Is Second-hand Clothing the Future of the Fashion Industry?
The second-hand fashion sector has seen growth in recent years with searches for “pre-owned” rising 38% in January 2022 compared to the year before. According to ThredUp, “the global secondhand apparel market will grow 3X faster than the global apparel market overall”. This industry isn't new but has been subject to popularity due to an increase in customer awareness that many fashion brands particularly ones with a fast fashion business model have a negative impact on the environment.
In a world where sustainability is discussed more than ever, brands such as Zara, Shein and H&M are receiving backlash for their detrimental negative environmental impact. Research shows fast fashion brands produce over 92 million tonnes of waste each year and consume 79 trillion litres of water. Such brands have also been accused of greenwashing which are false claims companies make in order to be perceived as environmentally friendly. This factor as well as the cost of living rising is leading people to look for alternative ways to buy clothes and as a result, opt for second-hand items.
Opportunities for Brands
Within the second-hand clothing sector, there are several online fashion marketplaces commonly used by UK consumers, with the most popular being Vinted and Depop. Depop has over 30 million users and allows anyone to upload clothes they wish to sell as well as browse other customers’ ‘shops’. Fellow Digital Society student Hind Chair Joudar Malet describes Depop as a mixture of eBay and Instagram, I believe this is a great explanation because the app can also be used as a way to view pictures and gather your own fashion inspiration.
Brands have started to notice the opportunities in this sector with a couple of them starting their own resale marketplace websites. In the UK there is now Asos Marketplace, Zara Pre-owned and soon Shein Exchange; elsewhere there is H&M Re-wear, Patagonia Worn Wear and Hugo Boss Pre-loved (coming to the UK in 2025). The creation of these sub-brands is a good idea and allows customers to access second-hand clothing from large, well-known brands while at the same time enabling the business to access a new market whilst promoting a circular fashion economy.
Opportunities using Technology
This sector is still relatively untouched but it is growing, so there is an opportunity for the brands that have already started positioning themselves in the second-hand clothing market to invest further and potentially become one of the market leaders. Organisations such as ASOS and Zara have built hugely successful brands, yet their resale marketplace platforms still have less brand awareness in comparison to others such as eBay, Etsy and Vinted. This may partly be because their parent companies are more well-known so overshadow the resale brand, although I believe it also comes down to minimal technological investment.
Currently Asos Marketplace and Zara Pre-owned are only available to use as a website; Zara’s resale platform is still young so may have plans to release an app in the future, but Asos Marketplace launched in 2010 and still only operates through its website. From experience, I have struggled to find the marketplace section in Asos’ application because it’s at the bottom of their categories section and once you click it, you are taken out of the app and onto your web browser. As for the resale brands outside of the UK, they also solely operate through their website.
Research has shown customers are more comfortable using mobile apps for online shopping than online websites in terms of search convenience, access convenience and service recovery convenience. I agree with this as I personally prefer to online shop using an app because the user interface is often better and most let you save items you like into one, easily accessible location. This feature is often referred to as a ‘wishlist’ which allows you to create a personalised collection of products you wish to buy, this also benefits companies as it increases the chance of a customer returning.
Recommendation
These companies with marketplace brands should create an app specifically for their resale products. This could sustain their competitive advantage and establish themselves firmly in the resale market. The app would allow customers to easily upload product pictures taken on their phone, as well as offer a more personalised experience using an algorithm which analyses the products you engage with and recommend clothing based on this. Similar to TikTok’s core competency the ‘For You Page’ which Digital Society student David Sustana says is “all the buzz these days … and is guaranteed to give the user exactly what they want”.
This proposal is very feasible for brands such as ASOS and Zara because they have already successfully built large clothing brands and a popular app, in fact, 86% of Asos’ total visits came from mobile in 2020. As for the algorithm these companies have the resources and capabilities for R&D and even have similar features already which suggest products you might like. These organisations have the infrastructure to build a new application and could see an increase in customers, by diversifying their audience they could target consumers who wouldn’t normally associate themselves with Zara but would download Zara Pre-owned.
Overcoming Misbeliefs
There is a stigma around the second-hand fashion industry with some people sharing the belief that used clothing products are of poor quality and unhygienic. I disagree with this and find most of the time you can’t even tell that a resale fashion product has been used. For the non-second-hand consumers who may have these views, digital media can be used to help promote a positive image of second-hand fashion, this could be done by resale brands on their social media accounts, for example, Instagram Reels or TikTok to show the actual quality of the garments.
