make more jeans,” Levi’s chief marketing officer Jennifer Sey said.
“Buying a used pair of Levi’s through SecondHand saves approximately 80% of the CO2 emissions and 700 grams of waste compared to buying a new pair of Levi’s.
“We want to make Levi’s Secondhand second nature. This launch is the first step, but definitely not the last one
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