Why fashion brands are using pre-loved clothing as a competitive advantage' ''

Consumers love pre-loved clothing.'

Buying second hand fashion has become a common behaviour with 52% of consumers reportedly shopping second hand apparel in 2023.'According to ThredUp's annual Resale Report (in partnership with GlobalData), 10% of the global apparel market is expected to be made up of second hand fashion by 2025. The global second hand apparel market also grew 18% in 2023.'

Historically, pre-loved clothing was the wares of charity shops, vintage stores and jumble sales. Finding a specific item was like looking for a needle in a haystack with trawling the racks in-store the only option.'

The rise of e-commerce marketplaces like eBay widened the market for pre-loved clothing, including making it easier to search for certain items or categories of clothing. More recently, second-hand clothing platforms have exploded with the likes of Vinted, Depop, Poshmark, and Vestiaire Collective.'

In fact, eBay's 2024 Recommerce Report found that 86% of shoppers surveyed have bought or sold a pre-loved item in the last 12 months.'Now it seems that more and more retailers are adding pre-loved clothes to their own physical stores, moving second hand fashion from dedicated spaces to being part of the normal retail mix.'

What's interesting is that many of the more prominent brands that are currently exploring pre-loved clothing in their stores are fast fashion businesses. Given that their business models are based on producing lots of new styles quickly and responding to trends, making space for older, second hand items is a significant shift.'

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