Are you taking full advantage of the second-hand clothing market? The movement is picking up steam, with customers wanting to give their clothes and accessories a new lease of life for resale or to enjoy them for longer. Even better — it also opens up a wealth of potential revenue and brand growth opportunities for you. Here’s why every retailer should get in on the action, how to support customers in selling or upcycling clothing, and how you can get started.
Repair and resale: the rise of preloved fashion
Welcome to the age of preloved clothes! The market has been gaining traction over the last few years, and thanks to apps like Depop, ThredUp, Poshmark, and Vinted, it has broken into the mainstream. For reference, the second-hand clothing market is currently worth 256 billion dollars and is expected to increase by 100 billion dollars by 2029. It’s growing 2.7 times faster than the global apparel market overall.
The burgeoning preloved fashion market isn’t just advantageous for sellers, who have an estimated earning potential of £146 a month (not bad for a closet clean out!). Buyers also get a sweet deal, with access to top brands, luxury goods, or rare vintage finds at a lower price point, prompting 58 percent of consumers to shop second-hand apparel in 2024.
There’s an environmental appeal, too; a recent survey showed that environmental benefits were a key driver for half of all shoppers buying second-hand apparel. This brings us to the two main benefits of promoting repair and resale…
Why you’ll want to get in on the ‘repair and resale’ action
There are two very pressing reasons you’ll want to get involved with preloved fashion ASAP. The first is keeping hold of your brand power and earning potential. For example, brands like Dr. Martens, Patagonia, lululemon, Levi’s, and Nike have already launched official buy-back schemes to incentivize customers to return preloved goods in exchange for store credit.
Brands like Stella McCartney and Burberry have partnerships with Resale as a Service (RaaS) outlets like Vestiaire Collective and The RealReal, which allow them to benefit from the luxury fashion resale market without committing to an in-house buy-back scheme.
The second—more pressing—reason to get involved with the rise of resale and repair markets is a legal one. Under upcoming Digital Product Passport legislation, all retailers selling apparel or textiles into the European market must give detailed product information for each individual item they sell. This could include material composition and origin, detailed care instructions, repair information, and how to recycle the garment at the end of its life.
DPP legislation is part of the European Green Deal, which aims to promote circularity and repair, so getting in on the action early and freely giving this information to your customers is a great way to help them now while prepping for your brand’s future. And we use the word ‘future’ loosely! We know that DPP legislation requires end-of-life or care instructions (potentially in phase two of three), so it’s definitely something you should already be thinking about.
How to start the process
There are a few ways you can get involved with the repair and resale market ahead of DPP legislation. Although you can jump into a preloved outlet, buy-back scheme, or RaaS partnership, you can also take baby steps by pulling your existing repair, care, and material info together in a helpful customer-facing format.
Brands like Oliver Bonas and Uniqlo have best-in-class care and repair hubs that give detailed, customer-facing info on how to make garments last longer. It’s a fab, accessible way to put the right info into the right hands while you work on collating all your data ahead of the DPP rollout.
Speaking of the DPP rollout, if you’re collating information on your garments and textiles for a repair and resale market, you may as well start your DPP project plan. In our recent fashion and textiles sustainability report, we recommend starting with a thorough audit of your supply chain, materials, and products before the legislation comes into force. It's big stuff, so you might want to go into it with a partner like us at Checkpoint (subtle nudge).
Our experts have already piloted DPP labeling and digital information storage with a global apparel brand, and as a CIRPASS-2 partner, we’re at the heart of the action where legislation is concerned. We’ve got flexible options, we’ve got scalable, fast data uploading, and we’re teeming with ideas. We can also help you use labeling to provide care and repair info ahead of the legislation via more detailed instructions or interactive elements that customers can scan with a smartphone. It’s all possible with the right partner!
Get in touch and ask how we can help you use labels to kickstart your preloved fashion marketplace, but be warned, we’re going to blow your mind.
