3.) Most (63%) people who bought secondhand last year, bought online
That’s up 17 points from 2022, demonstrating that awareness of online resale is growing fast. Among younger consumers, that number is even higher, with 71% of secondhand shoppers buying online.
Still, fast fashion also remains popular among young consumers, noted Forrester retail analyst Sucharita Kodali.
“There are more people that just want to get stuff for cheap than who want to get stuff in a way that’s beneficial for the planet,” she said. The scales could be tipped with extended producer responsibility laws that would add fees for producing and disposing of cheap garments, she added.
And while ThredUp supports lobbying efforts to improve accountability, transparency and environmental impact through legislative action, there isn’t currently a regulatory framework in place to curb fast fashion’s ever-increasing output of low-cost, petrochemical-based garments.
4.) Branded resale business more than quadrupled since 2021
Brands are continuing to build out their own resale businesses, often with the help of third-party platforms like Trove, Recurate, Archive or ThredUp’s resale-as-a-service platform.
While just 39 brands launched branded resale programs in 2023, fewer than the 88 additional programs in 2022, that’s still 31% year-over-year growth. ThredUp added brands including American Eagle, H&M, Kate Spade and J. Crew last year.
