The Second Hand Fashion Trading Platform In The US Is Rising.

In China, the second-hand electricity supplier is not an unfamiliar concept, but it has only developed in the past five years.

At present, there are still no mature profit models such as Plum, two and so on.

The vertical platform in the field is still in the early stage of the A wheel.

In contrast, the second largest fashion trading platform in the United States, Thredup, The RealReal and Poshmark three giants have won 130 million, 173 million and 153 million US dollars respectively.

Among them, Thredup, founded in 2009, has the longest history. At present, one of every ten women in the United States is a Thredup user.

Second hand fashion in China

While the platform is using low price attractions to cultivate users' online habits, overseas companies with rich experience and large user groups have different trends: a large number of offline stores like luxury stores; luxury brands and fashion.

Also began to promote the development of second-hand pactions; users' concerns are more on the environmental protection and sustainability of second-hand pactions.

In an article entitled "second-hand trading has become mainstream" in 2018 (2018 Was the Year Resale Went Mainstream), the head of the second-hand fashion trading platform such as The RealReal, Thredup, Rebag, and Fashionista has pointed out these phenomena and published their views on second-hand pactions and circular economy.

"The stones of other hills can be used to attack jade", "deep sound" has compiled this article, so that people in the industry will have a better understanding of the second-hand fashion market in the United States, and take this as a reference point for the development of domestic platforms.

According to the world clothing and shoe net, in 2018, one of the most fashionable topics we would like to talk about is sustainability: from burning excess inventory from Burberry to luxury brands against fur, and then to brands like Reforamtion and Everlane are more honest and more willing to voice on the sustainable cycle. Many headlines and proponent converge together to enable consumers to better understand the harm of fashion consumption to the earth and the feasible ways to contain it.

Similarly, for The RealReal, Thredup, Rebag, Depop, Vestiaire, these second-hand trading sites and Grailed, StockX and other men's street fashion trading platform, 2018 is also a significant year.

Because the business models are slightly different, these second-hand websites maintain their unique positioning in the fierce competition.

2018 is the first year of second hand trading. From this year, the second-hand market is expected to catch up with the fast fashion in ten years.

Slowly, the topic of sustainable recycling will become normal and even everywhere, thereby eliminating the misunderstanding of consignment a few years ago.

At the same time, when more and more brands use hype and limited marketing, more consumers find the possibility of second-hand pactions.

Second hand trading began to become mainstream in this year.

Over the past few years, the second-hand trading industry has received millions of dollars of investment and numerous users.

In the past year, those Internet Co have also made good use of these resources.

Take RealReal (US luxury luxury consignment website) as an example.

In the summer of 2018, following the experience store in New York, the company opened a more than 1000 square meter shop in Melrose Street (a shopping and entertainment landmark in Losangeles).

"We do find that experiential shops attract many people who never sell goods," said Lathi Levesque, marketing director of RealReal. "For those who are not accustomed to buying high priced goods online, it's a good way to promote personal experience and enjoy the one to one service of professionals."

With its fashionable style and cafe, the store in Melrose is more like a luxury department store than a consignment shop.

Compared with the second-hand stores that have existed for decades, this makes the Internet selling platform highlight their differences in physical stores.

Charles Gaula, founder and CEO of Rebag, said: "part of what we do is to eliminate prejudice against the second-hand trade."

As a second hand luxury luggage consignment platform, Rebag started with online websites, and opened five stores in the past year, three in New York and two in Losangeles, one of which is located in the main shopping area of Melrose, which is adjacent to The Row, Oscar de la Renta and Isabel Marant, and there was a store of Anya Hindmarch.

Gao La said that because the store was designed to be a high-end boutique, many customers did not realize that the goods were secondhand.

Sam Blumenthal, marketing manager of Thredup, also said: "an important goal of setting up a physical store is to identify and reclaim secondhand goods.

In addition, there is Depop (social shopping website).

It is not a consignment mode, but allows users to directly trade on APP.

