Key Insights
Essential data points from our research
The global secondhand clothing market is projected to reach $350 billion by 2027
The global secondhand apparel market will grow 3X faster than the global apparel market overall by 2027
The US secondhand market is expected to reach $73 billion by 2028
62% of Gen Z and Millennials say they look for an item secondhand before purchasing it new
93% of shoppers say inflation impacts their decision to buy secondhand
80% of Gen Z have bought secondhand clothing
Buying a used garment extends its life by an average of 2.2 years
Buying used instead of new reduces the carbon footprint by 82% on average per item
Extending the life of clothing by just 9 months would reduce carbon, waste and water footprints by 20-30%
Online resale is projected to grow 4 times faster than offline resale by 2027
70% of online resale transactions happen via mobile devices
Depop has over 30 million registered users across 150 countries primarily under age 26
Over 88 brands launched their own dedicated resale programs in 2022 alone
60% of fashion executives have already invested or plan to invest in closed-loop recycling/resale
Lululemon’s "Like New" resale program expanded nationwide in 2022 after successful pilots
Consumer Behavior & Demographics
- 62% of Gen Z and Millennials say they look for an item secondhand before purchasing it new
- 93% of shoppers say inflation impacts their decision to buy secondhand
- 80% of Gen Z have bought secondhand clothing
- Consumers cite "saving money" as the #1 reason for buying used clothes (76%)
- 41% of consumers say they buy secondhand to find unique or vintage items
- 56% of consumers are willing to pay more for a brand that is sustainable and sells used versions
- Millennials are the most active generation in resale globally with 33% contributing to the market
- 37% of consumers have gifted a secondhand item significantly reducing social stigma
- 70% of women have shopped or are open to shopping secondhand
- Only 25% of consumers resell their clothes because they want to help the environment; most do it for money
- Men’s engagement in buying used clothing increased by 7% in 2022
- 46% of Gen Z have sold clothing online to earn extra cash
- 52% of consumers prefer to buy secondhand clothing in-store rather than online to check quality
- Parents save an average of $220 per year by buying secondhand for children
- 61% of luxury shoppers say they would switch to a brand that offers a buy-back program
- 27% of UK consumers cite "thrill of the hunt" as a key driver for charity shopping
- One in three consumers say they care more about wearing sustainable apparel than they did pre-pandemic
- 38% of consumers say they replace their wardrobe items less frequently now than 5 years ago
- 43% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with a brand that lets them trade in old clothes
- 75% of consumers in 2023 believed buying pre-owned apparel was socially acceptable compared to 60% in 2018
Interpretation
The used clothing market has quietly become thrift-store pragmatism with a luxury twist, as cash-conscious Gen Z and Millennials turn to pre-owned for savings, uniqueness and side income amid inflation, parents and women embrace it for kids and quality checks, brands that offer sustainable buyback and trade in programs can charge a premium and win loyalty, and collapsing stigma shows resale is now mainstream.