Depop also launched a physical store, but the starting point is quite different: its stores in New York and Losangeles are venues for holding various kinds of activities.

In the three days of the week, Depop's offline store in Losangeles will be pformed into an innovative photo studio where prospective users can take photos for their personal stores in this store.

(Note: on Depop, users will upload photos of the items they sell and share them on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, just as they display their personal stores, and then trade directly with other users.

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Apart from having a physical store, another major reason for many companies to set up offline stores is brand cooperation.

Although many brands, especially luxury brands, tend to resist secondhand pactions (because they do not have any profit when goods are circulated on RealReal), they began to accept this idea in 2018.

To a certain extent, this is due to Stella Macartney, a fashion designer who has always advocated sustainability.

By the end of 2017, she had repeatedly called for clothes to be treated as garbage and worked with RealReal to become the first propellant to support second-hand pactions in the field of luxury goods.

Mccartney encouraged consumers to sell the idle clothes of her designer brand and return their $100 credit limit.

In 2018, the cooperative relationship between Mccartney and RealReal gradually came into being and received corresponding rewards: on the RealReal platform, the number of users selling Stella McCartney clothing increased by 65% in 2018, and the number of Stella McCartney products increased by 74%.

Recently, the two brands announced that they will continue to cooperate in 2019.

"From reducing the negative impact of the environment to having a positive effect, this process requires all of us to change our way of thinking and to eliminate fashion through a series of methods," Mccartney said in a statement. "Cooperation with RealReal has provided our customers with a simple and effective solution to participate in the circular economy."

As for those brands that are more likely to cooperate, Thredup set up a similar partnership with two women's clothing brands Reformation (environmental protection) and Cuyana (encouraging consumers to buy less refined products) in 2018.

This is part of a new plan called Upcycle, and through this project, Thredup will help retail brands to recycle.

In this project, a customer who buys a cooperative brand can get a special Thredup recycling bag. If the customer sends back some old clothes of a brand, he can get the credit limit of the brand.

Blumenthal said that cooperation with Reformation avoided tens of thousands of clothes called garbage.

Moreover, Thredup plans to increase 10 brand partners in 2019, including hypermarkets and direct selling brands.

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"A retailer finds us and wants to know what the number of their second-hand goods is compared to other brands, and the two prices and the needs of the users."

Blumenthal said, "retailers are realizing that second-hand will become the future of their business, and consumers are also looking for a better and more sustainable option."

RealReal also believes that such cooperation can stimulate consumers' trust in brands, which proves that the brand's goods have good second-hand trading value.

Levesque pointed out that "because these brands see how the secondary market is supporting the main market, they also increasingly accept the concept of second-hand trading, so we have more communication."

Reformation also launched its own Depop store on the earth day, selling second-hand goods.

When Depop opened its shop in New York, it invited Sandy Liang, a Chinese designer, to remake a pile of retro items, which were sold out in an hour.

Depop has also cooperated with the influential ancient shop Procell.

Moreover, offline stores in New York and Losangeles often organize instant activities for some emerging brands.

Thredup also expanded its commodity category in 2018.

Instead of just second-hand goods, Thredup has launched a data driven Remade, an internal new product line, which produces products that circulate only on the Thredup platform.

"This is a test to see if consumers will prefer products that can be used for second-hand pactions, rather than those that can only be thrown away."

Blumentha said, "our ultimate goal is zero waste, so that all materials can be reused and all garments have a promise to buy back."

In 2018, RealReal also released a sustainability calculator, a tool for measuring the positive impact of commodities on the planet.

Consumers will soon be able to use it to calculate the impact of their consignment on the environment.

Although the business of buying and selling secondhand clothing can always be sustained, the benefits of second-hand pactions to the environment have become the focus of discussion in the past year, even exceeding the point of economic interest which initially attracted customers.

"Consignment is the driving force of circular economy, and consumers will realize that the purchase of elaborate new products can not only provide a high value of second-hand pactions, but also extend the life cycle of goods and avoid waste."