Environmental Impact
- Buying a used garment extends its life by an average of 2.2 years
- Buying used instead of new reduces the carbon footprint by 82% on average per item
- Extending the life of clothing by just 9 months would reduce carbon, waste and water footprints by 20-30%
- The fashion industry accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions resale helps mitigate this
- 73% of apparel sent to the US secondhand market is reused or recycled preventing landfill waste
- Buying one used item replaces the production of a new one saving approx 17400 liters of water for a pair of jeans
- Secondhand trade prevents 500000 tons of microplastics from entering oceans annually by reducing new synthetic production
- If everyone bought one used item instead of new this year it would save 5.7 billion lbs of CO2e
- Textile recycling and reuse saves 190000 tons of pollution from the air in the US annually
- Reusing 1 tonne of cotton clothing saves 24.3 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions
- Of the 100 billion garments produced each year 92 million tonnes end up in landfills resale is the primary buffer
- Only 1% of clothing material is effectively recycled into new clothing highlighting the need for resale over recycling
- Circular business models like resale could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 340 million tonnes by 2030
- 85% of textiles thrown away in the US are dumped into landfills or burned annually; resale diverts a portion of this
- Buying a used handbag saves 267 lbs of carbon emissions compared to a new one
- 1kg of reused clothing saves 70kg of CO2 equivalent regarding the production of new fibers
- Opting for a used dress saves approximately 21.4 kWh of energy usage
- Resale helps save the 4% of global freshwater withdrawal currently used by the fashion industry
- 33% of consumers view high durability and quality as key sustainability factors enabling the resale loop
- Purchasing used reduces the demand for raw materials (cotton/wool) usage by 3% annually in mature resale markets
Interpretation
Buying used clothes is the quiet superhero of fashion, with no cape but a closet full of choices, extending garments’ lives by an average of 2.2 years and cutting per-item carbon by roughly 82%, saving thousands of liters of water for a pair of jeans, preventing half a million tons of microplastics and diverting millions of tons from landfills and the air each year, and because only about 1% of clothing is effectively recycled, resale is the practical circular lever that could avert hundreds of millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases by 2030 and would save 5.7 billion pounds of CO2e if everyone bought just one used item this year.
Market Size & Projections
- The global secondhand clothing market is projected to reach $350 billion by 2027
- The global secondhand apparel market will grow 3X faster than the global apparel market overall by 2027
- The US secondhand market is expected to reach $73 billion by 2028
- Resale in Europe is expected to grow 20% annually compared to 3% for the overall fashion market (2021-2025)
- The Chinese secondhand clothing market was valued at over $11 billion in 2020
- Secondhand clothing is predicted to account for 10% of the global fashion market by 2025
- The UK secondhand clothing market grew by 149% between 2016 and 2022
- Luxury resale is predicted to grow at a rate of 10-15% annually over the next decade
- By 2030 the secondhand fashion industry is expected to be more than twice the size of fast fashion
- South Korea's used clothing market size was estimated at 500 billion won in 2020
- The African secondhand clothing market imports over $1.5 billion worth of apparel annually
- The children’s resale market is expected to grow 526% between 2019 and 2024
- The secondhand sneaker market alone is expected to reach $30 billion by 2030
- 14% of the Japanese apparel market consists of secondhand goods
- The global recommerce market (broader than just clothes) grew 5x faster than the broader retail market in 2022
- Used clothing exports from the EU reached 1.7 million tonnes in 2019
- The Indian secondhand market is expected to reach $9.7 billion by 2025
- 40% of the Australian population purchased pre-loved fashion in 2022, valued at $6 billion AUD
- The German secondhand apparel market had a revenue of approximately 3.9 billion euros in 2021
- Canadian secondhand economy transactions represented 1.23% of the country's GDP in 2018
Interpretation
Treat the used clothing market like a thrifted jacket that suddenly fits the whole industry: in a few years it will be worth hundreds of billions, grow far faster than new apparel, eclipse fast fashion by 2030, and spark booming regional and niche markets from luxury resale and sneakers to children's wear around the globe.