Levesque said, "second-hand trading has never been done because of the pursuit of environmental protection is cool or consumers prefer environmentally-friendly brands.

We just hope to improve consumers' awareness of fast fashion.

Now, we do see that those who are self-conscious are shopping in a mature way.

"I think more conscious consumers are indeed increasing.

People no longer buy because they have to buy second-hand goods, but are in their own subjective will. "

Blumenthal said.

"I think we have all realized that it is necessary to say some important ideas about the company, one of which is to reduce the waste of textiles and solve the problem of overproduction," he said.

In July 2018, Thredup released an open letter to Burberry, condemning the exposure of luxury brands to burn up stock products in the past few days.

This letter says, "we invite you to send Burberry's stock to Thredup and use second-hand trade to enter the circular economy. We will donate 100% of the proceeds to the environmental charity you choose."

At that time, the letter aroused great concern of Thredup from all walks of life.

"In social media, everyone's response is very enthusiastic," Blumenthal said. "We see more and more people using our website. They have new customers who may have only visited once or interested. The content of this letter has made them realize that the two hand deal can be of great benefit to the earth."

As more and more people begin to accept second-hand pactions, the new users of these websites will continue to grow at a high speed.

After all, the market size of second-hand trading is now US $20 billion, which is expected to more than double in the next four years.

According to one of the ten women in the United States, one of the 100 thousand women in the United States has to deal with 100 thousand items per day and one thousand items per hour.

In the past year alone, the number of Depop users has increased from 8 million to 12 million.

In addition to serving more and more conscious consumers, these second-hand websites are also consistent with the changing ideas of shopper and wardrobe.

Just as shoe lovers sometimes consider when buying shoes, fashion enthusiasts will also consider one more thing when they buy luxury goods: resale price.

"Those sellers will continue to buy new products, because they know that these products can eventually be sold, and can earn a large part of the original price, which is more like an investment thinking mode."

Levesque said, "in addition to this, we also see that more and more retail consumers want to know the value of second-hand pactions of designers and commodities before buying them.

So we often receive calls from users, asking them how to choose products.

Meanwhile, our obsession with nostalgia will not be affected. In 2018, many consumers turned to second-hand markets to buy all kinds of wallets, riding shorts and logo handbags.

People's needs for having something in their life are becoming weaker and weaker. They also feel that it is strange to wear clothes worn by others.

Levesque said, "I am sure that the rise of the shared economy is also helpful. It eliminates the negative effects of second-hand pactions and makes people no longer have the need to have something forever."

She once worked in the Rent the Runway of the US renting platform, and now she works in Rebag.

Rebag recently launched a business called Rebag Infinity. After buying a bag of goods, Rebag will ensure that they can be recovered at least 70% within six months, and you can use the money for next purchase.

This is a very useful service for consumers who pursue fashion or update wardrobes under the driving force of social media.

"I think the negative evaluation of second-hand shopping has almost disappeared," Blumenthal said. "We think 2018 is the year when the second-hand market becomes the mainstream, and 2019 will see the rise of a more conscious consumer group."

Although the mentality of consumers has changed, the second-hand trading platform still has a long way to go.

"Look at the existing supply of luxury goods and the number of second-hand sales, which is less than 10% of the former," he said.

Indeed, 90% of the goods are still not being utilized.

Before second hand shopping is called mainstream behavior, we think it will take years, even decades.

"Our expectation is that if you jump 10 or 15 years, second hand trading will become a basic standard of conduct," he said.

To this end, Rebag and most of the companies mentioned in the article are working with influential people to promote the benefits of second-hand pactions and share their results.

As for 2019, the companies we interviewed will focus on strengthening their inventory capacity and brand cooperation.

Thredup is currently trying to pop up ads in department stores. "We are going to see how to introduce second-hand products to them when they put on new products," Blumenthal said.

RealReal plans to open more offline outlets and e-commerce platforms.

"I think the future of second hand trading will continue its trajectory of rapid growth," Levesque said. "In many ways, we are just beginning."

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