Online Resale Dynamics
- Online resale is projected to grow 4 times faster than offline resale by 2027
- 70% of online resale transactions happen via mobile devices
- Depop has over 30 million registered users across 150 countries primarily under age 26
- Poshmark users spend approximately 23 to 27 minutes per day on the app
- The key search term "vintage" volume increased by 55% on Lyst in 2021
- Live shopping for vintage items grew by 88% on platform Whatnot in 2022
- Vestiaire Collective bans fast fashion brands from their platform reducing listings by 5%
- Vinted has over 80 million registered members globally as of 2023
- 50% of resale listings on eBay are now refurbished or 'certified' items
- AI authentication in online resale has reduced counterfeit listings by an estimated 40% on major platforms
- RealReal processes over 16 million luxury items to date through its online consignment
- Cross-border resale ecommerce in Europe was valued at 14 billion euro in 2021
- 80% of online secondhand purchases in China are made via livestreaming platforms like Douyin
- Resale-as-a-Service (RaaS) technology provider Archive raised $15M to power brand resale sites
- 30% of online resale shoppers abandon cart if shipping costs exceed $10
- "Thrifting" related videos on TikTok have over 5 billion views driving traffic to online resale apps
- StockX verified its 10 millionth sneaker in 2020 highlighting the scale of streetwear resale
- Social commerce (buying directly through social media) accounts for 20% of secondhand sales for Gen Z
- Online listings with more than 4 photos sell 20% faster on peer-to-peer apps
Interpretation
The used-clothing market has quietly become a mobile-first, Gen Z-led, high-tech scavenger hunt, with online resale set to grow four times faster than offline by 2027, 70% of transactions happening on phones, Depop and Vinted counting tens of millions of mostly young users while Poshmark keeps people browsing for 23 to 27 minutes a day, vintage searches up 55% on Lyst and live vintage shopping up 88% on Whatnot, platforms banning fast fashion and using AI to cut counterfeits by roughly 40%, half of eBay resale listings now certified or refurbished, RealReal and StockX handling millions of authenticated luxury and sneaker items, cross-border and livestream resale already worth billions in Europe and China, RaaS startups attracting funding to power brand resale, TikTok thrifting videos driving billions of views and social commerce making up a fifth of Gen Z secondhand purchases, and shoppers abandoning carts if shipping tops ten dollars unless sellers win them with trust and photo-rich listings.
Retailer & Supply Chain
- Over 88 brands launched their own dedicated resale programs in 2022 alone
- 60% of fashion executives have already invested or plan to invest in closed-loop recycling/resale
- Lululemon’s "Like New" resale program expanded nationwide in 2022 after successful pilots
- H&M owns a majority stake in the secondhand platform Sellpy to integrate resale into their supply chain
- Zara launched its Pre-Owned platform in the UK in 2022 to control its own secondary market
- The cost of processing a single used garment for resale (sorting/cleaning) averages $2-$4 in the US
- Only 20% of donated clothes to charities are sold in retail shops; the rest enter the rag trade supply chain
- Goodwill diverts more than 3 billion pounds of clothing and household goods from landfills annually
- Brands that offer resale see a 15% increase in customer loyalty and repeat purchases
- Patagonia’s Worn Wear program has repaired over 130000 garments to keep them in circulation
- Levi’s SecondHand program allows trade-ins for gift cards keeping revenue within the brand ecosystem
- Automated sorting technologies can now process 10 textiles per second increasing resale efficiency
- IKEA launched a buy-back & resell service in 27 countries to circularize their supply chain
- Pakistan creates 30% of the world's recycled yarn from imported used clothing supply chains
- SHEIN launched "SHEIN Exchange" in the US in 2022 to mitigate criticism of its supply chain waste
- 50% of major fashion retailers are expected to have a resale component by 2030
- Urban Outfitters maintains a specialized "Urban Renewal" supply chain that sources thousands of vintage items weekly
- PanIP (intellectual property) protection costs for brands monitoring fake resale listings has risen 20% annually
- 100% of Alexander McQueen items on Vestiaire Collective are NFC tagged for authenticity in a brand partnership
- Ghana's Kantamanto market processes 15 million used garments every week from global supply chains
Interpretation
Used clothing has quietly become fashion’s new competitive edge, with over 88 brands launching resale programs in 2022 and half of major retailers expected to add resale by 2030, as Lululemon, Zara, H&M, IKEA and even SHEIN build buy-back, repair and authenticated channels, automated sorting and NFC tagging scale operations, processing still costs two to four dollars per garment while only twenty percent of donated clothes sell locally and massive hubs like Ghana’s Kantamanto and Pakistan’s recycled yarn industry handle huge volumes, a shift that lifts loyalty and repeat purchases yet also drives up IP and logistics costs and makes circularity as much a business imperative as an environmental promise.
References
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